The Last of the Barons Part 31

The words and the tone of the earl for a moment awed even Isabel; but after a pause, she said suddenly, "And for this, then, Clarence hath joined your quarrel and shared your exile?-for this,-that he may place the eternal barrier of the Lancastrian line between himself and the English throne?"

"I would fain hope," answered the earl, calmly, "that Clarence will view our hard position more charitably than thou. If he gain not all that I could desire, should success crown our arms, he will, at least, gain much; for often and ever did thy husband, Isabel, urge me to stern measures against Edward, when I soothed him and restrained. Mort Dieu! how often did he complain of slight and insult from Elizabeth and her minions, of open affront from Edward, of parsimony to his wants as prince,-of a life, in short, humbled and made bitter by all the indignity and the gall which scornful power can inflict on dependent pride. If he gain not the throne, he will gain, at least, the succession in thy right to the baronies of Beauchamp, the mighty duchy, and the vast heritage of York, the vice-royalty of Ireland. Never prince of the blood had wealth and honours equal to those that shall await thy lord. For the rest, I drew him not into my quarrel; long before would he have drawn me into his; nor doth it become thee, Isabel, as child and as sister, to repent, if the husband of my daughter felt as brave men feel, without calculation of gain and profit, the insult offered to his lady's House. But if here I overgauge his chivalry and love to me and mine, or discontent his ambition and his hopes, Mort Dieu! we hold him not a captive. Edward will hail his overtures of peace; let him make terms with his brother, and return."

"I will report to him what you say, my lord," said Isabel, with cold brevity and, bending her haughty head in formal reverence, she advanced to the door. Anne sprang forward and caught her hand.

"Oh, Isabel!" she whispered, "in our father's sad and gloomy hour can you leave him thus?" and the sweet lady burst into tears.

"Anne," retorted Isabel, bitterly, "thy heart is Lancastrian; and what, peradventure, grieves my father hath but joy for thee."

Anne drew back, pale and trembling, and her sister swept from the room.

The earl, though he had not overheard the whispered sentences which pa.s.sed between his daughters, had watched them closely, and his lip quivered with emotion as Isabel closed the door.

"Come hither, my Anne," he said tenderly; "thou who hast thy mother's face, never hast a harsh thought for thy father."

As Anne threw herself on Warwick's breast, he continued, "And how camest thou to learn that Margaret disowns a deed that, if done by her command, would render my union with her cause a sacrilegious impiety to the dead?"

Anne coloured, and nestled her head still closer to her father's bosom. Her mother regarded her confusion and her silence with an anxious eye.

The wing of the palace in which the earl's apartments were situated was appropriated to himself and household, flanked to the left by an ab.u.t.ting pile containing state-chambers, never used by the austere and thrifty Louis, save on great occasions of pomp or revel; and, as we have before observed, looking on a garden, which was generally solitary and deserted. From this garden, while Anne yet strove for words to answer her father, and the countess yet watched her embarra.s.sment, suddenly came the soft strain of a Provencal lute; while a low voice, rich, and modulated at once by a deep feeling and an exquisite art that would have given effect to even simpler words, breathed- THE LAY OF THE HEIR OF LANCASTER

"His birthright but a father's name, A grandsire's hero-sword, He dwelt within the stranger's land, The friendless, homeless lord!"

"Yet one dear hope, too dear to tell, Consoled the exiled man; The angels have their home in heaven And gentle thoughts in Anne."

At that name the voice of the singer trembled, and paused a moment; the earl, who at first had scarcely listened to what he deemed but the ill-seasoned gallantry of one of the royal minstrels, started in proud surprise, and Anne herself, tightening her clasp round her father's neck, burst into pa.s.sionate sobs. The eye of the countess met that of her lord; but she put her finger to her lips in sign to him to listen. The song was resumed- "Recall the single sunny time, In childhood's April weather, When he and thou, the boy and girl, Roved hand in band together."

"When round thy young companion knelt The princes of the isle; And priest and people prayed their G.o.d, On England's heir to smile."

The earl uttered a half-stifled exclamation, but the minstrel heard not the interruption, and continued,- "Methinks the sun hath never smiled Upon the exiled man, Like that bright morning when the boy Told all his soul to Anne."

