Oh, what excuse can my invention make?I do arrest ye of high treason here!SHAKSPEARE.
Oh, what excuse can my invention make?I do arrest ye of high treason here!SHAKSPEARE.
Oh, what excuse can my invention make?
I do arrest ye of high treason here!
SHAKSPEARE.
Henry's ambassadors had wrought little change on any except Clifford. His words had been interrupted; they were nothing in themselves; but their spirit, the spirit of treason, was in his heart. He made up his mind to nothing; he looked forward to no certain project; but he felt that hereafter he might betray his present associates to their arch-enemy. As yet his conscience was not seared; the very anticipation of guilt tortured him, and he longed to fly from thought. Another blind impulse drove him on. He hated the prince, because he was his opposite; because, while he was a cankered bloom, his heart a waste, his soul crusted over by deceit, his very person sullied by evil deeds and thoughts, Duke Richard stood in all the pride of innocence. Could he degrade him to his own level, there would be a pang the less in his bosom; could he injure him in the eyes of his friends, render him, as he himself had ever been, an object of censure, he would satisfy the ill-cravings of his nature, and do Henry a wondrous benefit by tarnishing the high character his rival bore, causing him whom his adherents set up as an idol, to become a reproach to them.
Clifford thought that it would be an easy task to entice a gay young stripling into vice. Richard loved hawking, hunting, and jousting in the lists, almost more, some of his elder friends thought, than befitted one on the eve of a perilous enterprise. Governed by Edmund, attended by Neville, watched by the noble duchess and vigilant Lady Brampton, it was no great wonder that he had hitherto escaped error; but Clifford went wilily to work, and hoped in some brief luckless hour to undo the work of years. Richard was glad to find in him a defender of his inclination for manly sports; an intimacy sprung up between them, which it would not be the knight's fault, if it did not bring about the catastrophe he desired.
What then perpetually opposed all his measures? What, when he thought he had caused the tide of temptation to flow, suddenly made it ebb and retreat back to its former banks? Clifford, an adept in every art, moulded himself to every needful form, and at last won the secret from the deep recess of Richard's heart; he loved—he loved Monina, that living emblem of innocent affection; never, he had vowed, would he disturb the sacred calm that reigned in her young heart, nor gift ignorance with fatal knowledge. She knew not the nature of her own feelings, and he would not withdraw the veil; but he was himself conscious of being swayed by the tenderest love. He could not marry her; his own misfortunes had arisen from the misalliance of his father; she herself would have refused to injure thus his cause, and have disdained him, if for her sake he had been inclined to abdicate his rights; he would be her friend, her brother. With passion came sorrow; he fled from sad reflection to the chase, to the exercise of arms. But other temptation became blunted by this very sentiment; his love grew more ardent by restraint; if he yielded in her absence to the contemplation of her image, his soul was filled with a voluptuous languor, from which he roused himself by attention to his duties or hardy pastimes; but to every other form of pleasure he was cold. This was a strange, incomprehensible picture to present to the world-worn Clifford; he fancied that it must be a delusion, but he found all the resistance of firm reality. To embitter his defeat came his own fierce passions, and the knowledge that Monina loved his rival; they would see each other, be happy in each other, and laugh him to scorn! He concealed his jealousy, his disappointment; but double treble rage gnawed at his heart; hatred awoke in her most viperous shape, fanged by a sense of inferiority, envenomed by envy, sharpened by the torture of defeat. How little did any know—above all, how not at all did his innocent victim suspect—the storm that brooded in his heart! There was something in the very slightness and grace of his figure that was at variance with the idea of violence and crime; and his glossing tongue added to the deceit. Lady Brampton feared him a little; Frion saw something in him, that made him pay greater court to him than to any other—these were the only indications. Sunshine and calm brooded over the earthquake's birth.
Meanwhile, Henry was not sleeping at his post. He saw the full extent of his danger, and exerted all his energy to provide against it. His immediate attention was chiefly directed to two points. In the first place it was desirable to forge some tale, to account for the circumstances that spoke so loudly for the truth of York's story, and thus to degrade him from the high esteem in which he was universally held; secondly, it became necessary to certify to the public the death of Edward the Fifth and his brother in the Tower. We may well wonder at his ill success as to the first point;—there never was concocted so ill-fangled, so incongruous, and so contradictory a fable, as that put together by Henry, purporting to be the history of the pretender. He was himself ashamed of it, and tried to call it in. History has in its caprice given more credence to this composition, than its contemporaries gave; it was ridiculed and despised at the time even by the partisans of Lancaster.
