Chapter I: The Fledglings Leave the Nest (3)

English had now almost entirely taken the place so many centuries held by French as the Court language, and there is very little difference between the English of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. During the reign of Elizabeth a polishing process was slowly progressing, which has never ceased,--though how far all changes in this respect are improvements, may reasonably be open to question.

The idea of a new campaign was now mooted. Marguerite was sure of help from King Louis. The Duke of Burgundy was a more doubtful ally, who vacillated between the rivals as inclination or policy led him, and who was at that time recently married to the youngest sister of Edward IV., and yet entertaining and pensioning a number of the Lancastrian fugitive nobles. Just now the Red Rose was in the ascendant at his Court. His personal liking for Edward was doubtful, and his fear and dislike of Warwick were not doubtful. Two of the most prominent Lancastrian nobles, the Dukes of Exeter and Somerset, both of whom were at his Court, did their utmost to incline him in their own direction, and the result was that he openly offered his assistance to Queen Marguerite, while he privately sent underhand information to Edward of all her plans so far as they were known to him. This, at least, is generally believed. It is, nevertheless, very possible, that the Duchess Margaret may be really responsible for much of her lord's apparent treachery. She was a woman to whose soul conspiracy and scheming were as the breath of life.

The preparations for the campaign were quietly maturing as the summer advanced. It was arranged that Warwick was to precede the Queen, landing about September, and she was to follow with more troops, two months later. But in the mean time it was desirable that some means should be found to make the interests of Warwick identical with those of King Henry. No one knew better than Marguerite that Warwick's fidelity was an article that had its price, and that he might be expected to serve any cause just so long as that cause served him. He was perpetually at see-saw, and a very little additional pressure at either end would hoist or depress him in an instant. The fact of his daughter's marriage to Clarence made him more dubious than ever. True, Clarence himself was at the present moment a Lancastrian: but how long would he remain so? He was even less to be trusted of the two: for while solid advantage was required to weigh with Warwick, caprice was enough at any time to sway the actions of Clarence. Something, therefore, must be done to provide a make-weight for Warwick's family connection with Edward: and while the Queen was considering how it could be done, King Louis made a suggestion to her which showed the best way to do it.

Human hearts will break through all state trappings, and will insist on being heard even through the roar of revolution. The young Prince of Wales, barely seventeen, had fallen passionately in love with the Lady Anne Neville, Warwick's youngest daughter, who was a year younger than himself. But people were grown up at that age in the eventful fifteenth century, which acted like a hot-bed upon the intellect and judgment of its children. That the Prince should marry the Lady Anne Neville was politically most devoutly to be wished: it was ardently desired by both the parties most concerned, by Warwick himself, and by every body but the one person into whose hands the matter had to come for decision. But so well were the feelings of Queen Marguerite known to all around her, that no one but the King of France himself dared to suggest to her the marriage of her son with Warwick's daughter. And when suggested, the proposal was at first received by the Queen with a blaze of indignation. The wrath was all for Warwick,--certainly not for the innocent Anne, whom she loved dearly for her own sake.

"What!" cried the Queen passionately, "does he ask to marry his daughter to the son of the woman he traduced? The wounds that he has inflicted on me will bleed till the day of judgment."[#]

[#] These are the Queen's own words.

King Louis had need of all his craft and cajolery (in both which he was an adept when he chose) to bring the insulted woman to what he considered reason. Perhaps, after all, she yielded rather to the pleading eyes of her darling than to any political argument. But she did yield: and usually, when Marguerite resolved to do any thing, she did it graciously.

The marriage of the Prince of Wales and the Lady Anne was celebrated in the chapel of Amboise, in July or August, 1470. It was attended by the usual ludicrous stratagems on the part of King Louis, who loved grand pageants only less than he detested paying bills for them. Accordingly, when hangings were to be put up, he bought new velvet for those parts where they could be seen, and made old serve wherever they could not. On the present occasion, His Majesty had new robes made for himself and the Queen, but the fronts only were of previously unused material,--for, as the King very truly observed, "when we are sitting in the traverse in chapel, who will see the backs of our clothes?" On this economical principle, the gold trimmings on Queen Carlotta's dress were gold in front, but at the back tinsel was employed. A splendid diamond served as a button to fasten the ostrich feather in His Majesty's hat (which was of a round form turned up with fur, like a tall "pork-pie" hat), but the velvet of which the back portion was composed was creased and worn, and the back fur had been cut from an old cloak of the Queen's.

Queen Marguerite practised her economies in another fashion. Economy was far more necessary to her than to Louis, for she literally lived upon alms: but when she found velvet beyond her purse, she dressed herself in honest camlet, or, had it come to that, in uncompromising serge. In truth, Marguerite was too high-souled to measure a man's worth by that of his clothes. In velvet or in serge, she was still the Queen of England. By a little pinching, in this instance, velvet was obtained for the bridegroom's dress: but there was not enough for the Queen also, and she therefore appeared contentedly in sendal, which cost less, nor was she so mean a soul as to feel one pang in doing so. Warwick, who acquired wealth not as he ought, but as he could, had cash enough, and exhibited the fact by showering jewellery on the bride.

