The White Rose of Langley Page 5

  CHAPTER FIVE.

  CHANGES AND CHANCES OF THIS MORTAL LIFE.

  "Now is done thy long day's work; Fold thy palms across thy breast, Fold thine arms, turn to thy rest, Let them rave." _Tennyson_.

  The Earl and Countess were away from home, during the whole spring ofthe next year; but Constance stayed at Langley, and so did Alvena andMaude. There was a grand gala day in the following August, when theLord of Langley was raised from the dignity of Earl of Cambridge to thehigher title of Duke of York: but three days later, the cloth of goldwas changed for mourning serge. A royal courier, on his way fromReading to London, stayed a few hours at Langley; and he brought wordthat the mother of the King, "the Lady Princess," was lying dead atWallingford.

  The blow was in reality far heavier than it appeared on the surface, andto the infant Church of the Lollards the loss was irreparable. For thePrincess was a Lollard; and being a woman of most able and energeticcharacter, she had been until now the _de facto_ Queen of England. Shemust have been possessed of consummate tact and prudence, for shecontrived to live on excellent terms with half-a-dozen people ofcompletely incompatible tempers. When the reins dropped from her deadhand a struggle ensued among these incompatible persons, who should pickthem up. The struggle was sharp, but short. The elder brothers retiredfrom the contest, and the reins were left in the Duke of Gloucester'shand. And woe to the infant Church of the Lollards, when Gloucesterheld the reins!

  He began his reign--for henceforward he was virtually King--by buyingover his brother of York. Edmund, already the passive servant ofGloucester, was bribed to active adherence by a grant of a thousandpounds. The Duke of Lancaster, who was not his brother's tool, wasquietly disposed of for the moment, by making him so exceedinglyuncomfortable, that with the miserable _laisser-aller_, which was thebane of his fine character, he went home to enjoy himself as a countrygentleman, leaving politics to take care of themselves.

  But an incident happened which disconcerted for a moment the plans ofthe Regent. The young King, without consulting his powerful uncle,declared his second cousin, Roger Mortimer, Earl of March, heirpresumptive of England, and--in obedience to a previous suggestion ofthe Princess--broke off March's engagement with a lady of the Arundelfamily, and married him to Richard's own niece, the Lady Alianora deHoland.

  The annoyance to Gloucester, consisted in two points: first, that itrecognised female inheritance and representation, which put him a gooddeal further from the throne; and secondly, that Roger Mortimer, owingto the education received from his Montacute grandmother, had steppedout of his family ranks, and was the sole Lollard ever known in theHouse of March.

  Gloucester carried his trouble to his confessor. The appointed heir tothe throne a Lollard!--nor only that, but married to a grand-daughter ofthe Lollard Princess, a niece of the semi-Lollard King! What was to bedone to save England to Catholicism?

  Sir Thomas de Arundel laughed a low, quiet laugh in answer.

  "What matters all that, my Lord? Is not Alianora my sister's daughter?The lad is young, yielding, lazy, and lusty [self-indulgent,pleasure-loving.] Leave all to me."

  Arundel saw further than the Princess had done.

  And Gloucester was Arundel's slave. Item by item he worked the will ofhis master, and no one suspected for a moment whither those acts weretending. The obnoxious, politically-Lollard Duke of Lancaster wasshunted out of the way, by being induced to undertake a voyage toCastilla for the recovery of the inheritance of his wife Constanca andher sister Isabel; a statute was passed conferring plenipotentiarypowers on "our dearest uncle of Gloucester;" all vacant offices underthe Crown were filled with orthodox nominees of the Regent; the LollardEarl of Suffolk was impeached; a secret meeting was held at Huntingdon,when Gloucester and four other nobles solemnly renounced theirallegiance to the King, and declared themselves at liberty to do whatwas right in their own eyes. The other four (of whom we shall hearagain) were Henry Earl of Derby, son of the Duke of Lancaster; RichardEarl of Arundel, brother of Gloucester's confessor; Thomas Earl ofNottingham his brother-in-law; and Thomas Earl of Warwick, a weakwaverer, the least guilty of the evil five. The conspirators conferredupon themselves the grand title of "the Lords Appellants;" and to divertfrom themselves and their doings the public mind, they amused thatinnocent, unsuspecting creature by a splendid tournament in Smithfield.

