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As to Henry, it, of course, need not be said, that half the price offered would have bought him to break an oath made upon the true cross itself. The promise he had made to Mary, broken in intent before it was given, stood not for an instant in the way of the French king's wishes; and Henry, with a promptitude begotten of greed, was as hasty insending an embassy to accept the offer as Francis had been to make it. It mattered not to him what new torture he put upon his sister; the price, I believe, was sufficient to have induced him to cut off her head with his own hands.
If Francis and Henry were quick in their movements, Mary was quicker. Her plan was made in the twinkling of an eye. Immediately upon seeing me at the palace she sent for Queen Claude, with whom she had become fast friends, and told her all she knew. She did not know of the scheme for the Savoy marriage, though Queen Claude did, and fully explained it to Mary. Naturally enough, Claude would be glad to get Mary as far away from France and her husband as possible, and was only too willing to lend a helping hand to our purpose, or Mary's, rather, for she was the leader.
We quickly agreed among ourselves that Mary and Queen Claude should within an hour go out in Claude's new coach for the ostensible purpose of hearing mass. Brandon and I were to go to the same little chapel in which Jane and I had been married, where Mary said the little priest could administer the sacrament of marriage and perform the ceremony as well as if he were thrice as large.
I hurriedly found Brandon and repaired to the little chapel, where we waited for a very long time, we thought. At last the two queens entered as if to make their devotions. As soon as Brandon and Mary caught sight of each other, Queen Claude andI began to examine the shrines and decipher the Latin inscriptions. If these two had not married soon they would have been the death of me. I was compelled at length to remind them that time was very precious just at that juncture, whereupon Mary, who was half laughing, half crying, lifted her hands to her hair and let it fall in all its lustrous wealth down over her shoulders. When Brandon saw this, he fell upon his knee and kissed the hem of her gown, and she, stooping over him, raised him to his feet and placed her hand in his.
Thus Mary was married to the man to save whose life she had four months before married the French king.
She and Queen Claude had forgotten nothing, and all arrangements were completed for the flight. A messenger had been dispatched two hours before with an order from Queen Claude that a ship should be waiting at Dieppe, ready to sail immediately upon our arrival.
After the ceremony Claude quickly bound up Mary's hair, and the queens departed from the chapel in their coach. We soon followed, meeting them again at St. Denis gate, where we found the best of horses and four sturdy men awaiting us. The messenger to Dieppe who had preceded us would arrange for relays, and as Mary, according to her wont when she had another to rely upon, had taken the opportunity to become thoroughly frightened, no time was lost. We made these forty leaguesin less than twenty-four hours from the time of starting; having paused only for a short rest at a little town near Rouen, which city we carefully passed around.
We had little fear of being overtaken at the rate we were riding, but Mary said she supposed the wind would die down for a month immediately upon our arrival at Dieppe. Fortunately no one pursued us, thanks to Queen Claude, who had spread the report that Mary was ill, and fortunately, also, much to Mary's surprise and delight, when we arrived at Dieppe, as fair a wind as a sailor's heart could wish was blowing right up the channel. It was a part of the system of relays—horses, ship, and wind.
"When the very wind blows for our special use, we may surely dismiss fear," said Mary, laughing and clapping her hands, but nearly ready for tears, notwithstanding.
The ship was a fine new one, well fitted to breast any sea, and learning this, we at once agreed that upon landing in England, Mary and I should go to London and win over the king if possible. We felt some confidence in being able to do this, as we counted upon Wolsey's help, but in case of failure we still had our plans. Brandon was to take the ship to a certain island off the Suffolk coast and there await us the period of a year if need be, as Mary might, in case of Henry's obstinacy, be detained; then re-victual and re-man the ship and outthrough the North Sea for their former haven, New Spain.
In case of Henry's consent, how they were to live in a style fit for a princess, Brandon did not know, unless Henry should open his heart and provide for them—a doubtful contingency upon which they did not base much hope. At a pinch, they might go down into Suffolk and live next to Jane and me on Brandon's estates. To this Mary readily agreed, and said it was what she wanted above all else.
There was one thing now in favor of the king's acquiescence: during the last three months Brandon had become very necessary to his amusement, and amusement was his greatest need and aim in life.
