Complete Works of Mary Shelley

by Mary Shelley

  York’s blood was up; his cheek, his brow were flushed; the word “assassin” burst from his lips, as he wheeled round and assailed his midnight foe. Thus a natural war began; English and Scotchmen, bent on mutual destruction, spurred on by every feeling of revenge, abhorrence, and national rivalship, dealt cruel blows one on the other. Richard’s troops began to arrive in greater numbers; they far out-told their adversaries. Lord Bothwell with his marauders were obliged to retreat, and York was left in possession of his strange conquest. The peasantry gathered round him; they did not recognise the White Rose, they but blest him as their deliverer: yet the sufferers were many, and the flames still raged. One woman with a wild shriek for her children, threw herself into the very heart of her burning cot; while, statue-like, amidst a little helpless brood, his wife at his feet a corse, his dwelling in ashes, a stout yeoman stood; tears unheeded flowing down his weather-beaten cheeks. During the whole day Richard had striven against his own emotions, trying to dispel by pride, and indignation, and enforced fortitude, the softness that invaded his heart and rose, to his eyes, blinding them; but the sight of these miserable beings, victims of his right, grew into a tragedy too sad to endure. One young mother laid her infant offspring at his feet, crying, “Bless thee; thou hast saved her!” and then sunk in insensibility before him; her stained dress and pallid cheeks speaking too plainly of wounds and death. Richard burst into tears, “Oh, my stony and hard-frozen heart!” he cried, “which breakest not to see the loss and slaughter of so many of thy natural-born subjects and vassals!”

  He spoke — he looked: Plantagenet was there, grief and horror seated in his dark, expressive eyes; Neville, who had lost his lofty pride; it was shame and self-abhorrence that painted their cheeks with blushes or unusual pallor. “We must hasten, my Lord,” said Barry, “after those evil-doers: they but quit one carcase, to pounce upon another.”

  “Do we fight the King of England’s battles?” cried the Burgundian Lalayne, in unfeigned astonishment: “this will be strange intelligence for James of Scotland.”

  “So strange, Sir Roderick,” said Richard, “that we will be the bearers of it ourselves. Give orders for the retreat, gentlemen. His Majesty is engaged in the siege of Norham Castle. We will present us before him, and demand mercy for our unhappy subjects.”

  CHAPTER XVII.

  Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day.

  And make me travel forth without my cloak.

  To let base clouds o’ertake me on the way.

  Hiding thy bravery in their rotten smoke?

  — SHAKSPEARE.

  It was York’s characteristic to be sanguine beyond all men. Pain impressed him more deeply and sorely, than could be imagined by the cold of spirit; but show him the remedy, teach him the path to redress, and he threw off the clogging weight of care, and rose free and bright as in earliest youth. His impatience to behold his royal friend, to speak the little word, which he felt assured would recall the Scots from their ravages, and take from him the guilt of his subjects’ blood, grew like a torrent in the spring: — he outspeeded his main troop; he left all but his chiefest friends behind; one by one even these grew fewer; he mounted a fresh horse, it was the third that day—”May-Flower is worse than blown,” said Neville; “will not your Highness repose till to-morrow?”

  “Repose!” — this echo was his only answer, and already he was far and alone upon his way.

  The Scottish lines were passed, and the embattled walls of Norham, grey and impenetrable as rock, were before him; the royal pavilion occupied the centre of the camp. The wearied steed that bore York dropt on one knee as he reined him up before it, flushed, with every mark of travel and haste — he threw himself from his saddle, and entered the tent: it was thronged; he saw not one face, save that of the Monarch himself, who was conversing with a churchman, whose dark, foreign countenance Richard had seen before; now it was like a vision before him. James, in an accent of surprise, cried, “My Lord, this is an unexpected visit.”

  “Excuse ceremony, my dear cousin,” said York; “I come not to speak to the Majesty of Scotland: man to man — a friend to his dearest friend — I have a suit to urge.”