He was equally unfortunate in his second effort. To explain his attempts we must go back to the time of Richard the Third. On repeated reports being made to him of his unhappy imprisoned nephew's illness, this monarch had commissioned Sir James Tirrel to visit him. The young prince had languished without any appearance of immediate danger, and then suddenly drooped even to the grave. Tirrel arrived at the Tower late in the evening, and the first intelligence he received was, that the Lord Edward was dying. At the midnight hour he was admitted into his sick-room; his two attendants followed him no further than the ante-chamber. He entered. The glazed eye and death-pale cheek of the victim spoke of instant dissolution; a few slight convulsions, and it was over—Edward was no more! With wild, loud cries poor little York threw himself on his brother's body. Tirrel's servants, affrighted, entered; they found one of the princes, whose illness had been represented as trivial, dead; the other was carried off, struggling and screaming, by their master and an attendant priest, the only two persons in the chamber. They departed two hours afterwards from the Tower. Tirrel seemed disturbed, and was silent. They would perhaps have thought less about it; but hearing subsequently of the disappearance and supposed death of the young duke, wonder grew into suspicion, and in thoughtless talk they laid the foundation of a dire tale out of these fragments. Henry had heard it before; now he endeavoured to trace its origin. Tirrel, who for some time had lived obscurely in the country, came to London—he was immediately seized, and thrown into prison. Emissaries were set to work to find the three others, the priest and Sir James's two servants. Only one was to be found; and when Tirrel was asked concerning this man, by name John Dighton, he told a tale of ingratitude punished by him, which was soothing sweet to King Henry's ear; he was speedily discovered and imprisoned. Both master and follower underwent many examinations: and it was suggested to each, that reward would follow their giving countenance to a tale of midnight murder. Tirrel was indignant at the proposal; Dighton, on the contrary—a needy, bad man—while he told the story so as to gloss his own conduct, was very ready to inculpate his master; and it grew finely under his fosterage. Henry saw that without Tirrel's connivance he could not authenticate any account; but he gave all the weight he could to these reports. Few persons believed them, yet it served to confuse and complicate events; and, while people argued, some at least would take his side of the question, and these would be interested to spread their belief abroad;—Duke Richard must be the loser in every way.
The spies, the traitor-emissaries of the fear-struck monarch, were all busy; there was a whole army of them dispersed in England and Flanders—none could know the false man from the true. To obviate every suspicion, he caused his own hirelings to be proclaimed traitors, and cursed at St. Paul's cross.
The priests, ever his friends, were impiously permitted to violate the sacrament of confession; and thus several unsuspecting men betrayed their lives, while they fancied that they performed a religious duty. A few names still escaped him—he tampered with Clifford and Frion for them: the former was not yet quite a villain; the latter found that he enjoyed more credit, honour, and power as the duke's secretary than he could do as Henry's spy; besides, his vanity was hurt—he wished to revenge himself on the master who had discarded him.
In nothing did Henry succeed better than in throwing an impenetrable veil over his manœuvres. Most people thought, so tranquil and unconcerned he seemed, that he did not suspect the existence of an actual conspiracy, fostered in England itself, containing many influential persons among its numbers. All were sure that he was entirely ignorant of their names and actual purposes. The many months which intervened while he waited patiently, corroborated this belief, and the conspirators slept in security. The winter passed, and they continued to scheme, apparently unobserved; spring came—they prepared for York's landing—for a general rising—for a sudden seizing on many walled towns and fortresses—for the occupation of London itself. A few brief weeks, and Henry's prosperity would be shaken to its centre—his power uprooted—he and his children would wander exiles in a foreign land; and another king, the gallant descendant of the true Plantagenets, reign in his stead.
Thus occupied, thus prepared, were the Yorkists in England; at Brussels, things were carried on more openly, and wore a more promising appearance. The duchess, Lady Brampton, Plantagenet, triumphed. Sir George Neville anticipated with proud joy a restoration of the fallen race of Warwick, and regarded himself already as another king-maker of that house. Every exile looked northward, and grew joyful with the thought of home. Frion became more busy and important than ever; he had lately gone disguised to England, in pursuance of some project. In another week they expected Lord Barry to join them from Ireland: Clifford was amazed, vacillating, terrified. He knew that Henry was far from idle; he was aware that some of the loudest speakers in Richard's favour in Brussels were his hirelings, whom he would not betray, because he half felt himself one among them, though he could not quite prevail on himself to join their ranks. He believed that the king was in eager expectation of his decision in his favour; that nothing could be done till he said the word; he proposed conditions; wished to conceal some names; exempt others from punishment. Messengers passed continually between him and bishop Morton, Henry's chief counsellor and friend, and yet he could not determine to be altogether a traitor.
Thus stood affairs; a consummation all thought to be nigh at hand. It was the spring of 1494, and the coming summer was to decide the fate of York. A ball was given by the duchess, in honour of her nephew; it was splendidly and gaily attended. Clifford had been conversing with the prince, when suddenly he left the apartment: it was long ere he came back, and slowly joined the principal group in the room, consisting of the duchess, the prince. Lady Brampton, Neville, Plantagenet, Taylor, and several others. Clifford's countenance was marked by horror and surprise; so much so, that Lady Brampton looked at him a moment without knowing him. Suddenly she started up and seized his arm—"Holy Virgin!" she cried, "what had dressed your face, Sir Robert, in this pale livery? what tale of death have you heard?"
The brow of Clifford became flushed, his lips grew whiter, as quivering they refused to form the words he attempted to utter. Barley had before this quitted the apartment: he rushed in now, crying aloud, "Treason!"
"Treason!" Neville repeated, laying his hand heavily on Clifford's shoulder; "hear you that word, sir knight? Where is the traitor?"
Clifford in a moment recovered himself, answering, composedly, "Ay, would I could point out the man—would that I could drag him forth, the mark, the very target for the shafts of vengeance. We are lost; the cause is lost; our friends; the good Lord Fitzwater. I would have hid his name in the bowels of the earth!"
Already the festal hall was deserted; already the guests were dispersed, to learn how wide the destruction had spread. By the prince's orders, the messenger from England was introduced before himself and his principal friends: it was Adam Floyer, Sir Simon Mountford's chaplain; escaped himself, he was the bearer of a frightful tale. On one day, almost at the same hour, the Yorkist conspirators were arrested. Lord Fitzwater, Sir Simon Mountford, Sir Thomas Thwaites, Robert Ratcliffe, William Daubeny, Thomas Cressenor, Thomas Astwood, two dominicans, by name William Richford and Thomas Poyns, Doctor William Sutton, Worseley the dean of Saint Paul's, Robert Langborne, and Sir William Lessey, were all seized and cast into prison. Others had escaped: young Gilbert Daubeny, brother of William, and Sir Edward Lisle, had arrived in Flanders. Others made good speed and had fled to Ireland.