Mary and I went to London to see the king, having landed at Southampton for the purpose of throwing off the scent any one who might seek the ship. The king was delighted to see his sister, and kissed her over and over again.
Mary had as hard a game to play as ever fell to the lot of woman, but she was equal to the emergency if any woman ever was. She did not give Henry the slightest hint that she knew anything of the Count of Savoy episode, but calmly assumed that of course her brother had meant literally what he said when he made the promise as to the second marriage.
The king soon asked: "But what are you doinghere? They have hardly buried Louis as yet, have they?"
"I am sure I do not know," answered Mary, "and I certainly care less. I married him only during his life, and not for one moment afterwards, so I came away and left them to bury him or keep him, as they choose; I care not which."
"But—" began Henry, when Mary interrupted him, saying: "I will tell you—"
I had taken good care that Wolsey should be present at this interview; so we four, the king, Wolsey, Mary and myself, quietly stepped into a little alcove away from the others, and prepared to listen to Mary's tale, which was told with all her dramatic eloquence and feminine persuasiveness. She told of the ignoble insults of Francis, of his vile proposals—insisted upon, almost to the point of force—carefully concealing, however, the offer to divorce Claude and make her queen, which proposition might have had its attractions for Henry. She told of her imprisonment in the palace des Tournelles, and of her deadly peril and many indignities, and the tale lost nothing in the telling. Then she finished by throwing her arms around Henry's neck in a passionate flood of tears and begging him to protect her—to save her! save her! save her! his little sister.
It was all such perfect acting that for the time I forgot it was acting, and a great lump swelled up in my throat. It was, however, only for the instant,and when Mary, whose face was hidden from all the others, on Henry's breast, smiled slyly at me from the midst of her tears and sobs, I burst into a laugh that was like to have spoiled everything. Henry turned quickly upon me, and I tried to cover it by pretending that I was sobbing. Wolsey helped me out by putting a corner of his gown to his eyes, when Henry, seeing us all so affected, began to catch the fever and swell with indignation. He put Mary away from him, and striding up and down the room exclaimed, in a voice that all could hear, "The dog! the dog! to treat my sister so. My sister! My father's daughter! My sister! The first princess of England and queen of France for his mistress! By every god that ever breathed, I'll chastise this scurvy cur until he howls again. I swear it by my crown, if it cost me my kingdom," and so on until words failed him. But see how he kept his oath, and see how he and Francis hobnobbed not long afterward at the Field of the Cloth of Gold.
Henry came back to Mary and began to question her, when she repeated the story for him. Then it was she told of my timely arrival, and how, in order to escape and protect herself from Francis, she had been compelled to marry Brandon and flee with us.
She said: "I so wanted to come home to England and be married where my dear brother could give me away, but I was in such mortal dread of Francis, and there was no other means of escape, so—"
"God's death! If I had but one other sister like you, I swear before heaven I'd have myself hanged. Married to Brandon? Fool! idiot! what do you mean? Married to Brandon! Jesu! You'll drive me mad! Just one other like you in England, and the whole damned kingdom might sink; I'd have none of it. Married to Brandon without my consent!"
"No! no! brother," answered Mary softly, leaning affectionately against his bulky form; "do you suppose I would do that? Now don't be unkind to me when I have been away from you so long! You gave your consent four months ago. Do you not remember? You know I would never have done it otherwise."
"Yes, I know! You would not do anything—you did not want; and it seems equally certain that in the end you always manage to do everything you do want. Hell and furies!"
"Why! brother, I will leave it to my Lord Bishop of York if you did not promise me that day, in this very room, and almost on this very spot, that if I would marry Louis of France I might marry whomsoever I wished when he should die. Of course you knew, after what I had said, whom I should choose, so I went to a little church in company with Queen Claude, and took my hair down and married him, and I am his wife, and no power on earth can make it otherwise," and she looked up into his face with a defiant littlepout, as much as to say, "Now, what are you going to do about it?"
Henry looked at her in surprise and then burst out laughing. "Married to Brandon with your hair down?" And he roared again, holding his sides. "Well, you do beat the devil; there's no denying that. Poor old Louis! That was a good joke on him. I'll stake my crown he was glad to die! You kept it warm enough for him, I make no doubt."
"Well," said Mary, with a little shrug of her shoulders, "he would marry me."