  James, who was aware that his actual occupation of listening and even acceding to the suggestions of his foreign visitant, in favour of peace with Henry, was treason to York’s cause, thought that news of Don Pedro D’Ayala’s arrival was the secret of these words: he blushed as he replied, “As friend to friend, we will hear anon — to-morrow.”

  “There is no anon to my dear plea,” said York; “even now the hellish work is about which you must check. Oh, what am I, King of Scotland, that I am to be made the curse and scourge of my own people? The name of Richard is the bye-word of hate and terror, there, where I seek for blessings and filial love. You know not the mischief your fierce Borderers achieve — it is not yet too late; recall your men; bid them spare my people; let not the blood of my subjects plead against my right; rather would I pine in exile for ever, than occasion the slaughter and misery of my countrymen, my children.”

  Richard spoke impetuously; his eyes filled with tears, his accents were fraught with passionate entreaty, and yet with a firm persuasion that he spoke not in vain: but his address had the very worst effect. James believed that, hearing that he was in treaty with his foe, he had come to re-urge his suit, to enforce the many promises given, to demand a continuation of the war. James, a Scotchman, bred in civil strife among fierce Highlanders and ruthless Borderers, saw something contemptible in this pity and supplication for cottagers and villains: the shame he had felt, or feared to feel, at the idea of being accused of treachery by his guest, was lightened; his lips were curled even to scorn, as in a cold tone he replied, “Sir, methinketh you take much pains, and very much strive to preserve the realm of another prince, which, I do believe, never will be yours.”

  A momentary surprise set open wide York’s eyes; he glanced round him; the Earl of Huntley’s brow was clouded; a smile curled Lord Buchan’s lips; the emotion that had convulsed the Prince’s features, gave place to the calmest dignity. “If not mine,” he said, “let me yield the sway to the lady Peace: the name and presence of a Plantagenet shall no longer sanction the devastation of his country. I would rather be a cotter on your wild Highlands, than buy the sovereignty of my fair England by the blood of her inhabitants.”

  The warm, though capricious heart of James was quickly recalled by the look and voice of his once dearest friend, to a sense of the ungraciousness of his proceeding: he frankly stretched out his hand; “I was wrong, cousin, forgive me, we will confer anon. Even now, orders have been issued to recal the troops; a few words will explain every thing.”

  York bent his head in acquiescence. The King dismissed his nobles, and committed to the care of one among them the reverend D’Ayala. With a strong sentiment of selfdefence, which was self-accusation — a half return of his ancient affection, which acted like remorse — James set himself to explain his proceedings. Fearful, unaided by any of the natives, of proceeding with an inadequate force further into the heart of the country, he had set down before the Castle of Norham, which was defended undauntedly by the Bishop of Durham. He had wasted much time here; and now the Cornish insurgents being quelled, the Earl of Surrey was marching northwards, at the head of forty thousand men. Surrey, Howard, might he not be a masked friend? “who,” continued James, “has surely some personal enmity to your Highness; for the reverend Father D’Ayala, an embassador from Spain, visited him on his journey northward, and it seems the noble indulged in despiteful language; saying, that he who could bring the fell Scot (I thank him) into England, wore manifest signs of — I will not say — I remember not his words; they are of no import. The sum is, my dear Lord, I cannot meet the English army in the open field; walled town — even those paltry towers — I cannot win: with what shame and haste I may, I must retreat over the border.”

  Many more words James in the heat of repentant affection said to soothe his English fr
iend. York’s blood boiled in his veins; his mind was a chaos of scorn, mortification, and worse anger against himself. The insult inflicted by James before his assembled lords, the bitter speech of Surrey; he almost feared that he deserved the one, while he disdained to resent the other; and both held him silent. As speedily as he might, he took leave of the King: he saw signs in the encampment of the return of the foragers; they were laden with booty: his heart was sick; to ease his pent up burning spirit, when night brought solitude, though not repose, he wrote thus to the Lady Katherine: —

  “Wilt thou, dear lady of my heart, descend from thy lofty state, and accept an errant knight, instead of a sceptered king, for thy mate? Alas! sweet Kate, if thou wilt not, I may never see thee more: for not thus, oh not thus, my God, will Richard win a kingdom! Poor England bleeds: our over-zealous cousin has pierced her with dismal wounds; and thou wouldst in thy gentleness shed a thousand tears, hadst thou beheld the misery that even now, grim and ghastly, floats before my sight. What am I, that I should be the parent of evil merely? Oh, my mother, my too kind friends, why did ye not conceal me from myself? Teaching me lessons of humbleness, rearing me as a peasant, consigning me to a cloister, my injuries would have died with me; and the good, the brave, the innocent, who have perished for me, or through me, had been spared!

