by Mary Shelley
“No, no,” said Jane, “Oh, does my miserable fate cry aloud, no! Edward, his father, was bright as he. Libertine he was called — I know not if truly; but sincere was the affection he bore to me. He never changed nor faltered in the faith he promised, when he led me from the dull abode of connubial strife, to the bright home of love. Riches and the world’s pleasures were the least of his gifts, for he gave me himself and happiness. Behold me now: twelve long years have passed, and I waste and decay; the wedded wife of shame; famine, sorrow, and remorse, my sole companions.”
This language was too plain. The blood rushed into Monina’s face. “Oh, love him not,” continued the hapless penitent; “fly his love, because he is beautiful, good, noble, worthy — fly from him, and thus preserve him yours for ever.”
Monina quickly recovered herself; she interrupted her imprudent monitress, and calmly assured her that her admonition, though unnecessary, should not prove vain; and then both she and York exerted themselves to engage Jane’s attention on topics relative to his cause, his hopes, his partizans, thus exciting her curiosity and interest.
Richard passed the whole of the following day in this abode of penury and desolation. That day, indeed, was big with dire event. The morning rose upon Stanley’s death. In Jane’s hut the hollow bell was heard that tolled the fatal hour. The ear is sometimes the parent of a livelier sense than any other of the soul’s apprehensive portals. In Italy, for three days in Passion Week, the sound of every bell and of every clock is suspended. On the noon of the day when the mystery of the Resurrection is solemnized, they all burst forth in one glad peal. Every Catholic kneels in prayer, and even the unimaginative Protestant feels the influence of a religion, which speaks so audibly. And, in this more sombre land, the sad bell that tolls for death, strikes more melancholy to the heart, than the plumed hearse, or any other pageantry of woe. In silence and fear the fugitives heard the funereal knell sweep across the desolate fields, telling them that at that moment Stanley died.
Women nurse grief — dwell with it. Like poor Constance, they dress their past joys in mourning raiment, and so abide with them. But the masculine spirit struggles with suffering. How gladly, that very evening, did the Duke hail Frion’s arrival, who, in the garb of a saintly pardoner, came to lead him from Jane’s dim abode. In spite of his remonstrances, Monina refused to accompany him: she should endanger him, she said; besides that, his occupation would be to rouse a martial spirit among the Yorkists — hers to seek the Adalid and her dear father’s protection.
Frion procured a safe asylum for the Prince; and here, no longer pressed by the sense of immediate danger, his head was rife with projects, his spirit burning to show himself first to the Yorkists, in a manner worthy of his pretensions. The choice was hazardous and difficult: but it so happened, that it was notified that in a few weeks Lord Surrey’s eldest sister was to marry the Lord de Walden, and the ceremony was to be graced with much feasting and a solemn tournament.
There was magic in all the associations with this family for Richard. In his early infancy, Thomas Mowbray, the last of the Dukes of Norfolk of that name, died. It almost was beyond his recollection, that he had been married to the little Lady Anne, the Duke’s only child and heiress. She died soon after; and the representative of the female branch of the Mowbrays, John Howard, was created Duke of Norfolk by Richard the Third. He fell at Bosworth; and his son, the Earl of Surrey, though attaching himself to Henry the Seventh, and pardoned and taken into favour, was not permitted to assume his father’s attainted title.
At this marriage feast the mother of his Anne, the dowager Duchess of Norfolk, daughter of Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, so famous in the French wars, would be present; and others of the Howard and Berkeley families, all Yorkist once. The Prince could not resist the temptation of appearing on the lists that day, where, if success crowned him, as surely it would, he could with prouder hopes call on Surrey to maintain his claims. Frion got gallant armour for him, and contrived to have him, under another name, inserted in the list of combatants.
York’s bosom swelled with pride and exultation, when he saw himself among his countrymen — his subjects — with lance in rest and bright shield upon his arm, about to tilt with England’s noblest cavaliers. It seemed to him, as if he had never asked more of fortune — and the herald’s voice, the clarion’s sound, the neigh of steeds, the gallant bearing of the knights, and charmed circle of joyous beauty around, were like a voice from beyond life, speaking of a Paradise he had left, — his own native home. But one emotion of disquiet crossed him: as about to pass the barrier, Frion put his hand on his rein, and whispered, “Beware of Clifford!” The Duke threw his eyes round the vizored throng. With what gladness would he have singled him out, and met him in fierce, mortal combat! A second thought told him that the dishonoured man could not find place in this gallant company.
We will not dwell on the tilt, the thrust, and the parry, the overthrowing of horses, and defeat of knights. Richard gloried in the recollection of his Spanish combats, and the love he bore for martial exercises, which made him, so boyish in figure, emulate the strong acts of men. Fortune had varied; but, when at noon the pastime of that day ended, the Prince remained victor in the field. From the hand of the Queen of the Feast he was receiving his reward, when Surrey, who had led him to her throne, was suddenly called away. The assembly broke up; and Richard was half occupied by polite attention to the Countess, and half by recollecting his peculiar situation, when the Marshall of the Lists whispered him to follow — he led him to a gallery, where Surrey alone was pacing backwards and forwards in great agitation. He stopped when the Prince entered — motioned the Marshall to leave them, and then in a voice of suppressed passion, said, “I will not ask thee why with a false appellation thou hast insulted the feast of nobles? — but well may I ask, what fiend possessed thee to do a deed that affixes the taint of disloyalty to King Henry’s liege subject?”