"Yes, and now poor Brandon doesn't know the trouble ahead of him, either. He has my pity, by Jove!"
"Oh, that is different," returned Mary, and her eyes burned softly, and her whole person fairly radiated, so expressive was she of the fact that "it was different."
Different? Yes, as light from darkness; as love from loathing; as heaven from the other place; as Brandon from Louis; and that tells it all.
Henry turned to Wolsey: "Have you ever heard anything equal to it, my Lord Bishop?"
My Lord Bishop, of course, never had; nothing that even approached it.
"What are we to do about it?" continued Henry, still addressing Wolsey.
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The bishop assumed a thoughtful expression, as if to appear deliberate in so great a matter, and said: "I see but one thing that can be done," andthen he threw in a few soft, oily words upon the troubled waters that made Mary wish she had never called him "thou butcher's cur," and Henry, after a pause, asked: "Where is Brandon? He is a good fellow, after all, and what we can't help we must endure. He'll find punishment enough in you. Tell him to come home—I suppose you have him hid around some place—and we'll try to do something for him."
"What will you do for him, brother?" said Mary, not wanting to give the king's friendly impulse time to weaken.
"Oh! don't bother about that now," but she held him fast by the hand and would not let go.
"Well, what do you want? Out with it. I suppose I might as well give it up easily, you will have it sooner or later. Out with it and be done."
"Could you make him Duke of Suffolk?"
"Eh? I suppose so. What say you, my Lord of York?"
York was willing—thought it would be just the thing.
"So be it then," said Henry. "Now I am going out to hunt and will not listen to another word. You will coax me out of my kingdom for that fellow yet." He was about to leave the room when he turned to Mary, saying: "By the way, sister, can you have Brandon here by Sunday next? I am to have a joust."
Mary thought she could, ... and the great event was accomplished.
One false word, one false syllable, one false tone would have spoiled it all, had not Mary—but I fear you are weary with hearing so much of Mary.
So after all, Mary, though a queen, came portionless to Brandon. He got the title, but never received the estates of Suffolk; all he received with her was the money I carried to him from France. Nevertheless, Brandon thought himself the richest man in all the earth, and surely he was one of the happiest. Such a woman as Mary is dangerous, except in a state of complete subjection—but she was bound hand and foot in the silken meshes of her own weaving, and her power for bliss-making was almost infinite.
And now it was, as all who read may know, that this fair, sweet, wilful Mary dropped out of history; a sure token that her heart was her husband's throne; her soul his empire; her every wish his subject, and her will, so masterful with others, the meek and lowly servant of her strong but gentle lord and master, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk.
Sir Edwin Caskoden's history differs in some minor details from other authorities of the time. Hall's chronicle says Sir William Brandon, father of Charles, had the honor of being killed by the hand of Richard III himself, at Bosworth Field, and the points wherein his account of Charles Brandon's life differs from that of Sir Edwin may be gathered from the index to the 1548 edition of that work, which is as follows:
Charles Brandon, Esquire,Is made knight,Created Viscount Lysle,Made duke of Suffolke,Goeth to Paris to the Iustes,Doeth valiantly there,Returneth into England,He is sent into Fraunce to fetch home the French quene into England,He maryeth her,and so on until"He dyeth and is buryed at Wyndesore."
No mention is made in any of the chronicles of the office of Master of Dance. In all other essential respects Sir Edwin is corroborated by his contemporaries.
When a man does something by which the world is attracted, we immediately feel a curiosity to know all about him personally. Mr. Charles Major, of Shelbyville, Indiana, wrote the wonderfully popular historical romance, When Knighthood was in Flower, which has already sold over a quarter million copies.
It is not mere luck that makes a piece of fiction acceptable to the public. The old saying, "Where there is so much smoke there must be fire," holds good in the case of smoke about a novel. When a book moves many people of varying temperaments and in all circles of intelligence there is power in it. Behind such a book we have the right to imagine an author endowed with admirable gifts of imagination. The ancient saying, "The cup is glad of the wine it holds," was but another way of expressing the rule which judges a tree by its fruit and a man by his works; for out of character comes style, and out of a man's nature is his taste distilled. Every soul, like the cup, is glad of what it holds.