The ceremony over, congratulations were offered in abundance, and all the suite knelt to kiss the hand of the Princess. It was the general opinion that a splendid future lay before the young pair,--how could it be otherwise? They were already dowered with rank, beauty, intellect, and devoted love. What did they lack except wealth and success, which the approaching campaign would undoubtedly confer on them? O blind eyes, which saw not the Angel of Death stand with folded wings behind the bridegroom!--which read not the scroll, written within and without, with desolation, and mourning, and woe, to be crushed into those few and evil years which were the portion of the bride! Woe unto them that laughed now, for they should weep!

The remainder of the summer was busily filled with preparations for the approaching campaign. On an early day in September, the Duke of Clarence, and the Earls of Warwick and Oxford, took leave of the ladies, and with banners flying, at the head of a mercenary host, set out for England.

"God guard you, my Lady!" said Warwick, with his last kiss to his wife. "Farewell, my pretty ones!" to his daughters. "Only a short farewell. We meet at Westminster, two months hence, if His will be."

It was not. Never again were they to see his face.

Queen Marguerite did not remain long at Amboise after Warwick's departure. She removed to Paris, to be nearer the scene of action, accompanied by the Prince and Princess, the Countess of Warwick, the Countess of Wiltshire, and the rest of her ladies. A very comical story is told of the husband of this Countess of Wiltshire at the battle of St. Albans, where, says the sly old chronicler, "the said James set the King's banner again an house end, and fought manly with the heels, for he was afeared of losing of beauty, for he was named the fairest knight of this land."[#]

[#] Gregory's Chronicle.

On the thirteenth of September, Warwick and his army landed at Plymouth, some at Dartmouth and Exmouth. The Duke of Burgundy tried in vain to intercept him, his vessels being scattered by a great storm through which Warwick passed safely. Burgundy, however, sent word to Edward of the port and time of Warwick's choice: but Edward was on a hunting expedition, and, true to his character, he left matters to look out for themselves. A man of no foresight, vigilance, nor strength of character, but capable of sudden rushes of violent bravery, it was Edward's habit to trust to the chapter of circumstances, which hitherto had usually turned in his favour. Moreover, he had in this instance a secret source of hopefulness, of which Warwick was not aware. Private overtures had been going on between him and Clarence, by means of a lady in the household of the Duchess, whom Edward had sent over primed with instructions. Ostensibly she came, of her own accord, to join her mistress, and her _role_ of envoy was never suspected, for "she was no fool, nor loquacious."[#] Beyond this, Edward placed trust in Warwick's brothers, of whose fidelity he felt no doubt. The past was apparently forgotten.

[#] Comines.--Who this ambassadress was is not known.

Warwick had not landed a week when he found the whole country pouring in to aid him. He set his face towards Bristol, where he had left his heavy baggage when he fled to France. Here he was well received; and after three days spent in collecting forces, he marched upon Nottingham at the head of sixty thousand men.

King Edward was now at Lynn, in a fortified house, to which there was no access except by one bridge. He had "begun to look about him" when he heard of Warwick's approach, but he does not appear to have done much beyond it.[#] As he sat at dinner, news was brought to him that his trusted partisan, the Marquis Montague, had mounted his horse, and was crying, along with others, "God save King Henry!" Edward treated the first rumour as mere nonsense: but when it was repeated, and Lord Rivers shook his head with the remark that "things did not look well," Edward despatched Lord Hastings to see if it were true. He returned with the news that it was less than the truth. Nearly the whole army had deserted to Warwick, as represented by his brother Montague. If Edward meant to save himself at all, he must escape now.

[#] Several chroniclers state that Edward fled from Nottingham to Lynn when he heard of Warwick's coming: but no hint of this movement is given by Comines, who tells us that he received his version of the narrative from Edward's own lips.

At anchor off Lynn lay one English and two Dutch ships, ready to sail, having come laden with provisions for Edward's army. He hastily summoned such of his nobles as were faithful to him, and about seven hundred of the army, and fled on board one of the Dutch ships. Lord Hastings stayed behind to give a piece of deceitful advice to his men--namely, that they should join Warwick, but retain their allegiance to King Edward and himself--and then followed his master. So hurried was the flight that Edward had no money, and no clothes but those he wore, and a cloak "lined with beautiful martens," which he had probably caught up in departing. The three ships sailed away from Lynn with all the speed they could make, and the day, which had opened on the tenth year of Edward IV., closed on the forty-ninth of Henry VI.

Once more--and though he knew it not, for the last time--Warwick "had all England at his bidding." He was king in all but name, for King Henry still lay a prisoner in the Tower, and Queen Marguerite was in France. Warwick sent off Sir John Clare with hasty triumphant despatches to the Queen, and himself marched on London.

Of course the news of his coming reached the capital before him, and the citizens turned out to greet their favourite. Warwick's popularity with them is said to have been due to three causes: first, he flattered them; secondly, he allowed them to engage in any acts of piracy they pleased with impunity; and lastly, he took care to be always heavily in debt to various citizens.[#] It became therefore the interest of London that Warwick should triumph.

[#] Comines.

Warwick's first act was to march on the Tower, and summon it to surrender. The terrified Constable delivered his keys to the Lord Mayor, who opened the gates for Warwick. Jaspar Earl of Pembroke and John Earl of Oxford entered with him. They went straight to the chamber in which the King was confined, and found that simple-minded man calmly reading his Psalter, and not more disturbed by the tumult than to look up and say,--"Pray you, Master Gaoler, what noise is this without?"