Oh, Clifford! but bethink thee once again,And in thy thought o'errun my former time,And if thou canst for blushing, view this face!SHAKSPEARE.
Oh, Clifford! but bethink thee once again,And in thy thought o'errun my former time,And if thou canst for blushing, view this face!SHAKSPEARE.
Oh, Clifford! but bethink thee once again,And in thy thought o'errun my former time,And if thou canst for blushing, view this face!
SHAKSPEARE.
"Where is the traitor?" Neville's question resounded through Flanders, and was re-echoed in groans from the English shores. Each man feared the other, and saw the mark of Henry's malice on the brow of all. It was a worse scene in England: executions followed imprisonment; the scaffolds flowed with blood; and suspicion was still greedy of prey. Among the papers seized by the king there was found a letter from Clifford to Lord Fitzwater, containing these words: "I do protest, my lord, that the proof of York's truth is most pertinent. You know this; and yet he who cut the crooked rose-bush to the roots still doubts; forsooth, he is still at his 'ifs'—'if he were sure that young man were King Edward's son, he would never bear arms against him.' Pray deprive my lord of his 'if;' for arms he must never bear: he is too principal to any cause."
Henry tormented himself to find who this doubter might be: again he sought to bribe Clifford, who was at first dogged that so much was done without him, and then tried to barter his intelligence for Lord Fitzwater's life. Such grace had he left, that he was ready to exert his wits to save his former patron; this was granted. This noble alone of the conspirators who were laymen was spared: he was sent prisoner to Calais.
At the first word of discovery, Monina's friends had endeavoured to insure her escape to Flanders; but her name was known to Henry, and there was none whom he was more desirous to get into his power. She remained concealed at a little distance from London. She grew mad in inaction: the work of death and misery around wound up her tender spirit to torture; and the execution of her former friends filled her with such horror as made day hateful, night the parent of frightful visions. After several weeks' seclusion, she all at once resolved to visit London, to seek some one of her former friends—to learn whether the tragedy was over, and what further mischiefs despair might have engendered. She inhabited a solitary mansion, with one old woman, who opposed her going, but vainly. Monina was too young to bear uncertainty with any degree of patience. Some slight joy visited her as she found herself on her road to London. Before she arrived a heavy rain fell; but she was not to be discouraged. Sir Edward Lisle, she knew, had not been arrested: she was unaware of his escape, and thought perhaps that he had not been discovered; she might get intelligence from him. His house was deserted and empty. Another hope remained—Sir William Stanley. She knew his timidity, and resolved to be cautious as to the manner of her visit. Sir William had ever been peculiarly kind to the gentle maiden; fearing to see her openly, she had often come to him by water: his mansion, near the palace at Westminster, had a garden upon the Thames. Without exciting any remark, she could land here. It was already night, and this favoured secrecy. With some difficulty, in the city, where she then was, she contrived to find her way to an obscure wharf, and embarked in a wherry. Fortunately it was high water, and she landed without difficulty in the garden, and dismissed the men. Now she began, to be puzzled as to how she should make her way, dripping with rain, unexpected, to Sir William's presence. She had been accustomed to be admitted by a little door opening on stairs which led her to her old friend's library: this was shut now. Suddenly she thought she heard voices, and then perceived a thread of light that streamed through the key-hole of the summer-house in the garden. There was a noise on the water, too: and a boat was paddled to the landing-place. Bewildered, yet believing that all this secrecy was connected with the grand conspiracy, she moved towards the summer-house: the door was opened, and the light falling full upon her, she saw several figures within, and a female shriek burst upon her ear. Quick steps were heard behind: to retreat or go forward equally terrified her; when one of the persons in the summer-house, a man in an uncouth foreign garb, cried, "Thou here, Monina! What miracle is this? Come, come in; there is danger in all we do!"
Monina recognized the voice of Frion, and entered: there she saw one, a lady richly attired, yet half disguised in a large black cloak. Fear was painted on her cheek; her blue eyes were cast up to Heaven. A female attendant with her seemed yet more terrified. About the room were scattered globes and astrolabes, and all the gear of an astrologer. In the lady, Monina recognized York's sister, Tudor's queen, the fair Elizabeth of England. At once compassion and respect entered her heart: she addressed the royal lady with reverence, and all that touching grace that was her sweetest charm; she assured her of inviolable secrecy; she reminded her of their former interview. Elizabeth grew calmer as she recognized her visitor at Shene: she stretched out her hand to the Spaniard, saying, "I do indeed believe and trust thee; thou shalt hear again from me." Then folding her mantle round her, and leaning on her attendant, she quitted the house, and with trembling haste embarked.
For many weeks after this scene, Monina continued concealed in Sir William Stanley's mansion. When the arrest of the conspirators had taken place, Frion, balked in an attempt to escape, for safety's sake had assumed the habit and character of an astrologer, and so far worked upon Stanley's fears, and won him by his flattery, that he permitted him to take up his residence in his summer-house. Frion was a clever prophet, and too restless not to become notorious. It was a good mode, he averred, to put hope in the hearts of the Yorkists, by prognosticating all manner of success to them. His fame spread. The queen questioned Stanley about his new astrologer; and the confusion the poor chamberlain evinced, served only to excite her curiosity. She sent one of her attendants to see what manner of man he might be; and the subtle Frion profited by this little artifice, which Sir William in his terror divulged, to entice the queen herself to his cell. She came, and the result of her visit was to bring Monina again before her.