Mr. Major himself has said, in his straightforwardway, "It is what a man does that counts." By this rule of measurement Mr. Major has a liberal girth. The writing of When Knighthood was in Flower was a deed of no ordinary dimensions, especially when we take into account the fact that the writer had not been trained to authorship or to the literary artist's craft; but was a country lawyer, with an office to sweep every morning, and a few clients with whom to worry over dilatory cases and doubtful fees.
The law, as a profession, is said to be a jealous mistress, ever ready and maliciously anxious to drop a good-sized stumbling block in the path of her devotee whenever he appears to be straying in the direction of another love. Indeed, many are the young men who, on turning from Blackstone and Kent in a comfortable law office to Scott and Byron, have lost a lawyer's living, only to grasp the empty air of failure in the fascinating garret of the scribbler. But "nothing succeeds like success," and genius has a way of changing rules and forcing the gates of fortune. And when we see the proof that a fresh genius has once more wrought the miracle of reversing all the fine logic of facts, so as to bring success and fame out of the very circumstances and conditions which are said to render the feat impossible, we all wish to know how he did it.
Balzac, when he felt the inspiration of a new novel in his brain, retired to an obscure room, and there, with a pot of villainous black coffee at his elbow,wrote night and day, almost without food and sleep, until the book was finished. General Lew Wallace put Ben Hur on paper in the open air of a beech grove, with a bit of yellowish canvas stretched above him to soften the light. Some authors use only the morning hours for their literary work; others prefer the silence of night. A few cannot write save when surrounded by books, pictures and luxurious furniture, while some must have a bare room with nothing in it to distract attention. Mr. Charles Major wrote When Knighthood was in Flower on Sunday afternoons, the only time he had free from the exactions of the law. He was full of his subject, however, and doubtless his clients paid the charges in the way of losses through demurrers neglected and motions and exceptions not properly presented!
One thing about Mr. Major's work deserves special mention; its shows conscientious mastery of details, a sure evidence of patient study. What it may lack as literature is compensated for in lawful coin of human interest and in general truthfulness to the facts and the atmosphere of the life he depicts. When asked how he arrived at his accurate knowledge of old London—London in the time of Henry VIII—he fetched an old book—Stow's Survey of London—from his library and said:
"You remember in my novel that Mary goes one night from Bridewell Castle to Billingsgate Ward through strange streets and alleys. Well, thatjourney I made with Mary, aided by Stow's Survey, with his map of old London before me."
It is no contradiction of terms to speak of fiction as authentic. Mere vraisemblance is all very well in works of pure imagination; but a historical romance does not satisfy the reader's sense of justice unless its setting and background and atmosphere are true to time, place and historical facts. Mr. Major felt the demand of his undertaking and respected it. He collected old books treating of English life and manners in the reign of Henry VIII, preferring to saturate his mind with what writers nearest the time had to say, rather than depend upon recent historians. In this he chose well, for the romancer's art, different from the historian's, needs the literary shades and colors of the period it would portray.
Another clever choice on the part of our author was to put the telling of the story in the mouth of his heroine's contemporary. This, of course, had often been done by romancers before Mr. Major, but he chose well, nevertheless. Fine literary finish was not to be expected of a Master of the Dance early in the sixteenth century; so that Sir Edwin Caskoden, and not Mr. Major, is accepted by the reader as responsible for the book's narrative, descriptive and dramatic style. This ruse, so to call it, serves a double purpose; it hangs the glamour of distance over the pages, and it puts the reader in direct communication, as it were, with the characters in thebook. The narrator is garrulous, and often far from artistic with his scenes and incidents; but it is Caskoden doing all this, not Mr. Charles Major, and we never think of bringing him to task! Undoubtedly it is good art to do just what Mr. Major has done—that is, it is good art to present a picture of life in the terms of the period in which it flourished. It might have been better art to clothe the story in the highest terms of literature; but that would have required a Shakespeare.
The greatest beauty of Mr. Major's story as a piece of craftsmanship is its frank show of self-knowledge on the author's part. He knew his equipment, and he did not attempt to go beyond what it enabled him to do and do well.
His romance will not go down the ages as a companion of Scott's, Thackeray's, Hugo's and Dumas'; but read at any time by any fresh-minded person, it will afford that shock of pleasure which always comes of a good story enthusiastically told, and of a pretty love-drama frankly and joyously presented. Mr. Major has the true dramatic vision and notable cleverness in the art of making effective conversation.