  Of one fact, as we follow their track, we must never lose sight:--thatbehind these visible five, securely hidden, stood the invisible one, SirThomas de Arundel, setting all these puppets in motion according to hispleasure, and for "the good of the Church;" working on the insufferablepride of Gloucester, the baffled ambition of Derby, the arrogantrashness of Arundel, the vain, time-serving nature of Nottingham, andthe weak fears of Warwick. Did he think he was doing God service? Didhe ever care to think of God at all?

  The further career of the Lords Appellants must be told as shortly aspossible, but without some account of it much of the remainder of mystory will be unintelligible. They drew a cordon of forty thousand menround London, capturing the King like a bird taken in a net; granted tothemselves, for their own purposes, twenty thousand pounds out of theroyal revenues; met and utterly routed a little band raised by the Dukeof Ireland with the object of rescuing the sovereign from their power;impeached those members of the Council who were loyalists and Lollards;plotted to murder the King and the whole Council, which included nearblood relations of their own; prohibited the possession of any ofWycliffe's books under severe penalties; murdered three, and banishedtwo, of the five faithful friends of the King left in the Council. TheChurch stood to them above all human ties; and Sir Thomas de Arundel wasready to say "_Absolvo te_" to every one of them.

  This reign of terror is known as the session of the MercilessParliament, and it closed with the cruel mockery of a renewal of theoath of allegiance to the hapless and helpless King. Then Gloucesterproceeded to distribute his rewards. The archbishopric of York wasconferred on Sir Thomas de Arundel, and Gloucester appropriated as hisown share of the rich spoil, the vast estates of the banished Duke ofIreland.

  And then the traitor, robber, and murderer, knelt down at the feet ofArchbishop Arundel, and heard--from man's lips--"Thy sins are forgiventhee"--but not "Go, and sin no more."

  "Master Calverley, you? God have mercy! what aileth you?"

  For Hugh Calverley stood at one of the hall windows of Langley Palace,on the brightest of May mornings, in the year 1388, his face hidden inhis hands, and his whole mien and aspect bearing the traces of suddenand intense anguish.

  "God had no mercy, Mistress Maude!" he wailed under his voice. "We hadno friend save Him, and He was silent to us. He cared nought for us--Heleft us alone in the uttermost hour of our woe."

  "Nay, sweet Hugh! it was men, not God!" said Bertram's voice soothinglybehind them.

  "He gave them leave," replied Hugh in an agonised tone.

  It was the old reproachful cry, "Lord, carest thou not that we perish?"but Maude could not understand it at all. That cry, when it riseswithin the fold, is sometimes a triumph, and always a mystery, to thosethat are without. "You believe yourselves even now as safe as theangels, and shortly to be as happy, and you complain thus!" True; butwe are not angels yet. Poor weak, suffering humanity is alwaysrebellious, without an accompanying unction from the Holy One. But itis not good for us to forget that such moods are rebellion, and thatthey often cause the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme.

  Bertram quietly drew Maude aside into the next window.

  "Let the poor fellow be!" he said compassionately. "Alack, 'tis nomarvel. These traitor loons have hanged his father. And never,methinks, did son love father more."

  "Master Calverley's father!--the Queen's squire?"

  "He. And look you, Maude,--heard man ever the like! the Queen's ownGrace was on her knees three hours unto my Lord of Arundel, praying himto spare Master Calverley's life. Think of it, Maude!--Caesar'sdaughter!"

  "Mercy, Jesu!"--Maude could imagin
e nothing more frightful. It seemedto her equivalent to the whole world tumbling into chaos. What was tobecome of "slender folk," such as Bertram and herself, when men breathedwho could hear unmoved the pleadings of "Caesar's daughter?"

  "But what said he?"

  "Who--my Lord of Arundel? The unpiteous, traitorous, hang-dog litheroaf!" Bertram would apparently have chosen more opprobrious words ifthey would kindly have occurred to him. "Why, he said--`Pray foryourself and your lord, Lady, and let this be; it were the better foryou.' The great Devil, to whom he 'longeth, be _his_ aid in the likecase!"