Such were the agents still at work for York in London. Such the materials Clifford strove to mould into a purpose of his own. There was no reason, so many of the White Rose thought, to forego all their plans because one had come to a fatal end. Still Richard might land in England, and make head against Tudor. On a smaller scale, with lessened hopes and diminished ardour, a scheme of this kind was canvassed. Clifford appeared its chief abettor, and encouraged it by every means in his power; none were averse. It was not an enterprise of such high expectation as the discovered one; but, undertaken with speed, and prosecuted with energy, it might turn out as well. England was by no means tranquil; the metropolis itself was the scene of tumults: these were raised to a ferment by the embargo Henry had found it necessary to place on all communication with Holland—a measure fraught with ruin to many of the richest merchants in London.
At this time, towards the end of the summer, the king came up from his palace at Shene, and held a court at Westminster. One of the immediate subjects that brought him up, was a tumult in the city, to which the embargo had given rise. A vast number of apprentices and journeymen belonging to the ruined merchants were out of employ, while the traders from Hans, and other free German towns, who went among us by the name of the Easterlings, got the commerce into their own hands, and grew rich upon it. The sight of their prosperity was, to the starving Londoners, as the pressed rowel of a spur in a horse's side; with the usual barbarism of the untaught and rude, they visited on these men the fault of their governors—the discontent augmented till it became loud, furious, and armed. Multitudes of those deprived of their usual means, met, and, in a moment of rage, proceeded from words to acts. They endeavoured to force and rifle the warehouses of the Easterlings, who repulsed them with difficulty; nor did they disperse, till the mayor arrived with men and weapons, from whom they fled like a flock of sheep. When tidings of this event were brought to Henry, he, who saw in all things the multiplied image of the abhorred White Rose, believed the Yorkists to be its secret cause. The day after his arrival he gave audience to the mayor, who reported that, from every examination made, none appeared to have a part in it, except servants and apprentices, nearly a hundred of whom were imprisoned in the Tower.
In giving a detail of this circumstance, the mayor related that the Easterlings declared, that at the first onset their richest store-chambers must have become the prey of the rioters, but for the interposition of one man. He was a sea-captain, and had arrived but the day before with his caravel from Spain—they represented him as a person of gigantic stature and superhuman strength. Entangled by the mob in his progress through the city, he had no sooner discovered their intent, than he contrived to make his way into the stilyard; and there combining the forces of the defenders, more by his personal prowess than any other means, he beat back the invaders, and succeeded in closing the gates. At the representation of the mayor, Henry commanded that this man should be brought before him, partly that he might thank him for his services, and partly, for Henry was curious on such points, to learn from him the news from Spain, and if more had been heard of the wild visionary Columbus and his devoted crew, since they had deserted the stable continent, to invade the hidden chambers of the secret western ocean.
The king received the mariner in his closet. None were in attendance save Urswick. There was something grand in the contrast between these men. The courtier-priest—the sovereign, whose colourless face was deep-lined with careful thought, whose eyes were skilled in reading the thoughts of men, and whose soul was perpetually alive to everything that was passing around him—and the ocean rock, the man of tempests and hardships, whose complexion was darkened and puckered by exposure to sun and wind, whose every muscle was hardened by labour, but whose unservile mien bespoke no cringing to any power, save nature's own. He received Henry's thanks with respect, and replied simply: he answered also several questions put to him concerning his voyages; it appeared that he had but lately arrived from Spain—that he came to seek a relative who resided in England. During this interview a thought flashed on Henry's mind. In his late transactions with Clifford, the base purpose had been formed of enticing the duke and his principal adherents to England, and of delivering them up to their enemy; there had been some discussion as to providing, at least, one vessel in Henry's pay, to make part of the little fleet which would bring the duke of York over. This was difficult, as suspicion might attach itself to any English vessel; but here was one, with a stranger captain, and a foreign crew, a man who knew nothing of White or Red Rose, who would merely fulfil his commission. Slow on all occasions to decide, the king appointed another interview with the stranger.
It so happened, that the news of the appearance of the Spanish captain had penetrated to the queen's apartments; and little Arthur, her gentle and darling son, was desirous to see the countrymen of Columbus, whose promised discoveries were the parent of such wonder and delight throughout the world. The prince of Wales must not be denied this pleasure, and the Spaniard was ushered into the queen's presence. An enthusiast in his art, his energetic, though simple expressions enchanted the intelligent prince, and even compelled the attention of his little sturdy brother Henry. He spoke in words, borrowed from Columbus's own lips, of translucent seas, of an atmosphere more softly serene than ours, of shores of supernal beauty, of the happy natives, of stores of treasure, and the bright hopes entertained concerning the further quest to be made in these regions. Elizabeth forgot herself to listen, and regretted the necessity of so soon dismissing him. She asked a few questions relative to himself, his vessel; "She was a gallant thing once," replied her commander, "when I took her from the Algerines, and new-christened her the Adalid; because, like her owner, being of Moorish origin she embraced the true faith. My own name, please your grace, is Hernan de Faro, otherwise called the Captain of the Wreck, in memory of a sad tedious adventure, many years old."
"De Faro—had he not a daughter?"