But Henry's tone changed the next instant, and the prisoner became the king.

"Ha! my Lord of Warwick here!--and Jaspar--my dear brother!" and he gave him his hand affectionately. "My Lord of Oxford--God give you good morrow all! What means this?"

Warwick knelt at the feet of the King.

"It means, my Lord, that God hath saved King Henry."

And from all around rose the chorus. The King gazed from one to another as though he scarcely believed the evidence of his senses.

"Where are my wife and son?" was his next query.

"At Paris, my Lord, and soon to come hither, if God be serven."

"And the Earl of March?"

This was Edward's proper title in the eyes of a Lancastrian.

"Fled, my Lord,--fled the realm: and his wife is in sanctuary with her childre."

It would not have been Henry VI. if he had not answered, "Poor souls!"

"All is o'er of the rebellion," broke in Oxford, always fiery and rash: "all is o'er, your Highness; and we pray you give us leave to conduct you to your own lodging."

"Nay," said the King, kneeling down at the table; "tarry till I have thanked God."

Then, the rest kneeling around bareheaded, he poured forth a fervent thanksgiving. Very simple as this man was in worldly wisdom, he was eloquent when he spoke to God. Then they took from him the prison garb, and attired him in royal robes, and led him to "the King's lodgings" in the White Tower.

Here a singular ceremony took place. Warwick and his colleagues were not content with merely restoring King Henry, but deemed it a better safeguard to give him the additional advantage of popular election. Accordingly they held a formal _plebiscite_--of whom composed we are not told,--whether simply of the little group of Lancastrian nobles, or of their army of four thousand men, or generally of the citizens of London. This process completed, the King was set on horseback, and conducted to the Bishop of London's palace.

But Warwick soon discovered that he had an account to settle with his intensely discontented son-in-law. The deposition of Edward, in the eyes of Clarence, was not at all equivalent to the restoration of Henry. He had been ready enough to displace his brother, but his intention--which Warwick had frustrated--had been to set himself, not Henry, on the vacant throne. Clarence was in a very sulky temper, and required a tiresome amount of smoothing. This desirable end was at last accomplished; and having been joined by his excellent brother, the Archbishop of York, who was always constant to one side--the winning one--Warwick proceeded to get up a splendid procession to St. Paul's Cathedral, which King Henry entered in state on the thirteenth of October. He wore his crown, and Warwick carried his train, while Oxford bore the sword before him. After the procession, Edward of March was solemnly proclaimed a usurper through London.

Meanwhile, Edward, deserted and destitute, chased by Esterlings across the sea, ran his vessel into Alkmaar, and landed, accompanied by his brother Richard and his few faithful adherents. He had no money to pay the captain, and he gave him all that he had, his fur-lined cloak. The Lord of Gruthuse, Governor of Holland for the Duke of Burgundy, received the fugitives kindly, provided them with clothing, and conducted them to the Hague, whence Edward sent a messenger to the Duke to notify his arrival. This news was by no means a source of pleasure to that royal trimmer, Duke Charles, whose endeavours to keep in with both parties are as amusing to readers of history as they were troublesome to himself. He did, however, grant to his brother-in-law a pension of five hundred crowns per month; but he gave him little encouragement to come on to his court, whither Edward nevertheless proceeded at once, as soon as he had money to do so. When Edward presented himself at St. Pol, where the Court was then residing, the poor Duke was in a ludicrous state of indecision. On his one hand was his wife Margaret, to whom he was really attached, as he showed by marrying her as soon as he became his own master--his father having set his face against the marriage for political reasons: on the other side, the Lancastrian Dukes of Exeter and Somerset, who had resided for some years at his Court, and were his chosen friends. On both sides, as it seemed, was his own interest. At last he contrived to find a way out of the difficulty, which, as usual in such circumstances, was a crooked one. He publicly proclaimed his intention of giving no assistance to Edward, and forbade any of his subjects to enlist with him: while privately he presented him with fifty thousand florins, and quietly made ready at Ter Veere four or five large ships of his own navy, and fourteen more hired from the Esterlings, or merchants of the Hanse Towns.

These preparations of course took time; and during that time Queen Marguerite would have been energetically working in England, had she found it possible. But winds and waves were against her. She came down to the French coast in November, as had been agreed with Warwick: but she could go no further. In an agony of impatience and longing, she was compelled to waste at Harfleur time more precious than jewels. Her husband wanted her, in every sense of the word. The Lancastrian party, deprived of her, was a body without a soul. Even Warwick, clever man as he was, and little love as was lost between him and her, condescended to express a wish for the Queen's presence.

On the fourth of November, 1470, while things were in this condition, a little life began in the sanctuary at Westminster, which was to end, fifteen years later, as sorrowfully as it had opened, in the Tower of London. The long wished for son of Edward IV. came at last. But the news does not seem to have lightened the discouraged hearts of the Yorkists. Before the month was over, Sir Richard Widville, Queen Elizabeth's own brother, had made his submission to King Henry.

The King was residing, quietly enough, at Westminster Palace, which he never quitted during his short tenure of power. Large grants were made to the three Warwick brothers; and Henry, who could not conceive the idea of any body playing him false, seems to have placed himself entirely in their hands. His sagacious wife would have taken a truer view of the situation. But she was a virtual prisoner on the French coast, bound there by the winds and waves of God.