"No; while his birthright but a name, A grandsire's hero-sword, He would not woo the lofty maid To love the banished lord."

"But when, with clarion, fife, and drum, He claims and wins his own; When o'er the deluge drifts his ark, To rest upon a throne."

"Then, wilt thou deign to hear the hope That blessed the exiled man, When pining for his father's crown To deck the brows of Anne?"

The song ceased, and there was silence within the chamber, broken but by Anne's low yet pa.s.sionate weeping. The earl gently strove to disengage her arms from his neck; but she, mistaking his intention, sank on her knees, and covering her face with her hands, exclaimed,- "Pardon! pardon! pardon him, if not me!"

"What have I to pardon? What hast thou concealed from me? Can I think that thou hast met, in secret, one who-"

"In secret! Never, never, Father! This is the third time only that I have heard his voice since we have been at Amboise, save when-save when-"

"Go on."

"Save when King Louis presented him to me in the revel under the name of the Count de F--, and he asked me if I could forgive his mother for Lord Clifford's crime."

"It is, then, as the rhyme proclaimed; and it is Edward of Lancaster who loves and woos the daughter of Lord Warwick!"

Something in her father's voice made Anne remove her hands from her face, and look up to him with a thrill of timid joy. Upon his brow, indeed, frowned no anger, upon his lip smiled no scorn. At that moment all his haughty grief at the curse of circ.u.mstance which drove him to his hereditary foe had vanished. Though Montagu had obtained from Oxford some glimpse of the desire which the more sagacious and temperate Lancastrians already entertained for that alliance, and though Louis had already hinted its expediency to the earl, yet, till now, Warwick himself had naturally conceived that the prince shared the enmity of his mother, and that such a union, however politic, was impossible; but now indeed there burst upon him the full triumph of revenge and pride. Edward of York dared to woo Anne to dishonour, Edward of Lancaster dared not even woo her as his wife till his crown was won! To place upon the throne the very daughter the ungrateful monarch had insulted; to make her he would have humbled not only the instrument of his fall, but the successor of his purple; to unite in one glorious strife the wrongs of the man and the pride of the father,-these were the thoughts that sparkled in the eye of the king-maker, and flushed with a fierce rapture the dark cheek, already hollowed by pa.s.sion and care. He raised his daughter from the floor, and placed her in her mother's arms, but still spoke not.

"This, then, was thy secret, Anne," whispered the countess; "and I half foreguessed it, when, last night, I knelt beside thy couch to pray, and overheard thee murmur in thy dreams."

"Sweet mother, thou forgivest me; but my father-ah, he speaks not. One word! Father, Father, not even his love could console me if I angered thee!"

The earl, who had remained rooted to the spot, his eyes s.h.i.+ning thoughtfully under his dark brows, and his hand slightly raised, as if piercing into the future, and mapping out its airy realm, turned quickly,- "I go to the heir of Lancaster; if this boy be bold and true, worthy of England and of thee, we will change the sad ditty of that scrannel lute into such a storm of trumpets as beseems the triumph of a conqueror and the marriage of a prince!"

CHAPTER VIII. HOW THE HEIR OF LANCASTER MEETS THE KING-MAKER.

In truth, the young prince, in obedience to a secret message from the artful Louis, had repaired to the court of Amboise under the name of the Count de F--. The French king had long before made himself acquainted with Prince Edward's romantic attachment to the earl's daughter, through the agent employed by Edward to transmit his portrait to Anne at Rouen; and from him, probably, came to Oxford the suggestion which that n.o.bleman had hazarded to Montagu; and now that it became his policy seriously and earnestly to espouse the cause of his kinswoman Margaret, he saw all the advantage to his cold statecraft which could be drawn from a boyish love. Louis had a well-founded fear of the warlike spirit and military talents of Edward IV.; and this fear had induced him hitherto to refrain from openly espousing the cause of the Lancastrians, though it did not prevent his abetting such seditions and intrigues as could confine the attention of the martial Plantagenet to the perils of his own realm. But now that the breach between Warwick and the king had taken place; now that the earl could no longer curb the desire of the Yorkist monarch to advance his hereditary claims to the fairest provinces of France,-nay, peradventure, to France itself,-while the defection of Lord Warwick gave to the Lancastrians the first fair hope of success in urging their own pretensions to the English throne, he bent all the powers of his intellect and his will towards the restoration of a natural ally and the downfall of a dangerous foe. But he knew that Margaret and her Lancastrian favourers could not of themselves suffice to achieve a revolution,-that they could only succeed under cover of the popularity and the power of Warwick, while he perceived all the art it would require to make Margaret forego her vindictive nature and long resentment, and to supple the pride of the great earl into recognizing as a sovereign the woman who had branded him as a traitor.