  “I fondly thought that mine was no vulgar ambition. I desired the good of others; the raising up and prosperity of my country. I saw my father’s realm sold to an huckster — his subjects the victims of low-souled avarice. What more apparent duty, than to redeem his crown from Jew-hearted Tudor, and to set the bright jewels, pure and sparkling as when they graced his brow, on the head of his only son? Even now I think the day will come when I shall repair the losses of this sad hour — is it the restless ambitious spirit of youth that whispers future good, or true forebodings of the final triumph of the right?

  “Now, O sweetest Kate, I forget disgrace, I forget remorse; I bury every sorrow in thought of thee. Thy idea is as a windless haven to some way-worn vessel — its nest in a vast oak tree to a tempest-baffled bird — hope of Paradise to the Martyr who expires in pain. Wilt thou receive me with thine own dear smile? My divine love, I am not worthy of thee; yet thou art mine — Lackland Richard’s single treasure. The stars play strange gambols with us — I am richer than Tudor, and but that thy husband must leave no questioned name, I would sign a bond with Fate — let him take England, give me Katherine. But a Prince may not palter with the holy seal God affixes to him — nor one espoused to thee be less than King; fear not, therefore, that I waver though I pause — Adieu!”

  CHAPTER XIII.

  Yet, noble friends, his mixture with our blood.

  Even with our own, shall no way interrupt

  A general peace.

  — FORD.

  Pedro D’Ayala was embassador from Ferdinand and Isabella to the King of England. There was something congenial in the craft and gravity of this man with the cautious policy of Henry. When the latter complained of the vexation occasioned him by the counterfeit Plantagenet and the favour he met with in Scotland, D’Ayala offered to use his influence and counsel to terminate these feuds. He found James out of humour with York’s ill success among the English, weary of a siege, where impregnable stone walls were his only enemies, uneasy at the advance of Surrey; pliable, therefore, to all his arguments. A week after d’Ayala’s arrival, the Scots had recrossed the Tweed, the King and his nobles had returned to Edinburgh, and York to Katherine.

  Richard’s northern sun was set, and but for this fair star he had been left darkling. When the English general in his turn crossed the Tweed, and ravaged Scotland, he was looked on by its inhabitants as the cause of their disasters; and, but that some loving friends were still true to him, he had been deserted in the land which so lately was a temple of refuge to him. The Earl of Huntley exerted himself to prevent his falling into too deep disgrace in the eyes of Scotland, and was present at the consultations of the exiles to urge some new attempt in some other part of King Henry’s dominions. York was anxious to wash out the memory of his overthrow; so that this check, which seemed so final to his hopes, but operated as an incentive to further exertions. Yet whither should he go? the whole earth was closed upon him. The territory of Burgundy, which had so long been his home, was forbidden. France — Concressault, who was his attached friend, dissuaded him from encountering a mortifying repulse there. Even his own Spain would refuse to receive him, now that d’Ayala had shown himself his enemy; but, no, he was not so far reduced to beg a refuge at the limits of civilization; still he had his sword, his cause, his friends.

  A stranger came, an unexpected visitant from over the sea to decide his vacillating councils. The man was aged and silver-haired, smooth in his manners, soft-voiced, yet with quick grey eyes and compressed lips, indications of talent and resolution and subtlety. Frion saw him first, and deceived by his almost fawning manners into an idea of his insignificance, asked his purpose and name. The stranger with the utmost gentleness refused to disclose his object to any but the Prince; and Frion, with great show of insolence, refused to introduce him to his presence. “Then without thy leave, Sir Knave,” said the old man calmly, “I must force my way.”