Warwick was created afresh Lord High Admiral of England, Ireland, and Aquitaine, with enormous powers: Clarence was made Viceroy of Ireland, and letters patent granted enabling him to do any thing he chose. The whole tone of the grants shows them to have really proceeded from the persons to whom they were ostensibly made, and in whose hands the King was an innocent toy, skilfully moved at pleasure. O for the wise head and the true heart of his one real friend!--of her who loved _him_ first, and the crown and sceptre second. There were other friends, true in a sense: but to them the crown was the point of importance, and Henry was interesting merely as the man who ought to be wearing it.

One of these last was with him--his brother Jaspar,--and early in February, another fought his way to his side. The winds and waves, soon to have so dire a message for him, yielded now to the eager importunity of Exeter. The sight of Edward at the Court of Burgundy was more than his Lancastrian heart could bear. The bitter cruelty which he had received at the hands of Edward's sister, his own wife, came back upon him too vividly to be endured. Half driven by the one reason, half drawn by the other, he hastily left St. Pol, and journeyed across France to the port where Queen Marguerite waited for a fair wind from the east. And then it was that Frideswide Marston first saw the face which she should never forget again.

Henry Duke of Exeter was a Holand, but not one of the handsome Holands of Kent, who were characterised by their lofty height, their stately carriage, and their magnificent beauty. His grandfather, John de Holand, the first Duke of Exeter, had stepped out of the family ranks in respect of personal appearance, being a short, dark-haired man, with pendulous cheeks and no good looks of any kind. Duke Henry had improved upon this pattern, having inherited some of the attractiveness of his beautiful grandmother, the Princess Elizabeth of Lancaster. Two Holand qualities were his, derived from his grandfather--the fiery fervour and the silver tongue. From both sides of his ancestry came his impulsive bravery; from the Plantagenet side his chivalrous generosity, his delicate courtesy: from all, the unswerving loyalty and faithfulness which formed the most prominent feature of his character. Yet they were joined by that shrinking from pain, and that despondent hopelessness, which an eminent psychologist tells us are manly, not womanly characteristics, inconsistently mingled with weakness of a type much more feminine than masculine. A strangely complex and inconsistent character was this: a brave man who never feared disgrace nor death; a true man, who would have died with his hand upon his banner and his face to the foe; a man with distinct convictions, and courage to avow them--yet a weak man. A voice that he loved would lead him in the teeth of his own convictions, though a voice that he did not love could not make him swerve for an instant. In this respect he was unlike all his family,--most of all unlike his bluff and cruel father, the last act of whose life had been the invention of the rack, long popularly known in England as "The Duke of Exeter's daughter."

In a popular ballad of the day, wherein the state is described under the figure of a ship, Exeter is selected as the lantern at the mast-head. The idea was doubtless originally taken from his badge--the fiery cresset set aloft upon the pole--yet it was equally true to the fervent, devoted, transparent character of the man.

"The ship hath closed hym a lyght
To kepe her course in way of ryght,
A fyre cressant that bernethe bryght,
With fawte was never spyed.
That good lyght that is so clere
Call Y the Duke of Exceter,
Whos name in trouthe shyned clere,
His worship spryngethe wyde."

The memory of the wife at whose hands he had endured what few husbands would have borne, much less have pardoned, was to Exeter one of unmixed pain and bitterness. It could scarcely be said that he had loved her. He had liked her, and he would have loved her with very little encouragement. But so far from encouraging the affection, she had smothered it in its cradle. She gave him no chance to love her. Repulsed and mortified, his heart--to which love of something was an absolute necessity--had turned to their one child, the fair-haired little daughter who resembled her mother in face, but her father in character. For her sake he had borne all this suffering inflicted by her mother; for her sake he had continued to live in the same house with his wife, long after her company had become intolerable. Nay, not to be parted from Anne, he had done, and would have done, almost any thing required from him. They were parted now. The Duchess knew her daughter's power over her husband, and she therefore insisted on keeping the daughter by her side. She might become a useful tool some day, if she received proper training, which her mother meant to give her.

All that Exeter knew was that the only creature whom he loved, and who loved him, was in the hands of enemies who would try hard to make her hate him. She was his one comfort in all the world, and she was kept away from him. This was the bitterest drop in his bitter cup--and his wife meant it to be so. Few men had suffered in the Wars of the Roses as he had. To-day in prison, and to-morrow in sanctuary; forsaken by his own soldiers, reduced to beg his bread barefooted until the Duke of Burgundy took compassion upon him, robbed of every penny of his inheritance by the woman who had sworn in God's presence to love and cherish him--all these painful memories were less to Exeter than the cruel separation from his only child. Deep down in his heart, scarcely confessed even to himself, was the hope that would break out of that passionate longing for her. If he could cross the Channel, if he could get to London, perhaps, some day, at a window or through the curtains of a litter, he might catch a glimpse of Anne. Even a wilder hope than this he cherished; for it might be possible to bribe one of his own servants to obtain for him a secret and stolen interview with his own child. But would he ever find his child again? He might see the Lady Anne de Holand: but would she be the little Nan that he had left years ago--the little Nan that used to climb upon his knee and kiss him and tell him that she "loved him so"? Better to keep that sweet remembrance undimmed, though it called up such hopeless yearning, than to meet a cold, haughty maiden who would courtesy to him and call him "my gracious Lord," and take the first opportunity of getting away from him. That would be to lose his darling indeed, in a far worse sense than he had lost her now.