  "Truly, he may be in the like case one day," said Maude.

  "And that were at undern [Eleven o'clock a.m.] this morrow, an' I wereKing!" cried Bertram wrathfully.

  "But what had Master Calverley done?" Bertram dared only whisper thename of the horrible crime of which alone poor Calverley stood accused."He was a Lollard--a Gospeller."

  "Be they such ill fawtors?" asked Maude in a shocked tone.

  "Judge for yourself what manner of men they be," said Bertramindignantly, "when the King's Highness and the Queen, and our own Lady'sGrace, and the Lady Princess that was, and the Duke of Lancaster, be ofthem. Ay, and many another could I name beyond these."

  "I will never crede any ill of our Lady's Grace!" said Maude warmly.

  "Good morrow, Bertram, my son," said a voice behind them--a voicestrange to Maude, but familiar to Bertram.

  "Father Wilfred! Christ save you, right heartily! You be here in thenick of time. You are come--"

  "I am come, by ordainment of the Lord Prior, to receive certain commandsof my Lord Duke touching a book that he desireth to have written andourned [ornamented] with painting in the Priory," said Wilfred in hisquiet manner. "But what aileth yonder young master?--for he seemeth mein trouble."

  What ailed poor Hugh was soon told; and Wilfred, after a critical lookat him, went up and spoke to him.

  "So thou hast a quarrel with God, my son?"

  "Nay! Who may quarrel with God?" answered Hugh drearily.

  "Only men and devils," said Wilfred. "Such as be God's enemies be alwayquarrelling with Him; but such as be His own dear children--should theyso?"

  "Dealeth He thus with His children?" was the bitter answer.

  "Ay, oftentimes; so oft, that He aredeth [tells] us, that they which bealway out of chastising be no sons of His."

  Hugh could take no comfort. "You know not what it is!" he said, withthe impatience of pain.

  "Know I not?" said Wilfred, very tenderly, laying his hand upon Hugh'sshoulder. "Youngling, my father fell in fight with the Saracens, and mymother--my blessed mother--was brent for Christ's sake at Cologne."

  Hugh looked up at last. The words, the tone, the fellowship ofsuffering, touched the wrung heart through its own sorrow.

  "You know, then!" he said, his voice softer and less bitter.

  "`Bithenke ghe on him that suffride such aghenseiynge of synful menaghens himsilff, that ghe be not maad weri, failynge in ghoure soulis.'Bethink ye: the which signifieth, meditate on Him, arm ye with Hispatience. Look on Him, and look to Him."

  Bertram stared in astonishment. The cautious scriptorius, who neverbroke bread with Wycliffe, and declined to decide upon his great orsmall position, was quoting his Bible word for word.

  Hugh looked up in Wilfred's face, with the expression of one who had atlast found somebody to understand him.

  "Father," he said, "did you ever doubt of _every_ thing?"

  "Ay," said Wilfred, quietly.

  "Even of God's love? yea, even of God?"

  "Ay."

  Bertram was horrified to hear such words. And from Hugh, of all people!But Wilfred, to his surprise, took them as quietly as if Hugh had beenrepeating the Creed.

  "And what was your remedy?"

  "I know but one remedy for all manner of doubt, and travail, and sorrow,Master; and that is to take them unto Christ."

  "Yet how so," asked Hugh, heaving a deep sigh, "when we cannot seeChrist to take them to Him?"

  "I know not that your seeing matters, Master, so that He seeth. Andwhen your doubts come in and vex you, do you but call upon Him with atrue heart, desiring to find Him, and He will soon show you that He is.Ah!" and Wilfred's eyes lighted up, "the solving of all riddles touchingChrist's being, is only to talk with Christ."

  Bertram could not see that Wilfred had offered Hugh the faintest shadowof comfort; but in some manner inexplicable to him, Hugh seemedcomforted thenceforward.