Anxiety and joy showed itself at once in the mariner's countenance. Monina!—Where was she? How eagerly and vainly had he sought her—faltering, the queen had only power to say, that Sir William Stanley, the lord chamberlain, could inform him, and, terrified, put an end to the interview.
Two days after—already had De Faro found and fondly embraced his beloved child—Urswick, at the king's command, sent for the hero of the stilyard, and, after some questioning, disclosed his commission to him; it was such, that, had de Faro been in ignorance, would have led him to suspect nothing—he was simply to sail for Ostend; where he would seek Sir Robert Clifford, and deliver a letter: he was further told that he was to remain at Sir Robert's command, to receive on board his vessel whoever the knight should cause to embark in her, and to bring them safely to England. To all this De Faro, aware of the dread nature of these orders, assented; and, in Stanley's summer-house, with the lord chamberlain, Monina, and Frion, it was discussed how this web of treason could best be destroyed. There was little room for doubt; Monina resolved to sail with her father, to denounce Clifford to the prince, and so save him and his friends from the frightful snare. Frion still remained in England, to try to fathom the whole extent of the mischief intended; though now, fearful of discovery, he quitted his present abode, and sought a new disguise. Stanley trembled at Clifford's name, but he saw no suspicion in his sovereign's eye, and was reassured.
The Adalid sailed, bearing the king's letters to Clifford, and having Monina on board, who was to unfold to the deceived prince and his followers the dangers that menaced them.
Already, as the appointed time drew near, most of Richard's partizans were assembled at Ostend; a fleet of three vessels was anchored in the port to convey them to England to fated death; the prince himself, with Clifford, sojourned in a castle at no great distance. Sir Robert insinuated himself each day more and more into his royal friend's confidence; each day his hatred grew, and he fed himself with it to keep true to his base purpose; among the partizans of York sometimes he felt remorse; beside the bright contrast of his own dark self, never.
Monina landed; and, the prince being absent, first she sought Lady Brampton—she was at Brussels; then Plantagenet,—he was expected, but not arrived from Paris; then she asked for Sir George Neville, as the chief of the English exiles; to him she communicated her strange, her horrid tidings, to him she showed Henry's still sealed letter to Clifford. What visible Providence was here, laying its finger on the headlong machinery that was bearing them to destruction! Neville was all aghast: he, who did not like, had ceased to suspect Clifford, seeing that he adhered to them at their worst. He lost no time in bringing Monina to the castle, but ten miles distant, where York then was; he introduced her privately, and, wishing that she should tell her tale herself, went about to contrive that, without Clifford's knowledge or suspicion, the prince should have an interview with her.
Monina did not wonder that her bosom throbbed wildly, as she remained in expectation of seeing her childhood's playfellow, from whom she had been so long absent. Nor did she check her emotion of intense pleasure when she saw him, and heard him in her native Spanish utter expressions of glad delight at so unexpectedly beholding her. Time had changed him very little; his aspect was still boyish; and, if more thought was seated in his eye, his smile was not the less frank and sweet; she was more altered; her but little feminine form had acquired grace; the girl was verging into the woman—blooming as the one, tender and impassioned as the other; her full dark eyes, which none could behold and not feel the very inner depths of their nature stirred, were the home of sensibility and love. A few moments were given to an interchange of affectionate greeting, and then York, recurring to the mysterious mode in which Neville had expressed himself, asked if anything save a kind wish to visit the brother of her childhood had brought her hither; she replied, by relating to him the circumstances of her father's commission from Henry, and delivering to him the letter for Sir Robert. The whole wide world of misery contains no pang so great as the discovery of treachery where we pictured truth; death is less in the comparison, for both destroy the future, and one, with Gorgon countenance, transforms the past. The world appeared to slide from beneath the prince, as he became aware that Clifford's smiles were false; his seeming honesty, his discourse of honour, the sympathy apparent between them, a lie, a painted lie, alluring him by fair colours to embrace foulest deformity. The exceeding openness and confidence of his own nature, rendered the blow doubly unnatural and frightful; and Monina, who had half disliked, and latterly had almost forgotten Clifford, was full of surprise and pain to mark the affliction her friend's countenance expressed.
There was no time for regret. Neville interrupted them, and it became necessary to act. Richard held in his hand the sealed proof of his associate's falsehood; Sir George urged him to open it, so as to discover the whole extent of the treason. The prince's eyes were at once lighted up by the suggestion: no, no, because Clifford had been base, he would violate no law of honour—there was no need for the sake of others; his treachery discovered, was fangless; nor would he even undertake the dark office of openly convicting and punishing: his conscience and remorse should be judge and executioner.
Monina and Neville returned to Ostend. The prince sent a message to Clifford with some trifling commission to execute in the same town; and Sir Robert, who had heard of the arrival of a stranger caravel from England, was glad of an opportunity, to ride over to learn its character. His feet were in the stirrups, when a page brought him a letter from the duke, which he was bid not to open till he had departed. A sense of a mysterious meaning came over him. Was he discovered? At the first dawn of this suspicion he clapped spurs to his horse, and was already far away; then, impatient of uncertainty, as soon as half the brief space to Ostend was measured, he took out the packet, eyed it curiously, and, after many qualms and revolutions of feeling, suddenly tore it open. King Henry's despatch, written in Urswick's well-known hand, first met his eye. Worse in action than in thought, a cold dew mantled on his brow; and, while his heart stood still in his labouring breast, he cast his eyes over a few lines, written in Richard's fair clear Spanish hand:—
"This paper, joined to the mode in which it fell into my hands, accuses you of treason. If wrongfully, accord permission that the seal may be broken, and your innocence proved."Even it the mystery which this letter contains cannot be divulged nor exculpated, all is not lost. Perhaps you are rather weak than guilty; erring, but not wicked. If so, return immediately on your steps; by a frank confession merit my confidence. I were unworthy of the mediation of the Blessed Saints, whom each night I solicit to intercede for me before our Heavenly Father, were I not ready to pardon one who has sinned, but who repents."If your crime be of a deeper dye, and you are allied in soul to my enemy, depart. It is enough for me that I never see you more. If I remain a fugitive for ever, you will lose nothing by deserting my ruined fortunes; if I win the day, my first exercise of the dearest prerogative of kings, will be to pardon you."RICHARD."