It was not for Frideswide Marston to read all this. But she saw the weary, wistful look in the dark eyes, and she wondered whence it came.

How Exeter contrived to do what the Queen could not do, and make his way to England, has not been explained. We only know that he did it, and that on the fourteenth of February, 1471, he rode into London--where King Henry VI. reigned in the Palace of Westminster, where Queen Elizabeth Widville pined in the Sanctuary, and where the Duchess Anne of Exeter held royal state at Coldharbour--safe from both rival Roses, for what Lancastrian would harm the wife of his King's most faithful councillor, and what Yorkist would dare to touch the favourite sister of his sovereign?

In anticipation of the Duke's journey, Queen Marguerite had kindly suggested that any of the suite who wished to do so might send letters by him. Frideswide, who was longing for communication with home, undertook the tremendous task of writing both to her father and sister. The Duke turned over the letters which were put into his hands, and paused suddenly when he came to the one addressed to his own home.

"Who writ this?" he asked of John Combe, who had brought the letters to him.

Combe glanced at the address--"_To the hands of Mistress Agnes Marston, at Coldharbour, in the City of London, le these delivered._"

"I reckon, my gracious Lord, it shall be Mistress Frideswide Marston, that is of my Lady of Warwick's following."

"Pray you, desire Mistress Frideswide to come hither, for I would fain have speech of her."

She came, and stood courtesying within the doorway.

"Come nigh, I pray you, Mistress," said the Duke, "and tell me, is this fair dame of your kin?"

He held up her letter to Agnes, as he spoke.

"An' it like you, aye, my gracious Lord: it is my sister, that is chamberer unto your Lady."

The Duke looked thoughtfully at the letter.

"Think not my words strange," said he, "but answer me, if this your good sister be of gent and pitying kind?"

"That is she, right surely."

"One that should do a kind deed for a man in need, an' it fell in her way?"

"I am assured of that, my gracious Lord."

"Then pray you, Mistress Frideswide, do me so much grace as to write outside your letter, that you do beseech her, for the love of you, to grant that the bearer thereof shall ask of her."

Frideswide looked, as she felt, astonished.

"Mistress Frideswide," said the Duke sadly, "you are here, as I, cut off from home and friends. But you have hope to return thither when God will, and I have none. My maid, I have one only child, that is the very jewel of my heart, and they keep her from me. (He did not say who "they" were.) If you will do so much for me, I will myself deliver your letter, an' it may be compassed, and pray your good sister to let me have a word with my darling."

Frideswide Marston looked up into the sad earnest eyes, and then, without another word, stooped down and added the request to her letter. There was more wet on the cover than ink, when she had done.

*CHAPTER V.*

*HIS LITTLE NAN.*

"Some feelings are to mortals given
With less of earth in them than Heaven;
And if there be a human tear
From passion's dross refined and clear,
A tear so limpid and so meek
It would not stain an angel's cheek,
'Tis that which pious fathers shed
Upon a duteous daughter's head."
--SIR WALTER SCOTT.

"Be sure, Jane, to tell Valentine that I will have my gown of motley velvet ready for my wearing on the morrow; and bid him set silver buttons thereto--and good plenty."

"Please it your Grace, Master Valentine did desire of me that I should say unto you that he could not make ready the gown of motley as to-morrow, nor afore Thursday come."

"Could not?" The Duchess of Exeter's chiselled eyebrows were slightly raised. "Could not? But he must."

"Please it your Grace, thus said he."

"Tell him it skills not[#] what he can. I say he shall."

[#] Matters not.

"Then belike there shall be more tailors had?"

"I care not how it be done, so it cost no money."

"But, an't like your Grace, the tailors will not work without money: and unless more be had, Master Valentine can never, his own self--without he sit up all night, nor scarce then--make an end of your Grace's gown by to-morrow."

"Let him sit up, then. Good lack! what ado is here over a sely[#] tailor!"

[#] Simple, mean.

"Your Grace mindeth, maybe, that you were set to have the murrey[#] gown by next Sunday?--and both two cannot be done."

[#] Plum-coloured.

"Cannot! always at _cannot_! Hold thine idle tongue. Of course it can be done if I will have it so."

"Doubtless, Madam, if it please your Grace to pay more tailors."

"I will pay nobody. Ye will clean ruin me amongst you. "'Twas but yesterday I paid four thousand marks to a Lombard for jewelling. Ye would leave me never a cross[#] in my purse."

[#] Penny, divided by a cross that it might be easily broken into fourthings=farthings.

"Then, an' it please your Grace, what is to be done?" demanded the practical Jane, who was one of the four chamberers of the Duchess.

"Gramercy, maid, burden not me withal!" testily exclaimed her royal mistress. "Go and ask at Dame Elizabeth Darcy, an' thou wist not what to do. I tell thee, the motley must be made ready for to-morrow, and the murrey by Sunday next: and how it shall be is no business of mine, so it cost not money. _It shall be_. See to it."