Long before Lord Oxford's arrival, Louis, with all that address which belonged to him, had gradually prepared the earl to familiarize himself to the only alternative before him, save that, indeed, of powerless sense of wrong and obscure and lasting exile. The French king looked with more uneasiness to the scruples of Margaret; and to remove these, he trusted less to his own skill than to her love for her only son.

His youth pa.s.sed princ.i.p.ally in Anjou-that court of minstrels-young Edward's gallant and ardent temper had become deeply imbued with the southern poetry and romance. Perhaps the very feud between his House and Lord Warwick's, though both claimed their common descent from John of Gaunt, had tended, by the contradictions in the human heart, to endear to him the recollection of the gentle Anne. He obeyed with joy the summons of Louis, repaired to the court, was presented to Anne as the Count de F--, found himself recognized at the first glance (for his portrait still lay upon her heart, as his remembrance in its core), and, twice before the song we have recited, had ventured, agreeably to the sweet customs of Anjou, to address the lady of his love under the shade of the starlit summer copses. But on this last occasion, he had departed from his former discretion; hitherto he had selected an hour of deeper night, and ventured but beneath the lattice of the maiden's chamber when the rest of the palace was hushed in sleep. And the fearless declaration of his rank and love now hazarded was prompted by one who contrived to turn to grave uses the wildest whim of the minstrel, the most romantic enthusiasm of youth.

Louis had just learned from Oxford the result of his interview with Warwick. And about the same time the French king had received a letter from Margaret, announcing her departure from the castle of Verdun for Tours, where she prayed him to meet her forthwith, and stating that she had received from England tidings that might change all her schemes, and more than ever forbid the possibility of a reconciliation with the Earl of Warwick.

The king perceived the necessity of calling into immediate effect the aid on which he had relied, in the presence and pa.s.sion of the young prince. He sought him at once; he found him in a remote part of the gardens, and overheard him breathing to himself the lay he had just composed.

"Pasque Dieu!" said the king, laying his hand on the young man's shoulder, "if thou wilt but repeat that song where and when I bid thee, I promise that before the month ends Lord Warwick shall pledge thee his daughter's hand; and before the year is closed thou shalt sit beside Lord Warwick's daughter in the halls of Westminster."

And the royal troubadour took the counsel of the king.

The song had ceased; the minstrel emerged from the bosquets, and stood upon the sward, as, from the postern of the palace, walked with a slow step, a form from which it became him not, as prince or as lover, in peace or in war, to shrink. The first stars had now risen; the light, though serene, was pale and dim. The two men-the one advancing, the other motionless-gazed on each other in grave silence. As Count de F--, amidst the young n.o.bles in the king's train, the earl had scarcely noticed the heir of England. He viewed him now with a different eye: in secret complacency, for, with a soldier's weakness, the soldier-baron valued men too much for their outward seeming, he surveyed a figure already masculine and stalwart, though still in the graceful symmetry of fair eighteen.

"A youth of a goodly presence," muttered the earl, "with the dignity that commands in peace, and the sinews that can strive against hards.h.i.+p and death in war."

He approached, and said calmly: "Sir minstrel, he who woos either fame or beauty may love the lute, but should wield the sword. At least, so methinks had the Fifth Henry said to him who boasts for his heritage the sword of Agincourt."