  There was a great stir at Langley in the April of 1389; for the King andQueen stayed there a night on their way to Westminster. Maude was inthe highest excitement: she had never seen a live King before, and sheexpected a formidable creature of the lion-rampant type, who would orderevery body about in the most tyrannical manner, and command MasterWarine to be instantly hanged if dinner were not punctual. She saw avery handsome young man of three and twenty years of age, dressed in amuch quieter style than any of his suite; of the gentlest manners, amodel of courtesy even to the meanest, delicately considerate of everyone but himself, and especially and tenderly careful of that darlingwife who was the only true friend he had left. Ever after that day, thefaintest disparagement of her King would have met with no reception fromMaude short of burning indignation.

  King Richard recovered his power by a _coup d'etat_, on the 3rd of May,1389. He suddenly dissolved and reconstituted his Council, leaving outthe traitor Lords Appellants. It was done at the first moment when hehad the power to do it. But a year and a half later, Gloucester creptin again, a professedly reformed penitent; and from the hour that he didso, Richard was King no longer.

  During all this struggle the Duke of York had kept extremely quiet. TheKing marked his sense of his uncle's allegiance by creating his sonEdward Earl of Rutland. Perhaps, after all, Isabel had more power overher husband than he cared to allow; for when her gentle influence wasremoved, his conduct altered for the worse. But a stronger influencewas at work on him; for his brother of Lancaster had come home; andthough Gloucester moulded York at his will when Lancaster was absent,yet in his presence he was powerless. So peace reigned for a time.

  And meanwhile, what was passing in the domestic circle at Langley?

  In the first place, Maude had once more changed her position. From thelower-place of tire-woman, or dresser, to the Duchess, she was nowpromoted to be bower-maiden to the Lady Constance. This meant that shewas henceforth to be her young mistress's constant companion andhabitual confidant. She was to sleep on a pallet in her room, to gowherever she went, to be entrusted with the care alike of her jewels andher secrets, and to do everything for her which required the highestresponsibility and caution.

  In the second place, both Constance and Maude were no longer children,but women. The Princess was now eighteen years of age, while herbower-maiden had reached twenty.

  And in the third place, over the calm horizon of Langley had appeared alittle cloud, as yet no more than "a man's hand," which was destined inits effects to change the whole current of life there. No one about herhad in the least realised it as yet; but the Duchess Isabel was dying.

  Very gently and slowly, at a rate which alarmed not even her physician,the Lollard Infanta descended to the portals of the grave. She knewherself whither she was going before any other eyes perceived it; andnoiselessly she set her house in order. She executed her last will interms which show that she died a Gospeller, as distinctly as if she hadwritten it at the outset; she left bequests to her friends--"a fret ofpearls to her dear daughter, Constance Le Despenser;" she named two ofthe most eminent Lollards living (Sir Lewis Clifford and Sir RichardStury) as her executors; she showed that she retained, like the majorityof the Lollards, a belief in Purgatory, by one bequest for masses to besung for her soul; and lastly--a very Protestant item when consideredwith the rest--she desired to be interred, not by the shrine of anysaint or martyr, but "whithersoever her Lord should appoint."

  The priests said that she died "ve
ry penitent." But for what? For herearly follies and sins, no doubt she did. But of course they wished itto be understood that it was for her Wycliffite heresies.

  It was about the beginning of February, 1393, that the Duchess died.Her husband never awoke fully to his irreparable loss until long afterhe had lost her. But he held her memory in honour at her burial, with agentle respect which showed some faint sense of it. The cemetery whichhe selected for her resting-place was that nearest her home--the PrioryChurch of Langley. There the dust slept quietly; and the soul which hadnever nestled down on earth, found its first and final home in Heaven.

  It might not unreasonably have been expected that Constance, now leftthe only woman of her family, would have remembered that there wasanother family to which she also belonged, and a far-off individual whostood to her in the nominal relation of husband. But it did not pleaseher Ladyship to remember any such thing. She liked queening it in herfather's palace; and she did not like the prospect of yieldingprecedence to her mother-in-law, which would have been a necessity ofher married life. As to the Lord Le Despenser, she was absolutelyindifferent to him. Her childish feeling of contempt had not beenreplaced by any kindlier one. It was not that she disliked him: shecared too little about him even to hate him. When the thought of goingto Cardiff crossed her mind, which was not often, it was alwaysassociated with the old Lady Le Despenser, not at all with the youngLord.