Poor Jane, who felt herself ordered to do the impossible, made one more faint struggle with destiny.

"It should not like your Grace to bear that gown to-morrow?"

"This?" returned the Duchess contemptuously, glancing down at her dress, which was of dark blue satin, heavily trimmed with minever. "'Tis not fit to be seen. Hast lost thy wit? I tell thee, I must have a decent gown to put on. That idle Valentine hath left me never a one in my wardrobe. He is the laziest tyke that ever set needle."

"Please it your Grace, there is the broched[#] cloth of silver"----

[#] Figured.

"'Tis all frayed at the bottom. I warrant he hath not hemmed it anew."

"And the tawny velvet"----

"The which yon rascal Fulk spilt a glass of malmsey o'er. Tell Dame Elizabeth it must be docked of his wages."

"And the changeable[#] green velvet"----

[#] We retain changeable silk, under the name of shot silk; but changeable velvet is lost.

"With a rent across the front breadth as wide as mine arm, and none of you idle hussies hath thought to mend it."

"And the russet figury velvet"----

"All the pile worn off--as shabby as can be."

"And the crimson and blue damask, and the purple tartaryn,[#] and the mustredevilers,[#] and"----

[#] A kind of satinette, or satin Turk.

[#] A cloth, of which the name was derived either from _moitie de velours_, or from being manufactured at Villars.

"Go thy ways for an impudent ne'er-do-well! I tell thee I will have those two gowns--I _will have_ them! Let me hear no more of thy foolery."

And away marched the Duchess, and left poor Jane standing in the middle of the room.

"It shall cost Master Valentine his place an' he do it not," muttered she to herself. "And he cannot do it--'tis not possible in the time."

"Then, were I Master Valentine, catch me essaying to compass it!" said a voice beside her.

"Dear heart, Marion! wouldst lose thy place?"

"I would lose this place, and be rare thankful to do it," responded the girl addressed as Marion, who was another of the chamberers. "I oft-times wish we were as the meynie,[#] and could be hence if we would."

[#] Household servants.

The expression of Jane's face indicated that she thought such a sentiment treasonable.

"What with her Grace, and what with Tamzine, it is not a dog's life we lead!" continued Marion. "If the thing lay in mine hands, you should see, but I would wed the first man that asked me, just to be out of it."

"So might you be worser off than now," suggested Jane.

"Could not!" said Marion expressively.

Jane shook her head as if she thought that very questionable.

"Men be queer matter," said she. "Now you can make out a woman."

"Good lack! think you making out is all?" replied Marion. "She is easy enough to make out, is Her Grace. So is Tamzine. But I love their company never a whit the more for that. Gramercy, there goeth my Lady's handbell! I must away."

In an upper room in the same house two other girls were sitting. One, who sat at work in the window-seat, was so like Frideswide that we can easily guess her to be Agnes Marston. She was a little quieter than her sister in manner, and a shade less good-looking.

The other girl sat in a large, handsome, curule chair, with an illuminated manuscript open on the table before her. Her face was a remarkable one. Her figure was extremely slender, thin almost to emaciation: but more striking than this was the wan white face, where two hectic spots burned in the hollow cheeks, and the large dark blue eyes seemed of unnatural size and brilliance. A long-drawn sigh made Agnes look up.

"Your Ladyship is weary, methinks," she said.

"I may well be thus," was the answer, as the head was leaned on the thin hand. "I was doing that which would weary an angel, for I was trying to understand God."

"How, dear my Lady?"

The white-faced girl lifted her head, and let her eyes meet those of Agnes.

"It were to no good to speak in riddles," she said. "Agnes, you have dwelt in this house a full year, and you know the sorrows thereof as well as I. Specially, you know my sorrows--you know that I live a life wherein there is nothing to make the present happy, and the future is all full of a great dread. There is only one in all the world that loves me, and I cannot go to him: and one that I love not, and that loves not me, is about to be forced upon me whether I will or no. Why should I try to hide these things from you? You know them all. In all the whole world that is, and in the life that is to be, there is not one ray of sunlight for me. Do you marvel, Agnes, if life looks black to mine eyes? Are you one of those surface seers, that reckon a woman should be comforted for a breaking heart by a necklace of pearl, and that she is a fool to weep for a lost friend if she have a new gown of crimson velvet?"

"No, indeed, Lady mine."

"Aye me!" sighed the Lady Anne. "If I had but been a carpenter's child, or of a gardener----that I could have welcomed him back at eve from his daily work, and kept his hearth bright, and might have loved and been loved! I could have done without the pearls and the velvet, Agnes. But I have them: and they be poor exchange for the other."

"Things will change one of these days, sweet my Lady. ''Tis a long lane has no turning.'"

"It has been a long one, and there be eight years now since it turned last. Eight years, Agnes--more than half my life! And folks think it strange that I care. They looked for me, it should seem, to set mine heart on gewgaws, and to think more of the bidding to a dance than of the loss of a father. If I could see an end to it, I might take less thought. But I can behold no turn coming save one, and that is for the worser."