"O n.o.ble earl!" exclaimed the prince, touched by words far gentler than he had dared to hope, despite his bold and steadfast mien, and giving way to frank and graceful emotion, "O n.o.ble earl! since thou knowest me; since my secret is told; since, in that secret, I have proclaimed a hope as dear to me as a crown and dearer far than life, can I hope that thy rebuke but veils thy favour, and that, under Lord Warwick's eye, the grandson of Henry V. shall approve himself worthy of the blood that kindles in his veins?"

"Fair sir and prince," returned the earl, whose hardy and generous nature the emotion and fire of Edward warmed and charmed, "there are, alas! deep memories of blood and wrong-the sad deeds and wrathful words of party feud and civil war-between thy royal mother and myself; and though we may unite now against a common foe, much I fear that the Lady Margaret would brook ill a closer friends.h.i.+p, a nearer tie, than the exigency of the hour between Richard Nevile and her son."

"No, Sir Earl, let me hope you misthink her. Hot and impetuous, but not mean and treacherous, the moment that she accepts the service of thine arm she must forget that thou hast been her foe; and if I, as my father's heir, return to England, it is in the trust that a new era will commence. Free from the pa.s.sionate enmities of either faction, Yorkist and Lancastrian are but Englishmen to me. Justice to all who serve us, pardon for all who have opposed."

The prince paused, and, even in the dim light, his kingly aspect gave effect to his kingly words. "And if this resolve be such as you approve; if you, great earl, be that which even your foes proclaim, a man whose power depends less on lands and va.s.sals-broad though the one, and numerous though the other-than on well-known love for England, her glory and her peace, it rests with you to bury forever in one grave the feuds of Lancaster and York! What Yorkist who hath fought at Towton or St. Albans under Lord Warwick's standard, will lift sword against the husband of Lord Warwick's daughter? What Lancastrian will not forgive a Yorkist, when Lord Warwick, the kinsman of Duke Richard, becomes father to the Lancastrian heir, and bulwark to the Lancastrian throne? O Warwick, if not for my sake, nor for the sake of full redress against the ingrate whom thou repentest to have placed on my father's throne, at least for the sake of England, for the healing of her bleeding wounds, for the union of her divided people, hear the grandson of Henry V., who sues to thee for thy daughter's hand!"

The royal wooer bent his knee as he spoke. The mighty subject saw and prevented the impulse of the prince who had forgotten himself in the lover; the hand which he caught he lifted to his lips, and the next moment, in manly and soldierlike embrace, the prince's young arm was thrown over the broad shoulder of the king-maker.

CHAPTER IX. THE INTERVIEW OF EARL WARWICK AND QUEEN MARGARET.

Louis hastened to meet Margaret at Tours; thither came also her father Rene, her brother John of Calabria, Yolante her sister, and the Count of Vaudemonte. The meeting between the queen and Rene was so touching as to have drawn tears to the hard eyes of Louis XI.; but, that emotion over, Margaret evinced how little affliction had humbled her high spirit, or softened her angry pa.s.sions: she interrupted Louis in every argument for reconciliation with Warwick. "Not with honour to myself and to my son," she exclaimed, "can I pardon that cruel earl, the main cause of King Henry's downfall! in vain patch up a hollow peace between us,-a peace of form and parchment! My spirit never can be contented with him, ne pardon!"

For several days she maintained a language which betrayed the chief cause of her own impolitic pa.s.sions, that had lost her crown. Showing to Louis the letter despatched to her, proffering the hand of the Lady Elizabeth to her son, she asked if that were not a more profitable party [See, for this curious pa.s.sage of secret history, Sir H. Ellis's "Original Letters from the Harleian Ma.n.u.scripts," second series, vol. i., letter 42.], and if it were necessary that she should forgive,-whether it were not more queenly to treat with Edward than with a twofold rebel?