"This paper, joined to the mode in which it fell into my hands, accuses you of treason. If wrongfully, accord permission that the seal may be broken, and your innocence proved.
"Even it the mystery which this letter contains cannot be divulged nor exculpated, all is not lost. Perhaps you are rather weak than guilty; erring, but not wicked. If so, return immediately on your steps; by a frank confession merit my confidence. I were unworthy of the mediation of the Blessed Saints, whom each night I solicit to intercede for me before our Heavenly Father, were I not ready to pardon one who has sinned, but who repents.
"If your crime be of a deeper dye, and you are allied in soul to my enemy, depart. It is enough for me that I never see you more. If I remain a fugitive for ever, you will lose nothing by deserting my ruined fortunes; if I win the day, my first exercise of the dearest prerogative of kings, will be to pardon you.
"RICHARD."
Shall I be the slaveOf—what? a word? which those of this false worldEmploy against each other, not themselves,As men wear daggers not for self offence.But if I am mistaken, where shall IFind the disguise to hide me from myself?As now I skulk from every other eye.SHELLEY.
Shall I be the slaveOf—what? a word? which those of this false worldEmploy against each other, not themselves,As men wear daggers not for self offence.But if I am mistaken, where shall IFind the disguise to hide me from myself?As now I skulk from every other eye.SHELLEY.
Shall I be the slaveOf—what? a word? which those of this false worldEmploy against each other, not themselves,As men wear daggers not for self offence.But if I am mistaken, where shall IFind the disguise to hide me from myself?As now I skulk from every other eye.
SHELLEY.
One of the surest results of guilt is to deprive the criminal of belief in the goodness of others. Clifford was discovered. Even, if Richard continued true to his promise of pardon, his adherents and counsellors might force him to another line of conduct. A dungeon and death floated terribly before his confused vision. Flight, instant flight to England, where, by a full confession of many things he had reserved, and the disclosure of an important unsuspected name, he might still receive welcome and reward from Henry, was the only course left him to pursue.
His thoughts were chaos. Shame and indignation raged in his heart. He was a convicted traitor, a dishonoured man. "Oh, my envied father!" in his wretchedness he exclaimed, "you died gloriously for Lancaster. I live, steeped in obloquy, for the same cause. Abhorred Plantagenet! what misery has been mine since first your name came to drug me with racking poison! What have I not endured while I cringed to the fair-haired boy! Thank the powers of hell, that time is past! Devil as I have stamped myself, his arch crime, lying, is no more my attribute. To the winds and men's thirsty ears I may cry aloud—I hate Plantagenet!"
It was some relief to this miserable man to array his thoughts in their darkest garb, soothing his evil passions with words, which acted on them as a nurse's fondling talk to a querulous child. His line of conduct was fixed: he remembered Neville's sudden appearance and departure the night before; he had brought the letter; he was waiting for him at Ostend to seize on him, to turn to mockery the prince's promised pardon. Those were days of violence and sudden bloodshed: the enemy a man could not visit with legal punishment, he thought himself justified in destroying with his own hand; the passions of the Yorkists, who found they had been driven into shambles instead of a fold, must be fierce and dangerous. Without delay, he resolved to embark in one of the vessels then in the roads; he hurried to the beach; the wind seemed fair; there was a poor kind of hostelry, the common resort of sailors near, from whence a signal could be given for a boat to be sent off for him. While waiting for it, he quitted the noisy vulgarity of the inn, and walked towards a kind of ruined tower, that once perhaps had served as a lighthouse. In all the panic of guilt, a roof, however desolate, appeared a shelter, and he sought it: it was dilapidated and dark; there were some rude, narrow stairs leading to the upper story,—these he ascended, and entered what had been a kind of guard-room, and started at the vision he beheld: leaning against the aperture that had served for a casement, looking on the wide green sea, was Monina. Her lustrous eyes turned on him—eyes before whose full softness his violence, his insolence quailed; till shame, despair, and rage, and the deep-seated arrogance of his nature, conquered his better feelings. She knew his crime, witnessed his disgrace; there was no more to lose in the world. What more could he win? His presence occasioned her much emotion. She had just quitted Neville, who somewhat angrily remarked upon the prince's ill-timed lenity, and spoke bitterly of all the ill Clifford, thus let loose, might do in England. And here he was, about to embark for that very island, where one at least, Sir William Stanley, was at his mercy. Gladly Monina seized on this opportunity to dive into his projects, and to inspire by her energetic words the traitor's bosom with some sense of right. She, alas! inspired passion only, and jealousy, that now at last his rival would see her love-lighted eyes turned affectionately on him; while all the reproach of which they were capable was his meed. What such men as Clifford feel is not love: he had no real friendship for the innocent girl; each feeling that expresses the sympathy of our intellectual nature was never associated to him with the name of woman. As she spoke therefore of his duties to God and man, violated, but not irretrievably, and with soft persuasion entreated him to spare those whose lives hung upon his word, he recovered his obduracy, and replied in a tone whose hollow vaunting was at discord with the music that fell from her lips—"My pretty maiden, I thank thee for thy good intentions, and if thou wilt wholly undertake my instruction, will prove an apt scholar. Honesty and I are too poor to be messmates; but if thou wilt join us—by God, Monina, I mean what I say—the priest shall say grace for us, and we will partake life's feast or fast together. I will sail with thee to thy Spain, to the Indies of the West. England shall be a forgotten name; the White or Red Rose, neither worse nor better in our eyes than any blooms that smell as sweet: if thou refusest this, here ends the last chance for honesty; and be the victim who it may, I care not so my fortunes thrive."