Agnes knew that this allusion was to her approaching marriage. Certainly that was no source of congratulation. In the eyes of the waiting-woman no less than the mistress, the handsome young Baron of Groby, Thomas Grey, the eldest son of Queen Elizabeth, who had been chosen as the future husband of the Lady Anne de Holand, was not a man to be regarded with any other sentiment than repugnance. Agnes had seen him kick his dog out of the way, and never look whether he had hurt it, when the poor little spaniel, unaware of its master's mood, had presumed to request his attention when he was not disposed to give it.

"There is only one comfort thereanent. I shall, may-be, never live to be wedded."

"Dear my Lady, pray you"----

"Does it look likely, Agnes?" said Lady Anne with a quiet smile,--scarcely a sad one this time.

The tears came to Agnes's eyes. She could not say that it did.

"No," resumed Lady Anne, after a short pause, and in a low voice, "I never loved any thing yet that did not either die or go away from me."

"Except Jesus Christ," said Agnes softly. She knew that she was safe in saying it--that however the black clouds might hide the Sun of Righteousness, He had risen, with healing in His wings, upon the young lonely heart beside her.

"Except Jesus Christ," echoed the girl reverently. "And yet--O Agnes, does He not know how hard it is to see nothing? to have nothing at all that one can feel and touch, and clasp close to the heart? He had friends in this life--even He, the Man of Sorrows, was not quite without them."

"Yet they all forsook Him, and fled."

"Aye. That was worse. But they came back again."

There were tears behind the voice.

"Dear my Lady, what causeth you be thus sorrowful this even?"

She broke down when that was asked. Pushing away the book, she bent her head down on her clasped hands on the table, and sobbed as though her heart would break.

"Oh, it is all so dark!" she sobbed. "If we might have gone to Heaven together, and have had each other there! Why are we kept parted? Agnes, I hate these signs of mine high estate, which seem as if they came betwixt me and him--betwixt me and peace. If I had not been King Edward's niece--Oh, if this awful war had never begun!"

Agnes had dropped her work, and sat looking out of the window. She did not know what to say. Well enough she knew that religious platitudes would do no good here. The Lady Anne was nearer God than she was, but just now she was in the dark. She had dropped the conscious holding of the Father's hand, and she felt like a lost child left out in the cold. Agnes did not realise that much of her depression was physical; but she did feel the necessity for offering some cheerful diversion to her thoughts.

"Dear my Lady, pray you, think on pleasanter gear."

"Wilt find it for me, Agnes?"

That was not an easy task. Agnes hesitated. But in a few moments more the sorrowing girl had found it for herself.

"I suppose," she said more quietly, "I must lift up mine eyes unto the hills, above all the turns in the long road. We shall be together one day, and with God. I shall not be long first. And set down at Christ's feet in the light of the Golden City, I count it shall not seem long to wait for him."

The child was coming back into the light. Physically, the burst of tears had relieved her.

"And yet, after all," she said, "I shall miss him, till he comes. One cannot love one instead of another, even if God be that One. And to love once is to love for ever."

"You can tell the Lord so, dear my Lady."

Lady Anne looked up with an expression of child-like trust and simplicity in her eyes.

"Agnes, I am always telling Him."

"And is He not, then, always hearing you?"

Light came into the sad blue eyes.

"Aye, He must be always hearing. I thank thee."

The door opened, and Marion came in.

"Agnes, here is--O my Lady, I cry you mercy. I wist not you were hither."

"Make an end, Marion," said Lady Anne, with a smile.

"Under your Ladyship's pleasure.--Agnes, here is one that would have speech of you. He hath brought a letter, if I err not, and for some cause is desirous to deliver the same into your own hand."

"Go and see to it, Agnes," said Lady Anne kindly: and Agnes left the room, and descended a long flight of stairs to the base court, where the stranger awaited her.

The stranger! Ah, what a stranger he felt, standing there in the meanest part of his own house, among strange menials to whom his face was unknown, for whom his voice had no authority. Did he think of Another who was Lord and Master of all, and who came unto His own, and His own received Him not?

"You would speak with Agnes Marston, my master?" said a gentle voice close to him. "I am she."

The Duke turned quickly. He wore a long cloak, and a hat which could be pulled down so as to hide his face. For any eyes to recognise him would probably be fatal to his errand. Yet the sensation of utter isolation was oppressive, notwithstanding that.

"Gentle Mistress," said he, in a tone and manner which instantly revealed to Agnes that her visitor was of her own rank or above it, "I bring you a letter from Mistress Frideswide Marston, in France, and I pray you of your courtesy to give heed to that which is writ on the outside thereof."

Agnes held the letter up to the lamp, and read--

"Good Sister, I do beseech you to do that which this bearer shall request of you; and herein fail you not, for the love of me."

"My sister desires me that I will do what you shall ask," she said. "What ask you?"

"May I ask it with fewer ears by?" returned the Duke in a low tone.

Agnes nodded. That was a request only too intelligible in the fifteenth century. She took him aside to a small chamber where no other person was at that moment.

"Now, Master, your will with me?"

"I am the Duke of Exeter," he said simply. "And I pray you, Mistress Agnes, as you ever loved any human soul, that you will win for me privy speech of the only one that loveth me--the Lady Anne, my daughter."

Agnes looked up, and saw the yearning, passionate hunger in the poor father's eyes. She saw nothing more for a minute.

"Sir," she said then, "if I do it not, be assured that it shall be only because I can no way compass it."

"God go with you!" was the reply.