  Now and then the husband and wife met for a few minutes. The Lord LeDespenser had grown into a handsome and most graceful gentleman, ofaccomplished manners and noble bearing. When they thus met, theygreeted each other with formal reverences; the Baron kissed the hand ofthe Princess; each hoped the other was well; they exchanged a fewremarks on the prominent topics of the day, and then took leave withequal ceremony, and saw no more of one another for some months.

  The Lady Le Despenser, it must be admitted, was not the woman calculatedto attract such a nature as that of Constance. She was a Lollard, bybirth no less than by marriage; but in her creed she was an ascetic ofthe sternest and most unbending type. In her judgment a laugh wasindecorum, and smelling a rose was indulgence of the flesh. Herbehaviour to her royal daughter-in-law was marked by the utmost outwarddeference, yet she never failed to leave the impression on Constance'smind that she regarded her as an outsider and a reprobate. Moreover,the Lady Le Despenser had some singular notions on the subject of love.Fortunately for her children, her heart was larger than her creed, andoften overstepped the bounds assigned; but her theory was that humanaffections should be kept made up in labelled parcels, so much and nomore to be allowed in each case. Favouritism was idolatry affectionatewords were foolish condescensions to the flesh; while loving caressessavoured altogether of the evil one.

  Now Constance liked dearly both to pet and to be petted. She loved, asshe hated, intensely. The calm, sedate personal regard, inconsideration of the meritorious qualities of the individual inquestion, which the Lady Le Despenser termed love, was not love at allin the eyes of Constance. The Dowager, moreover, was cool anddeliberate; she objected to impulses, and after her calm fashiondisliked impulsive people, whom she thought were not to be trusted. AndConstance was all impulse. The squeaking of a mouse would have calledforth gestures and ejaculations from the one, which the other would havedeemed too extreme to be appropriate to an earthquake.

  The Lord Le Despenser was the last of his mother's three sons--theyoungest-born, and the only survivor; and she loved him in reality farmore than she would have been willing to allow, and to an extent whichshe would have deemed iniquitous idolatry in any other woman. Incharacter he resembled her but slightly. The narrow-mindedness andobstinacy inherent in her family--for no Burghersh was ever known to seemore than one side of any thing--was softened and modified in him intofirmness and fidelity. His heart was large enough to hold a deepreservoir of love, but not so wide at its exit as to allow the stream toflow forth in all directions at once. If this be narrow-mindedness,then he was narrow-minded. But he was loyal to the heart's core,faithful unto death, true in every fibre of his being. "He loved oneonly, and he clave to her," and there was room in his heart for noneother.

  The Dowager had several times hinted to the Duke of York that sheconsidered it high time that Constance should take up her residence atCardiff, for she was a firm believer in "the eternal fitness of things,"and while too much love was in her eyes deeply reprehensible, a properquantity of matrimony, at a suitable age, was a highly respectablething, and a state into which every man and woman ought to enter, withdue prudence and decorum. And as a wife married in childhood wasusually resigned to her husband at an age some years earlier thanConstance had now attained, the Dowager was scandalised by herpersistent absence. The Duke, who recognised in his daughter a moreself-reliant character than his own, and was therefore afraid of her,had passed over the intimation, accompanied with a request that shewould do as she liked about it. That Constance would do as she likedher father well knew; and she did it. She stayed at home, the Queen ofLangley, where no oppressive pseudo-maternal atmosphere interfered withher perfect freedom.

  But in the October following the death of her mother, a thunderbolt fellat Constance's feet, which eventually drove her to Cardiff.

  The Duke was from home, and, as everybody supposed, at Court. He wasreally in mischief; for mischief it proved, to himself and all hisfamily. Late one evening a courier reached Langley, where in her bowerConstance was disrobing for the night, and Maude was combing out hermistress's long light hair. A sudden application for admission, initself an unusual event at that hour, brought Maude to the door, whereDona Juana, pale and excited, besought immediate audience of herSenorita.

  The Princess, without looking back, desired her to come forward.

  "Senorita, my Lord's courier, Rodrigo, is arrived hither fromBrockenhurst, and he bringeth his Lord's bidding that we make ready hisGrace's chamber for to-morrow."

  "From Brockenhurst! Well, what further?"