"Unworthy man!" cried Monina; "farewell! I go to England also: I to save, you to destroy. Bounteous Heaven will look on our several intentions, and shape our course accordingly. Henry will visit with poor thanks your blighted purpose, barren now of its ill fruit. Mine will be the harvest; yours the unlamented loss."
She would have passed him, but he seized her slender wrist. "We will run no race," he cried; "if we go to England, it will be together: listen to the splash of oars, it is my boat among the breakers. We enter it together; it is vain for you to resist; you are my prisoner."
Monina trembled in every joint: she felt that in very truth she was in Clifford's power. There rode her father's caravel; but he could not guess her pressing danger: he would behold her depart, ignorant of the violence she was suffering, ignorant that she was there. No help!—no form of words was there, that might persuade the ill-minded knight to free her: her proud spirit disdained to bend; her cheek was flushed; she strove to withdraw her hand. "Pardon me," said Clifford; "if my fingers press too roughly; the slight pain you endure will hardly counterbalance the fierce torture your words inflicted. Be patient, my fellows are already here. Let us not act a silly mime before them; do not oblige me to demonstrate too unkindly, that you are wholly in my power."
Hardly had he spoken the words when with a scream she sprang from him. He turned; but before even he could see the gigantic form of De Faro, a blow was struck which made him reel against the wall. It would have been instantly followed by another, but that Monina had flung herself on her father's breast, and he, supporting her, forgot his enemy, who recovered himself, and drew his sword. He met the fierce glare of the injured parent's eye, and shook. "We meet again, recreant!" were the only words spoken by De Faro; and, as an elephant might snatch a youngling antelope from the pursuit of a tiger, he took his daughter in his arms, descended the steps with her, and, as Clifford stood gazing on the sea, in such bitter mood as is the fruit of baffled malice, he saw the mariner lift his daughter into the boat. It pushed from the shore; and, with long, measured strokes, it swept the waves towards the caravel, whose sails were again unfurled, while everything bespoke the readiness and anxiety of the crew to depart.
Ere the Adalid had reached the open sea, Clifford in his vessel was but little astern. It was a race they ran. The caravel at first had the best. Night concealed them from each other's view; and, in the morning, already on the tranquil bosom of the Thames Sir Robert's vessel was sailing alone towards London. By one of those strange turns of fortune by which our purposes swim or are wrecked, De Faro, without a pilot, unacquainted with the coast, missed the channel; he grounded on a sand-bank at the river's mouth; and the tide which carried Clifford so swiftly towards London had several hours to run before it reached a height sufficient to float the other's vessel; the situation was not without peril, and no boat even could be lowered to carry the anxious Monina to shore.
The very day (it was now the month of January) that Henry heard of Clifford's arrival in London, he removed his court from Westminster to the Tower. Already he divined that his Lord Chamberlain was to be criminated by Sir Robert; and, as Stanley possessed considerable influence in the state, he wished to make his arrest as unexpected as possible. Another motive worked upon the avaricious sovereign; seized thus, without preparation or forethought, his jewels, his rich plate, his valuable moveables, which might otherwise be secreted, now fell the indiscriminate prey of confiscation; the Tower, at once a palace and a prison, favoured this purpose. Here he received Clifford; Urswick had already conversed with the traitor knight, and represented to him the necessity of ample confession. There was something in the priest's manner that, like iron, entered Clifford's soul; he felt himself, too truly, to be the abject slave, the despised tool of power; there was but little need to use cajoleries or bribes with him now; he was there, to be executed as a felon or pardoned as a spy, according as his disclosures satisfied or not the callous-hearted king.
For his greater punishment, there clung to this unfortunate man a sense of what he ought to and might have been, and a burning consciousness of what he was. Hitherto he had fancied that he loved honour, and had been withheld, as by a hair, from overstepping the demarcation between the merely reprehensible and the disgraceful. The good had blamed him; the reckless wondered at his proficiency in their own bad lessons; but hitherto he had lifted his head haughtily among them, and challenged any man to accuse him of worse than greater daring in a career all travelled at a slower and more timid pace.
But that time was gone by. He was now tainted by leprous treachery; his hands were stained by the blood of his deceived confederates; honour disowned him for her son; men looked askance on him as belonging to a pariah race. He felt this; and even Monina, who had last conversed with him in the summer-house of the inn at Ostend, would hardly have recognized him. He was then a bold-faced villain; his step was haughty; his manner insolent. Now his gait was shuffling, his appearance mean, his speech hesitating and confused. Urswick had known him a gay ruffler; he started back: was this Sir Robert Clifford? He was obliged to use with him the usual style of speech adopted towards men in his situation; to speak of his duty towards his liege; the propriety of delivering up the guilty to condign punishment: hackneyed phrases, which sounded cold to the unhappy man.