Agnes hastened back to the room where she had left Lady Anne alone with Marion, and heard to her dismay the sharp tones of the Duchess as she came near the door.

"Heard any ever the like!" cried Her Royal Highness. "'An' it please me!' I do you plainly to wit, my dainty mistress, that it doth not please me. I will have thee come down and speak with Master Grey. And I will have thee don a better gown for it, belike.--Agnes Marston, go this minute and lay out the Lady Anne's gown of purple velvet.--And go thou and don it. Dost hear?"

Lady Anne said no more, but her whole face betrayed intense dislike to the task imposed upon her, when she caught the eye of Agnes. The language of the eye was well understood at that time, when the language of the lips was often dangerous. Lady Anne saw in an instant that Agnes knew of some reason why she had better leave the room, and she followed her without another word.

Meanwhile the Duke of Exeter stood below, waiting to know the result of his appeal. Could Agnes convey it at all? and if she did, would Anne come? Last and saddest question of all, if she came, would it be the child he knew, altered of course in person, but unchanged in heart? At last he could keep still no longer. Plantagenet blood was in his veins, and it was a habit of all the race, when suffering from mental excitement, to pace up and down like caged tigers. He had sufficient excuse in the cold of a February evening, and he yielded to the impulse, pausing at every sound to listen--till the door was flung open suddenly, and a tall, slight maiden, robed in violet velvet and decked with jewels, dashed into the room, and flung herself into his arms with a burst of passionate tears. Enough! Enough for the father's heart! His little Nan had come back to him.

When the first wave had broken, he lifted the young head with one hand, and looked long and tenderly on the beloved face. And at the first glance his heart sank down, lower than it had ever been.

Come, but not to stay. Bound on a longer journey than from England to France--than from earth to stars. He held his darling close clasped in his arms, but it was probably for the last time. Verily for her the Bridegroom waited, but the bridal was not of earth.

"Nan!" broke from the father's lips, in tones more eloquent than a volume would have been. "Little Nan!"

"I would I were your little Nan again," she said. "We were happy then, my Lord--at least I was."

"I never was," was the sad answer. "I only came near enough to see that I could have been. If it had been God's will!"

"It will be, my Lord," replied Anne, brightly. "'_Satiabor cum apparuerit gloria tua_.[#]'"

[#] Psalm xvii. 15.

"Dost know, little Nan, that thou didst learn that Psalm at mine instance? But when will it be, my darling?--when? It is such a long dark night without thee."

Yet as he said the words, the thought smote him to the heart,--Not long, not long for one of them!

"When God's will is," she responded simply. "We must wait, my Lord. Oh, this awful war! had it never begun!"

She did not realise that they were parted by any but political reasons--mournful necessities, which might come to an end some time. It was better she should not.

"Little Nan," said the Duke, "I love not 'my Lord' from thy lips. Call me Father."

The request was an unusual one. But she looked up and responded as he wished, with tears glistening in the violet eyes.

"You will come and see me again, Father?"

"I will come and see thee again," he echoed--well knowing, as he spoke, that the interview was not likely to be held on the earthly side of the cold river. But surely he would meet her again; and it would be he that should come to her. There would be room in the halls above, and no need to employ a third person, nor to use secrecy and stratagem in order to meet. Up from the core of his soul went the passionate cry, "Let us go together! Make no tarrying, O my God!" He knew now at least, if he had never known it before, that there was to be no paradise for him outside the Paradise of God.

"My Lady!" said the rather nervous voice of Agnes at the door. "I cry you verily mercy, but--Her Grace is calling for you."

None of them dared to disregard that summons.

One more last embrace! One more last look! From the Duke's eyes

"No tears fell, but a gaze fixed, long,
That memory might print the face
On the heart's ever-vacant space
With a sun-finger, sharp and strong."

His very soul seemed to dissolve itself upon her head as he gave her the last blessing. She tore herself away, and stumbling with tear-blinded eyes over her velvet train, went up to receive a sharp scolding for loitering from the Duchess, and some very cold ceremonial speeches from her affianced.

All was over. There was nothing left for that desolate man. Nothing to which he could look forward! There had been just that one hope, and it was gone. Nothing was left now to hope or fear.

He had come on foot and unattended, in order to avoid recognition. Mechanically he turned to the river stairs, called a boat, and was rowed up to Westminster. As he wearily mounted the Palace stairs, the Earl of Pembroke met him.

"Ah, my very good Lord of Exeter! Whither away?"

"I know not, and care less."

"Gramercy! what aileth you this starlight even?"

"Is it starlight?" and the Duke lifted his eyes to the glowing heavens, clear in the frosty atmosphere. "I had not observed it."

"Good lack! you must be in the blues to-night. More shame for you! Here is nought but making ready for the Queen, whom my Lord of Warwick rideth for to meet as to-morrow. 'Tis thought the wind may give her leave to come across to-night."

"I do desire it, right heartily."

"Heigh-ho! do you desire anything right heartily, with that face?" said Earl Jaspar, laughing. "Come, my good Lord, what aileth you?"

"My Lord, I cry you mercy, for I wis well I am not merry company. I have this night spoken, as I think, a long farewell to mine only child. Let me pass, I pray you, till I can be more like my fellows, and come into your company without spoiling your mirth--if I ever can."