In fact, the queen would perhaps have fallen into Gloucester's artful snare, despite all the arguments and even the half-menaces [Louis would have thrown over Margaret's cause if Warwick had demanded it; he instructed MM. de Concressault and du Plessis to a.s.sure the earl that he would aid him to the utmost to reconquer England either for the Queen Margaret or for any one else he chose (on pour qui il voudra): for that he loved the earl better than Margaret or her son.-BRANTE, t. ix. 276.] of the more penetrating Louis, but for a counteracting influence which Richard had not reckoned upon. Prince Edward, who had lingered behind Louis, arrived from Amboise, and his persuasions did more than all the representations of the crafty king. The queen loved her son with that intenseness which characterizes the one soft affection of violent natures. Never had she yet opposed his most childish whim, and now he spoke with the eloquence of one who put his heart and his life's life into his words. At last, reluctantly, she consented to an interview with Warwick. The earl, accompanied by Oxford, arrived at Tours, and the two n.o.bles were led into the presence of Margaret by King Louis.

The reader will picture to himself a room darkened by thick curtains drawn across the cas.e.m.e.nt, for the proud woman wished not the earl to detect on her face either the ravages of years or the emotions of offended pride. In a throne chair, placed on the dais, sat the motionless queen, her hands clasping, convulsively, the arms of the fauteuil, her features pale and rigid; and behind the chair leaned the graceful figure of her son. The person of the Lancastrian prince was little less remarkable than that of his hostile namesake, but its character was distinctly different. ["According to some of the French chroniclers, the Prince of Wales, who was one of the handsomest and most accomplished princes in Europe, was very desirous of becoming the husband of Anne Nevile," etc.-Miss STRICKLAND: Life of Margaret of Anjou.] Spare, like Henry V., almost to the manly defect of leanness, his proportions were slight to those which gave such portly majesty to the vast-chested Edward, but they evinced the promise of almost equal strength,-the muscles hardened to iron by early exercise in arms, the sap of youth never wasted by riot and debauch. His short purple manteline, trimmed with ermine, was embroidered with his grandfather's favourite device, "the silver swan;" he wore on his breast the badge of St. George; and the single ostrich plume, which made his cognizance as Prince of Wales, waved over a fair and ample forehead, on which were even then traced the lines of musing thought and high design; his chestnut hair curled close to his n.o.ble head; his eye shone dark and brilliant beneath the deep-set brow, which gives to the human countenance such expression of energy and intellect,-all about him, in aspect and mien, seemed to betoken a mind riper than his years, a masculine simplicity of taste and bearing, the earnest and grave temperament mostly allied in youth to pure and elevated desires, to an honourable and chivalric soul.

Below the dais stood some of the tried and gallant gentlemen who had braved exile, and tasted penury in their devotion to the House of Lancaster, and who had now flocked once more round their queen, in the hope of better days. There were the Dukes of Exeter and Somerset, their very garments soiled and threadbare,-many a day had those great lords hungered for the beggar's crust! [Philip de Comines says he himself had seen the Dukes of Exeter and Somerset in the Low Countries in as wretched a plight as common beggars.] There stood Sir John Fortescue, the patriarch authority of our laws, who had composed his famous treatise for the benefit of the young prince, overfond of exercise with lance and brand, and the recreation of knightly song. There were Jasper of Pembroke, and Sir Henry Rous, and the Earl of Devon, and the Knight of Lytton, whose House had followed, from sire to son, the fortunes of the Lancastrian Rose; [Sir Robert de Lytton (whose grandfather had been Comptroller to the Household of Henry IV., and Agister of the Forests allotted to Queen Joan), was one of the most powerful knights of the time; and afterwards, according to Perkin Warbeck, one of the ministers most trusted by Henry VII. He was lord of Lytton, in Derbys.h.i.+re (where his ancestors had been settled since the Conquest), of Knebworth in Herts (the ancient seat and manor of Plantagenet de Brotherton, Earl of Norfolk and Earl Marshal), of Myndelesden and Langley, of Standyarn, Dene, and Brekesborne, in Northamptons.h.i.+re, and became in the reign of Henry VII. Privy Councillor, Uuder-Treasurer, and Keeper of the great Wardrobe.] and, contrasting the sober garments of the exiles, shone the jewels and cloth-of-gold that decked the persons of the more prosperous foreigners, Ferri, Count of Vaudemonte, Margaret's brother, the Duke of Calabria, and the powerful form of Sir Pierre de Breze, who had accompanied Margaret in her last disastrous campaigns, with all the devotion of a chevalier for the lofty lady adored in secret. [See, for the chivalrous devotion of this knight (Seneschal of Normandy) to Margaret, Miss Strickland's Life of that queen.]