  "And likewise _her_ Grace's chamber--whom Jesu pardon!--for the Ladynewly-espoused that cometh with my Lord."

  "Mary Mother!" exclaimed Maude, dropping the silver comb in her suddensurprise.

  Constance had sprung up from her seat with such quick abruptness thatthe chair, though no light one, fell to the ground behind her.

  "Say that again!" she commanded, in a hard, steel-like voice; and, in amore excited tone than ever, Dona Juana repeated her unwelcome tidings.

  "So I must needs have a mistress over me! Who is she?"

  "From all that Rodrigo heard, Senorita, he counteth that it should bethe Lady Joan de Holand, sister unto my Lord of Kent and my Lady ofMarch. She is, saith he, of a rare beauty, and of most royal presence."

  "Royal presence, quotha!--and a small child of ten years!" cried theindignant girl of nineteen. "Marry, I guess wherefore he told me notaforetime. He was afeard of me."

  She pressed her lips together till they looked like a crimson thread,and a bright spot of anger burned on either cheek. But all at once herusual expression returned, and she resumed her seat quietly enough onthe chair which Maude had mechanically restored to its place.

  "Go, Dona Juana, and bid the chambers be prepared, as is meet. But nogarnishing of the chambers of my heart shall be for this wedding. Makean end, Maude. `A thing done cannot be undone.' I will abide and seethis small damsel's conditions [disposition]; but my heart misgiveth meif it were not better dwelling with my Lord Le Despenser than with her."

  Maude obeyed, feeling rather sorry for the Lord Le Despenser, whoseloving spouse seemed to regard him as the less of two evils.

  The new Duchess proved to be, like most of the Holands, very tall andextremely fair. No one would have supposed her to be only ten yearsold, and her proud, demure, unbashful bearing helped to make her lookolder than she was. The whole current of life at Langley changed withher coming. From morning to night every day was filled with feasts,junkets, hawking parties, picnics, joustings, and dances. Th
e Duke wasdevoted to her, und fulfilled, if he did not anticipate, her every wish.Her youthful Grace was entirely devoid of shyness, and she made a pointof letting Constance feel her inferiority by addressing her on everyoccasion as "Fair Daughter." She also ordered a much stricterobservance of etiquette than had been usual during the life of theInfanta, whose rule, Spaniard though she was, had been rather lax inthis particular. The stiff manners commonly expected from girls towardstheir mothers had only hitherto been exacted from Constance upon stateoccasions. But the new Duchess quickly let it be understood that sherequired them to the smallest detail. She was particular that herstep-daughter's chair should not be set one inch further under thecanopy than was precisely proper; her fur trimmings must be carefullyregulated, so as not to equal those of the Duchess in breadth; insteadof the old home name of "the Lady Custance," she must be styled "theLady Le Despenser;" and the Duchess strongly objected to her using suchvulgar nicknames as "Ned" and "Dickon," desiring that she would infuture address her brothers properly as "my Lord." Angrily the royallioness chafed against this tyranny. Many a time Maude noticed theflush of annoyance which rose to her lady's cheek, and the tremor of herlip, as if she could with difficulty restrain herself from wrathfulwords. It evidently vexed her to be given her married name; but theinterference with the pet name of the pet brother was what she felt mostbitterly of all. And Maude began to wonder how long it would last.

  It was a calm, mild evening in January, 1394, and in the Princess'sbower, or bedroom, stood Maude, re-arranging a portion of her lady'swardrobe. The Duchess had been that day more than usually exacting andprecise, much to the amusement of Bertram Lyngern, at present at Langleyin the train of his master. The door of Constance's bower was suddenlyopened and dashed to again, and the Princess herself entered, and beganpacing up and down the room like a chafed lioness--a habit of all thePlantagenets when in a passion. She stopped a minute opposite Maude,and said in a determined voice:

  "Make ready for Cardiff!"

  And she resumed her angry march.

  In this manner the Lady Le Despenser intimated her condescendingintention of fulfilling her matrimonial duties at last. Maude knew hertoo well to reply by anything beyond a respectful indication ofobedience. Constance only gave her one day to prepare. The nextmorning but one the whole train of the Lady Le Despenser set forth ontheir eventful journey.