  Astley, the poor scrivener of Canterbury, was present. This honest, simple-hearted fellow had shown so much worth, so much zeal, so much humbleness with such fidelity, that he had become a favourite in York’s court, and principally with the Lady Katherine. Frion hated him, for he was his opposite, but pretended to despise him, and to use him as an underling. Astley meekly submitted, and at last gained a kind of favour in the Frenchman’s eyes by the deference and respect of his manner. The stranger, with the readiness of one accustomed to select agents for his will, addressed him, bidding him announce to his Highness a gentleman from Ireland. “And be assured,” he said, “the Duke will ill-requite any tardiness on thy part.”

  An angry burst from Frion interrupted him. This man, rarely off his guard, but roused now by recent mortifications, forgot himself in the violence he displayed, which strangely contrasted with the soft tranquillity of the stranger, and Astley’s modest, but very determined annunciation of his resolve to convey the message to the Prince. Frion, from loud words, was about to proceed to acts, when Lord Barry entered — Barry, who felt Scotland as a limbo of despair, who was for ever urging Richard to visit Ireland, to whom the court life of the English was something like a trim-fenced park to a newcaught lion. Barry saw the stranger — his eyes lighted up, nay, danced with sudden joy: with no gentle hand he thrust Frion away, and then bent his knee, asking a blessing of the Prior of Kilmainham; and in the same breath eagerly demanded what had brought the venerable man from Buttevant across the dangerous seas.

  Keating’s presence gave new life to York’s councils: he brought an invitation from Maurice of Desmond to the Duke. The Earl had since Richard’s departure been occupied in training troops, and so fortifying himself as to enable him to rise against Poynings, whose regular government, and above all whose predilection for the Butlers, caused him to be detested by the Geraldines. Hurried on by hatred and revenge, Desmond resolved to do that which would be most dreaded and abhorred of Henry — to assume the badge of the White Rose, and to set up the pretensions of young Richard. The tidings were that York was a loved and honoured guest in Edinburgh; and the impetuous Desmond feared that he would hardly be induced to abandon King James’s powerful alliance, for the friendship of a wild Irish chieftain. The very invitation must be committed to no mean or witless hands: the difficulties appeared so great, that the measure was on the point of being abandoned, when the Prior of Kilmainham, who in the extreme of age awoke to fresh life at a prospect of regaining his lost consequence, offered himself to undertake the arduous task. His views went far beyond the Earl’s: he hoped to make the King of Scotland an active party in his plots, and to contrive a simultaneous invasion of England from the north and from the west. Already his turbulent and grasping spirit saw Irish and Scotch meetin
g midway in England, and with conjoined forces dethroning Tudor, and dictating terms to his successor. He came too late: he came to find a peace nearly concluded between James and Henry; the White Rose fallen into disregard; and his arrival looked upon as the best hope, the last refuge of his fallen party.

  Richard on the instant accepted his invitation. To a generous heart the feeling of enforced kindness succeeding to spontaneous affection, is intolerable. The very generosity of his own disposition made him recoil from exacting a reluctant boon from his sometime friend. To live a pensioner among the turbulent, arrogant Scots, was not to be thought of. The Earl of Huntley, in fond expectation of his daughter’s greatness, would have despised him had he remained inactive. Even Katherine was solicitous to leave Scotland — she knew her countrymen; and, ready as she was to give up every exalted aim, and to make her husband’s happiness in the retired quiet of private life, she knew that insult and feud would attend his further tarrying among the Scotch.

  York had been for nearly a year the guest of King James; twelve months, in all their long-drawn train of weeks and days, had paced over the wide earth, marking it with change: each one had left its trace in the soul of Richard. There is something frightful, to a spirit partly tired of the world, to find that their life is to be acquainted with no durable prosperity; that happiness is but a modification of a train of events, which, like the fleeting birth of flowers, varies the year with different hues. But York was still too young to be aweary even of disappointment; he met the winter of his fortunes with cheerful fortitude, so that a kind of shame visited James, inspired by the respect his injured friend so well merited.