When the door opened, and gave to the eyes of those proud exiles the form of their puissant enemy, they with difficulty suppressed the murmur of their resentment, and their looks turned with sympathy and grief to the hueless face of their queen.

The earl himself was troubled; his step was less firm, his crest less haughty, his eye less serenely steadfast.

But beside him, in a dress more homely than that of the poorest exile there, and in garb and in aspect, as he lives forever in the portraiture of Victor Hugo and our own yet greater Scott, moved Louis, popularly called "The Fell."

"Madame and cousin," said the king, "we present to you the man for whose haute courage and dread fame we have such love and respect, that we value him as much as any king, and would do as much for him as for man living [Ellis: Original Letters, vol. i., letter 42, second series]; and with my lord of Warwick, see also this n.o.ble earl of Oxford, who, though he may have sided awhile with the enemies of your Highness, comes now to pray your pardon, and to lay at your feet his sword."

Lord Oxford (who had ever unwillingly acquiesced in the Yorkist dynasty), more prompt than Warwick, here threw himself on his knees before Margaret, and his tears fell on her hand, as he murmured "Pardon."

"Rise, Sir John de Vere," said the queen, glancing with a flas.h.i.+ng eye from Oxford to Lord Warwick. "Your pardon is right easy to purchase, for well I know that you yielded but to the time,-you did not turn the time against us; you and yours have suffered much for King Henry's cause. Rise, Sir Earl."

"And," said a voice, so deep and so solemn, that it hushed the very breath of those who heard it,-"and has Margaret a pardon also for the man who did more than all others to dethrone King Henry, and can do more than all to restore his crown?"

"Ha!" cried' Margaret, rising in her pa.s.sion, and casting from her the hand her son had placed upon her shoulder, "ha! Ownest thou thy wrongs, proud lord? Comest thou at last to kneel at Queen Margaret's feet? Look round and behold her court,-some half-score brave and unhappy gentlemen, driven from their hearths and homes, their heritage the prey of knaves and varlets, their sovereign in a prison, their sovereign's wife, their sovereign's son, persecuted and hunted from the soil! And comest thou now to the forlorn majesty of sorrow to boast, 'Such deeds were mine?'"

"Mother and lady," began the prince "Madden me not, my son. Forgiveness is for the prosperous, not for adversity and woe."

"Hear me," said the earl,-who, having once bowed his pride to the interview, had steeled himself against the pa.s.sion which, in his heart, he somewhat despised as a mere woman's burst of inconsiderate fury,-"for I have this right to be heard,-that not one of these knights, your lealest and n.o.blest friends, can say of me that I ever stooped to gloss mine acts, or palliate bold deeds with wily words. Dear to me as comrade in arms, sacred to me as a father's head, was Richard of York, mine uncle by marriage with Lord Salisbury's sister. I speak not now of his claims by descent (for those even King Henry could not deny), but I maintain them, even in your Grace's presence, to be such as vindicate, from disloyalty and treason, me and the many true and gallant men who upheld them through danger, by field and scaffold. Error, it might be,-but the error of men who believed themselves the defenders of a just cause. Nor did I, Queen Margaret, lend myself wholly to my kinsman's quarrel, nor share one scheme that went to the dethronement of King Henry, until-pardon, if I speak bluntly; it is my wont, and would be more so now, but for thy fair face and woman's form, which awe me more than if confronting the frown of Coeur de Lion, or the First Great Edward-pardon me, I say, if I speak bluntly, and aver that I was not King Henry's foe until false counsellors had planned my destruction, in body and goods, land and life. In the midst of peace, at Coventry, my father and myself scarcely escaped the knife of the murderer. [See Hall (236), who says that Margaret had laid a snare for Salisbury and Warwick at Warwick, and "if they had not suddenly departed, their life's thread had been broken."] In the streets of London the very menials and hangmen employed in the service of your Highness beset me unarmed [Hall, Fabyan]; a little time after and my name was attainted by an illegal Parliament. [Parl. Rolls, 370; W. Wyr. 478.] And not till after these things did Richard Duke of York ride to the hall of Westminster, and lay his hand upon the throne; nor till after these things did I and my father Salisbury say to each other, 'The time has come when neither peace nor honour can be found for us under King Henry's reign.' Blame me if you will, Queen Margaret; reject me if you need not my sword; but that which I did in the gone days was such as no n.o.bleman so outraged and despaired [Warwick's phrase. See Sir H. Ellis's "Original Letters," vol. i., second series.] would have forborne to do,-remembering that England is not the heritage of the king alone, but that safety and honour, and freedom and justice, are the rights of his Norman gentlemen and his Saxon people. And rights are a mockery and a laughter if they do not justify resistance, whensoever, and by whomsoever, they are invaded and a.s.sailed."