“My good sword, my Lord,” said Richard, colouring, “were eloquent to answer your questioning, but that you are much deceived; I am not indeed that which I called myself; but honour, not disgrace, attaches itself to my presence. I came to tell you this, to rouse the old fidelity of the Howards; to bid Lord Surrey arm for the last of the true Plantagenets.”
“Saint Thomas speed me! Clifford then spoke true — thou art Perkin Warbeck?”
“I would fain,” said the Duke haughtily, “ask a revered lady, who claims kindred with thee, what name she would give to her sainted daughter’s affianced husband?”
The language of truth is too clear, too complete, for the blots and flaws of incredulity; the very anger Lord Surrey had manifested, now turned to his confusion; the insult he had offered demanded reparation; he could not refuse his visitant’s earnest demand to be led to the widow of Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk.
Elizabeth, daughter of the gàllant Talbot, was proud of her ancestry, and disappointed in the diminution of her house. When her Anne was affianced to the little Duke of York, and the nobility of Norfolk was merged in the royal style of England, she had gloried; since then, attainder and defeat had eclipsed the ducal honours of her race; nor could she forgive the allegiance of its heirs to Lancaster. Often had she pondered on the reports concerning Margaret of Burgundy’s White Rose; it was with agitation therefore that she heard that he was to be brought for her to decide on his truth.
The Duke had doffed his helm: his golden hair clustered on the almost infantine candour of his brow, and shaded to softer meaning the frank aspect of his clear blue eyes. The aged Duchess fixed her dimmed but steady gaze upon him, and at once became aware that this was no ignoble pretender who stood before her. His dignity inspired Surrey with respect: he hesitated as he introduced the subject of his identity with Edward the Fourth’s youngest son. The Duke, with a half smile, began to speak of his boyish recollections, and his little pretty play-fellow, and of one Mistress Margery, her gouvernante; he spoke of a quarrel with his infant bride on the very wedding-day, and how noth
ing would bribe him to the ceremony, save the gift of a pretty foal, White Surrey, which afterwards bore his uncle Gloucester in the battle of Bosworth. As he spoke he saw a smile mantle over the aged lady’s countenance; and then he alluded to his poor wife’s death, and reminded the Duchess, that when clad in black, an infant widower, he had visited her in condolence; and how the sad lady had taken a jewel-encircled portrait of her lost child, garnished with the blended arms of Plantagenet and Mowbray, from his neck, promising to restore it on an after day, which day had never come. Tears now rushed into the Duchess’s eyes; she drew the miniature from her bosom, and neither she nor Lord Surrey could longer doubt, that the affianced husband of the noble Anne stood before them.
Much confusion painted the Earl’s countenance. The Duke of York’s first involuntary act had been to stretch out his hand; but the noble hesitated ere he could bestow on it the kiss of allegiance. Richard marked his reluctance, and spoke with gallant frankness: “I am an outcast,” he said, “the victim of lukewarm faith and ill-nurtured treason: I am weak, my adversary strong. My lord, I will ask nothing of you: I will not fancy that you would revive the ancient bond of union between York and Norfolk; and yet, were it not a worthy act to pull down a base-minded usurper, and seat upon his father’s throne an injured Prince?”
The Duchess answered for him. “Oh, surely, my noble cousin will be no recreant in this cause, the cause of our own so exalted lineage.”
But Lord Surrey had different thoughts: it cost him much to express them; for he had loved the House of York, and honoured and pitied its apparent offspring. At length he overcame his feelings, and said, “And, if I do not this, if I do not assist to replant a standard whose staff was broken on the graves of our slaughtered fathers, will your Highness yet bear with me, while I say a few words in my defence?”
“It needs not, gallant Surrey,” interrupted York.
“Under favour, it does need,” replied the Earl; “and withal touches mine honour nearly, that it stand clear in this question. My lord, the Roses contended in a long and sanguinary war, and many thousand of our countrymen fell in the sad conflict. The executioner’s axe accomplished what the murderous sword spared, and poor England became a wide, wide grave. The green-wood glade, the cultivated fields, noble castles, and smiling villages were changed to churchyard and tomb: want, famine and hate ravaged the fated land. My lord, I love not Tudor, but I love my country: and now that I see plenty and peace reign over this fair isle, even though Lancaster be their unworthy vicegerent, shall I cast forth these friends of man, to bring back the deadly horrors of unholy civil war? By the God that made me, I cannot! I have a dear wife and lovely children, sisters, friends, and all the sacred ties of humanity, that cling round my heart, and feed it with delight; these I might sacrifice at the call of honour, but the misery I must then endure I will not inflict on others; I will not people my country with widows and orphans; nor spread the plague of death from the eastern to the western sea.”