There was no resource. At Henry's feet, kneeling before a king who used him as a tool, but who hated him as the abettor of his rival, and despised him as the betrayer of his friend, Clifford spoke the fatal word which doomed the confiding Stanley to instant death, himself to the horrors of conscious guilt, or, what as yet was more bitter to the worldling, relentless outlawry from the society and speech of all, however depraved, who yet termed themselves men of honour.
Henry heard him with feigned amazement; and with grating words of insulting unbelief, demanded evidence of his chamberlain's treason: these were easily furnished, yet such as they were, they comprised such irrefragable proof of the identity of the outcast duke, that Henry found, that while they confirmed him more than ever in his resolve that Stanley should suffer the severest penalty of his crime, it made it difficult to bring forward the testimonials of his guilt. This was for after consideration: Clifford was dismissed with cold thanks, with promise of pardon and reward, and a haughty command neither to obtrude himself again into the royal presence, nor to depart from London without especial leave.
Henry's first act was to command Stanley not to quit his chamber in the Tower. The next day before the hour of noon, the Bishop of Durham, Lord Oxford, Lord Surrey, Urswick, and Lord Dawbeny, met in the fallen chamberlain's apartment, for the purpose of examining him. A thousand opposing feelings operated upon Stanley: accustomed to pay deference to the king, even now he said nothing to displease him; and his expressions rather spoke of compassion for him who very possibly was duke of York, than any falling off from his allegiance to the then king of England.
This monarch was tormented by no doubts,—to be actuated by no pity. Stanley's acknowledgment of the truth of the Burgundian pretender roused his bitterest feelings. In addition, he was rich booty—which weighed heavily against him; so that, when Bishop Fox remarked on the villany and extent of his treason, Henry, off his guard, exclaimed—"I am glad of it; the worse the better: none can speak of mercy now, and confiscation is assured;"—nor did he in the interval before his trial, nor after it, express one regret that the man was about to forfeit his head, who had encircled his own with the regal diadem.
Tried, condemned; but a few days remained before on the fatal block the rich, noble, prudent, royally-connected Sir William Stanley would expiate his guilt to Henry. All wondered; many pitied; few thought of soliciting for or aiding the fallen man; yet one or two there were, whom this last blow against York filled with bitter regret. In a secluded part of London Lord Barry, who had just arrived, Frion, and Monina met. Barry came with intelligence that there had appeared in Ireland a gentleman from Scotland, commissioned by its young monarch to inquire into the truth of Richard's story; and, if indubitably he were the man he pretended, to counsel him to visit Scotland, where he would find friendship and aid. The Earl of Desmond also had just arrived in London, and Lord Barry was in his company. This downfall of Stanley called their minds from every other consideration. Monina was peculiarly agitated and thoughtful. One evening she joined them late: she was full of some project. "I can, I do believe, save our friend," she said: "the assistance I need is small—you, Master Stephen, will hasten on board the Adalid, and bid my father have all in readiness, for sailing, and to drop down the river as far as Greenwich: you, my dear lord, must also take a part in my scheme—keep watch on the river, right opposite the Tower, during the coming night and the following: if you see a light upon the shore beneath its dark walls, come towards it with a boat; the blessed Virgin aiding my design, it shall be freighted with disappointment to the Tudor, joy to us."
Lord Barry and Frion promised obedience, though they would have dissuaded her from the risk; but she was devoted, enthusiastic, firm: she left them, nor did they delay to execute her commission, and both went down the river to De Faro's caravel. Here a new surprise awaited them. The duke of York and his friends had not been idle in the interim. Each design, as it failed, gave place to another. They were diminished in numbers, but now no traitors were among them. Their hopes were few; but, unless the present time were seized, there would be none. The false expectations Clifford had held out to them of coalition and succour in England were lost, but attachment to York was alive in many an English bosom: the preparations of arms they had made still existed; it was resolved therefore in early spring to descend on the English shores.
The duke of York, deeply grieved by the ruin that visited his friends, stung to the heart by Clifford's treachery, resolved meanwhile to seek relief in action. Could not his presence do much? Unknown in England, he might visit the Yorkists, rouse their affection, and form such a union, as, assisted afterwards by his friends and their little fleet, would contribute to insure success. His friends did not approve of the hazard to which he exposed himself; but everything they alleged on this score, only confirmed his purpose. "All endanger themselves—all die for me," he cried; "shall I alone be ingloriously safe?" The first sight therefore that presented itself to Lord Barry and Frion on the deck of the Adalid, was Prince Richard and Edmund Plantagenet.
The duke's presence did not change the purpose of Frion's visit. De Faro got his vessel in readiness for the voyage; and Lord Barry, as evening closed in, prepared to take his stand—not singly: Richard insisted on sharing his watch; docile as he usually was, remonstrance had now no effect; hitherto he had given himself up to guarded safety, now he seemed in love with peril, resolved to court her at every opportunity. The risk to which Monina exposed herself, made him obstinate. He would have thought himself untrue to the laws of chivalry, a recreant knight, had he not hastened to protect her; and, more than this—for the inborn impulses of the heart are more peremptory than men's most sacred laws—he loved; and a mother draws not more instinctively her first-born to her bosom, than does the true and passionate lover feel impelled to hazard even life for the sake of her he loves, to shield her from every danger, or to share them gladly with her.