It had been with a violent effort that Margaret had refrained from interrupting this address, which had, however, produced no inconsiderable effect upon the knightly listeners around the dais. And now, as the earl ceased, her indignation was arrested by dismay on seeing the young prince suddenly leave his post and advance to the side of Warwick.

"Right well hast thou spoken, n.o.ble earl and cousin,-right well, though right plainly. And I," added the prince, "saving the presence of my queen and mother,-I, the representative of my sovereign father, in his name will pledge thee a king's oblivion and pardon for the past, if thou on thy side acquit my princely mother of all privity to the snares against thy life and honour of which thou hast spoken, and give thy knightly word to be henceforth leal to Lancaster. Perish all memories of the past that can make walls between the souls of brave men."

Till this moment, his arms folded in his gown, his thin, fox-like face bent to the ground, Louis had listened, silent and undisturbed. He now deemed it the moment to second the appeal of the prince. Pa.s.sing his hand hypocritically over his tearless eyes, the king turned to Margaret and said,- "Joyful hour! happy union! May Madame La Vierge and Monseigneur Saint Martin sanctify and hallow the bond by which alone my beloved kinswoman can regain her rights and roiaulme. Amen."

Unheeding this pious e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, her bosom heaving, her eyes wandering from the earl to Edward, Margaret at last gave vent to her pa.s.sion.

"And is it come to this, Prince Edward of Wales, that thy mother's wrongs are not thine? Standest thou side by side with my mortal foe, who, instead of repenting treason, dares but to complain of injury? Am I fallen so low that my voice to pardon or disdain is counted but as a sough of idle air! G.o.d of my fathers, hear me! Willingly from my heart I tear the last thought and care for the pomps of earth. Hateful to me a crown for which the wearer must cringe to enemy and rebel! Away, Earl Warwick! Monstrous and unnatural seems it to the wife of captive Henry to see thee by the side of Henry's son!"

Every eye turned in fear to the aspect of the earl, every ear listened for the answer which might be expected from his well-known heat and pride,-an answer to destroy forever the last hope of the Lancastrian line. But whether it was the very consciousness of his power to raise or to crush that fiery speaker, or those feelings natural to brave men, half of chivalry, half contempt, which kept down the natural anger by thoughts of the s.e.x and sorrows of the Anjouite, or that the wonted irascibility of his temper had melted into one steady and profound pa.s.sion of revenge against Edward of York, which absorbed all lesser and more trivial causes of resentment,-the earl's face, though pale as the dead, was unmoved and calm, and, with a grave and melancholy smile, he answered,- "More do I respect thee, O queen, for the hot words which show a truth rarely heard from royal lips than hadst thou deigned to dissimulate the forgiveness and kindly charity which sharp remembrance permits thee not to feel! No, princely Margaret, not yet can there be frank amity between thee and me! Nor do I boast the affection yon gallant gentlemen have displayed. Frankly, as thou hast spoken, do I say, that the wrongs I have suffered from another alone move me to allegiance to thyself! Let others serve thee for love of Henry; reject not my service, given but for revenge on Edward,-as much, henceforth, am I his foe as formerly his friend and maker! [Sir H. Ellis: Original Letters, vol. i., second series.] And if, hereafter, on the throne, thou shouldst remember and resent the former wars, at least thou hast owed me no grat.i.tude, and thou canst not grieve my heart and seethe my brain, as the man whom I once loved better than a son! Thus, from thy presence I depart, chafing not at thy scornful wrath; mindful, young prince, but of thy just and gentle heart, and sure, in the calm of my own soul (on which this much, at least, of our destiny is reflected as on a gla.s.s), that when, high lady, thy colder sense returns to thee, thou wilt see that the league between us must be made!-that thine ire as woman must fade before thy duties as a another, thy affection as a wife, and thy paramount and solemn obligations to the people thou hast ruled as queen! In the dead of night thou shalt hear the voice of Henry in his prison asking Margaret to set him free; the vision of thy son shall rise before thee in his bloom and promise, to demand why his mother deprives him of a crown; and crowds of pale peasants, grinded beneath tyrannous exaction, and despairing fathers mourning for dishonoured children, shall ask the Christian queen if G.o.d will sanction the unreasoning wrath which rejects the only instrument that can redress her people."