Surrey spoke eloquently well; for his heart was upon his lips. Prince Richard heard with burning emotion. “By my fay!” he cried, “thou wouldst teach me to turn spinster, my lord: but oh, cousin Howard! did you know what it is to be an exiled man, dependant on the bounty of others; though your patrimony were but a shepherd’s hut on a wild nameless common, you would think it well done to waste life to dispossess the usurper of your right.”
CHAPTER IX.
Farewell, kind lord, fight valiantly to-day.
And yet I do thee wrong to mind thee of it.
For thou art framed of the firm truth of valour.
— SHAKSPEARE.
The Duke of York was not of a temperament to sink supinely before the first obstacles. Lord Surrey’s deep-felt abjuration of war influenced him to sadness, but the usual habit of his mind returned. He had been educated to believe that his honour called on him to maintain his claims. Honour, always a magic word with the good and brave, was then a part of the religion of every pious heart. He had been nurst in war — the javelin and the sword were as familiar to his hand as the distaff and spindle to the old Tuscan crone. In addition, the present occasion called for activity. The fleet, armed for invasion, prepared by his noble aunt — manned by his exiled zealous friends — would soon appear on the English coast, giving form and force to, while it necessitated, his purposed attempt.
He possessed in his secretary Frion, a counsellor, friend, and servant, admirably calculated to prevent all wavering. This man’s vanity, lionstrong, was alive to ensure his new master’s success, and to overthrow him by whom he had been discarded. He was an adept in intrigue; an oily flatterer; a man of unwearied activity, both of mind and body. It was his care to prevent York from suffering any of the humiliations incident to his position. He obtained supplies of money for him — he suffered none to approach who were not already full of zeal — when he met with any failure, he proved logically that it was a success, and magnified an escape into a victory — he worked day and night to ensure that nothing came near the Prince, except through his medium, which was one sugared and drugged to please. When he saw Richard’s clear spirit clouded by Lord Surrey, he demonstrated that England could not suffer through him; for that in the battle it was a struggle between partizans ready to lay down their lives in their respective causes, so that for their own sakes and pleasure, he ought to call on them to make the sacrifice. As to the ruin and misery of the land — he bade him mark the exactions of Henry; the penury of the peasant, drained to his last stiver — this was real wretchedness; devastating the country, and leaving it barren, as if sown with salt. Fertility and plenty would speedily efface the light wound he must inflict — nay, England would be restored to youth, and laugh through all her shores and plains, when grasping Tudor was exchanged for the munificent Plantagenet.
In one circumstance Frion had been peculiarly fortunate. The part he had played of astrologer during the foregoing summer, had brought him acquainted with a young nobleman zealous in the cause of York, and well able to afford it assistance. Lord Audley was of the west country, but his maternal relations were Kentish, and he possessed a mansion and a small estate not far from Hythe in Kent. Lord Audley was of a class of men common all over the world. He had inherited his title and fortune early in life, and was still a very young man. He loved action, and desired distinction, and was disposed to enter readily into all the turmoil and risk of conspiracy and revolt. His aim was to become a leader: he was vain, but generous; zealous, but deficient in judgment. He was a Yorkist by birth and a soldier by profession — all combined to render him, heart and soul, the friend of the wandering Plantagenet.
Frion led York to the mansion of this noble, and it became the focus of the spirit of sedition and discontent to the country round. The immediate presence of the Duke was concealed; but the activity of his friends was not the less great to collect a band of partizans, to which, when prepared and disciplined, they might present their royal leader. Their chief purpose was to collect such a body of men as might give one impetus to the county, when the invading fleet should arrive on these coasts from Burgundy. Time was wanting for the complete organization of their plan; for each day they expected the vessels, and their operations in consequence were a little abrupt. Still they were in hopes that they should be enabled to assemble an armed force sufficient to facilitate the landing and to ensure the success of the expected troops. Day and night these men were occupied in gathering together followers. It was not long, however, before the wily secretary discovered that some one was at work to counteract their schemes. Those he had left transported with zeal for the cause yesterday, to-day he found lukewarm or icy cold. Their enemy, whoever it might be, observed great mystery in his proceedings; yet he appeared to have intuitive knowledge of theirs. Frion exerted himself to discover the secret cause of all the mischief — he was liberal of promises and bribes. One day he had appointed a rendezvous for a party of recruits, about a hundred men, who had been exercised for the last fortnight, and promised we
ll — none arrived at the appointed spot. Frion rode sorrowfully through the dusk of the evening towards Lord Audley’s dwelling. He was overtaken by a horseman, with a slouched hat, and otherwise muffled up: he rode at his side for a little way, quite mute to all Frion’s courteous salutations; and then he suddenly put spurs to his horse, and was out of sight in a moment. Night grew darker; and at the mirk-embowered entrance of a shady lane, Frion was startled by the tramp of a horse — it was the same man:—”Maitre Frion!” he cried.