The little Indiana town in which Mr. Major lives and practices the law is about twenty miles from Indianapolis, and hitherto has been best known as the former residence of Thomas A. Hendricks, late Vice-President of the United States. Already the tide of kodak artists and autograph hunters hasfound our popular author out, and his clients are being pushed aside by vigorous interviewers and reporters in search of something about the next book. But the author of When Knighthood was in Flower is an extremely difficult person to handle. It is told of him that he offers a very emphatic objection to having his home life and private affairs flaunted before the public under liberal headlines and with "copious illustrations."
Mr. Major is forty-three and happily married; well-built and dark; looking younger than his years, genial, quiet and domestic to a degree; he lives what would seem to be an ideal life in a charming home, across the threshold of which the curiosity of the public need not try to pass. As might be taken for granted, Mr. Major has been all his life a loving student of history.
Perhaps to the fact that he has never studied romance as it is in art is largely due his singular power over the materials and atmosphere of history. At all events, there is something remarkable in his vivid pictures not in the least traceable to literary form nor dependent upon a brilliant command of diction. The characters in his book are warm, passionate human beings, and the air they breathe is real air. The critic may wince and make faces over lapses from taste, and protest against a literary style which cannot be defended from any point of view; yet there is Mary in flesh and blood, and there is Caskoden, a veritable prig of a good fellow—there,indeed, are all thedramatis personae, not merely true to life, but living beings.
And speaking ofdramatis personae, Mr. Major tells how, soon after his book was published, his morning mail brought him an interesting letter from a prominent New York manager, pointing out the dramatic possibilities of When Knighthood was in Flower and asking for the right to produce it. While this letter was still under consideration, a telegram was received at the Shelbyville office which read: "I want the dramatic rights to When Knighthood was in Flower." It was signed "Julia Marlowe." Mr. Major felt that this was enough for one morning, so he escaped to Indianapolis, and after a talk with his publishers, left for St. Louis and answered Miss Marlowe's telegram in person. At the first interview she was enthusiastic and he was confident. She gave him a box for the next night's performance, which Miss Marlowe arranged should be "As You Like It." After the play the author was enthusiastic and the actress confident.
At Cincinnati, the following week, the contract was signed and the search for the dramatist was begun. That the story would lend itself happily to stage production must have occurred even to the thoughtless reader. But it is one thing to see the scenes of a play fairly sticking out, as the saying is, from the pages of a book, and quite another to gather together and make of them a dramatic entity. Miss Marlowe was determined that the book shouldbe given to a playwright whose dramatic experience and artistic sense could be relied on to lead him out of the rough places, up to the high plane of convincing and finished workmanship. Mr. Paul Kester, after some persuasion, undertook the work. The result is wholly satisfactory to author, actress and manager—a remarkable achievement indeed!
Mr. Major's biography shows a fine, strong American life. He was born in Indianapolis, July 25, 1856. Thirteen years later he went with his father's family to Shelbyville, where he was graduated from the public school in 1872, and in 1875 he concluded his course in the University of Michigan. Later he read law with his father, and in 1877 was admitted to the bar. Eight years later he stood for the Legislature and was elected on the democratic ticket. He served with credit one term, and has since declined all political honors.
The title, When Knighthood was in Flower, was not chosen by Mr. Major, whose historical taste was satisfied with Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. And who knows but that the author's title would have proved just the weight to sink a fine book into obscurity? Mr. John J. Curtis, of the Bowen-Merrill Company, suggested When Knighthood was in Flower, a phrase taken from Leigh Hunt's poem, the Gentle Armour:
"There lived a knight, when knighthood was in flower,Who charmed alike the tilt-yard and the bower."
"There lived a knight, when knighthood was in flower,Who charmed alike the tilt-yard and the bower."
Typographical errors corrected in text:Page 15: Gentlema replaced with GentlemanPage 102: way replaced with wasPage 154: extra 'the' removedPage 306: Garcon replaced with Garçon
Typographical errors corrected in text:
Page 15: Gentlema replaced with GentlemanPage 102: way replaced with wasPage 154: extra 'the' removedPage 306: Garcon replaced with Garçon