This said, the earl bowed his head and turned; but, at the first sign of his departure, there was a general movement among the n.o.ble bystanders. Impressed by the dignity of his bearing, by the greatness of his power, and by the unquestionable truth that in rejecting him Margaret cast away the heritage of her son, the exiles, with a common impulse, threw themselves at the queen's feet, and exclaimed, almost in the same words,- "Grace! n.o.ble queen!-Grace for the great Lord Warwick!"

"My sister," whispered John of Calabria, "thou art thy son's ruin if the earl depart!"

"Pasque Dieu! Vex not my kinswoman,-if she prefer a convent to a throne, cross not the holy choice!" said the wily Louis, with a mocking irony on his pinched lips.

The prince alone spoke not, but stood proudly on the same spot, gazing on the earl, as he slowly moved to the door.

"Oh, Edward! Edward, my son!" exclaimed the unhappy Margaret, "if for thy sake-for thine-I must make the past a blank, speak thou for me!"

"I have spoken," said the prince, gently, "and thou didst chide me, n.o.ble mother; yet I spoke, methinks, as Henry V. had done, if of a mighty enemy he had had the power to make a n.o.ble friend."

A short, convulsive sob was heard from the throne chair; and as suddenly as it burst, it ceased. Queen Margaret rose, not a trace of that stormy emotion upon the grand and marble beauty of her face. Her voice, unnaturally calm, arrested the steps of the departing earl.

"Lord Warwick, defend this boy, restore his rights, release his sainted father, and for years of anguish and of exile, Margaret of Anjou forgives the champion of her son!"

In an instant Prince Edward was again by the earl's side; a moment more, and the earl's proud knee bent in homage to the queen, joyful tears were in the eyes of her friends and kindred, a triumphant smile on the lips of Louis, and Margaret's face, terrible in its stony and locked repose, was raised above, as if asking the All-Merciful pardon-for the pardon which the human sinner had bestowed! [Ellis: Original Letters from the Harleian Ma.n.u.scripts, letter 42.]

CHAPTER X. LOVE AND MARRIAGE-DOUBTS OF CONSCIENCE-DOMESTIC JEALOUSY-AND HOUSEHOLD TREASON.

The events that followed this tempestuous interview were such as the position of the parties necessarily compelled. The craft of Louis, the energy and love of Prince Edward, the representations of all her kindred and friends, conquered, though not without repeated struggles, Margaret's repugnance to a nearer union between Warwick and her son. The earl did not deign to appear personally in this matter. He left it, as became him, to Louis and the prince, and finally received from them the proposals, which ratified the league, and consummated the schemes of his revenge.

Upon the Very Cross [Miss Strickland observes upon this interview: "It does not appear that Warwick mentioned the execution of his father, the Earl of Salisbury, which is almost a confirmation of the statements of those historians who deny that he was beheaded by Margaret."] in St. Mary's Church of Angers, Lord Warwick swore without change to hold the party of King Henry. Before the same sacred symbol, King Louis and his brother, Duke of Guienne, robed in canvas, swore to sustain to their utmost the Earl of Warwick in behalf of King Henry; and Margaret recorded her oath "to treat the earl as true and faithful, and never for deeds past to make him any reproach."