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 HISTORIES 
 
 FRANCE AND ENGLAND 
 
 FROM THE NORMAN CONQUEST TO THE EALL OF THE STUARTS- 
 
 HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT, 
 
 Author of " The Captains of the Old Republics," " Cavaliers of England," " Marmaduke 
 Wyvil" " Oliver Cromwell" " The Roman Traitor" SfC, %c. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 RIKER, THORNE & CO., 
 129 FULTON STREET. 
 
 1854. 
 
 %\.\ 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by 
 
 RIKER, THORNE & Co., 
 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District 
 of New York. 
 
 J?. CRAIGHEAD, Printer and Stereolyper, 
 53 Vesey street, New York. 
 
/Vf 
 
 Tfiumm nift ^irhtrtfi 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 HISTORIES OF FRAKGE AND ENGLAND, 
 
PEES0NS AND PICTUEES 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 HISTORIES OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 
 
 The papers of which this volume consists, most of which have 
 appeared at different periods during the last twelve years, in various 
 well known periodicals, were composed with the idea of showing the 
 progress and advance of manners, characters, and principles, as influ- 
 enced by the progress of time and the course of events, during the 
 most stirring and interesting epochs of the French and English His- 
 tories — from the Conquest to the fall of the Stuarts — from the intro- 
 duction of the Feudal System to the establishment of a constitu- 
 tional Government. 
 
 The persons introduced, are invariably true Historic personages, 
 delineated with a pen as candid and as free from prejudice as the 
 author knows how to wield. 
 
 The Pictures and Scenes, if in some instances fictitious, are drawn, 
 it is believed, with perfect fidelity to the costume of the day, the 
 spirit of the times, and the character of the persons brought upon 
 thS stage as actors. 
 
 The whole, it is hoped, will be found to exhibit a series of lively 
 and dramatic views of some of the most celebrated individuals, some 
 of the most remarkable instances of vice and virtue, heroism and 
 fortitude, and some of the most picturesque events, which occur in 
 the history of six eventful centuries. 
 
 In ; any case, no word will be found in them inconsistent with 
 either the letter or the spirit of History — none, assuredly, overstep- 
 ping the modesty of nature. 
 
 HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT. 
 
 The Cedars, March 24th, 1854. 
 
 M30S467 
 
PERSONS A^I> PICTURES 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 HISTORY OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Edith a, the Swan-Necked, mlxvi. 9 
 
 The Countess of Montfort, mcccxlvi. 29 
 
 Philippa of Hainault, mcccxlvii. 51 
 
 The Forest of Le Mans, mccclxxxvii. 71 
 
 The Maid of Orleans, mccccxxix. 89 
 
 The Lady Catherine Douglass, mccccxxxvii. 109 
 
 Margaret of Anjou, mcccclvii. 129 
 
 Henry VIII. and his Wives, mdxxi. 165 
 
 Anne Ascue*, mdxlvi. 189 
 
 Jane Grey and Guilford Dudley, mdliv. 205 
 
 Elizabeth Tudor and Mary Stuart, hdlxviii. 223- 
 
 Sir Walter Raleigh and his Wife, mdcxviii. 241 
 
 Cromwell and Charles I., mdcxlviii. 259 
 
 Charlotte de La Tremouille, mdcli. 275 
 
 The King's Gratitude, mdclxxxii. 289* 
 
 The Lady Alice Lisle, mdclxxxv. 359 s 
 
 Ditton-in-the-Dale, mdclxxxvii. &73J 
 
fiittm; 
 
 THE SWAN -NECKED. 
 
 1066. 
 
EDITHA, THE SWAN-NECKED. 
 
 England was happy yet and free under her Saxon kings. 
 The unhappy natives of the land, the Britons of old time, long 
 ago driven back into their impregnable fastnesses among the 
 Welsh mountains, and the craggy and pathless wilds of Scot- 
 land, still rugged and hirsute with the yet uninvaded masses of 
 the great Caledonian forest, had subsided into quiet, and dis- 
 turbed the lowland plains of fair England no longer ; and so 
 long as they were left free to enjoy their rude pleasures 
 of the chase and of internal welfare, undisturbed, were content to 
 be debarred from the rich pastures and fertile corn-fields which 
 had once owned their sway. The Danes and Norsemen, sav- 
 age Jarls and Vikings of the North, had ceased to prey on the 
 coasts of Northumberland and Yorkshire ; the seven kingdoms 
 of the turbulent and tumultuous Heptarchy, ever distracted by 
 domestic strife, had subsided into one realm, ruled under laws, 
 regular, and for the most part mild and equable, by a single 
 monarch, occupied by one homogeneous and kindred race, 
 wealthy and prosperous according to the idea of wealth and 
 prosperity in those days, at peace at home and undisturbed 
 from without ; if not, indeed, very highly civilized, at least 
 supplied with all the luxuries and comforts which the age knew 
 or demanded — a happy, free, contented people, with a patri- 
 
12 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 archal aristocracy, and a king limited in his prerogatives by the 
 rights of his people, and the privileges of the nobles as secured 
 by law. 
 
 Such was England, when on the death of Hardicanute, Ed- 
 ward, afterward called the Confessor, ascended the throne by 
 the powerful aid of Earl Godwin, and re-established the old 
 Saxon dynasty on a base which seemed to promise both dura- 
 bility and peace. 
 
 Had this Edward been in any sense a man, it is probable 
 that the crown of England would have continued in the Saxon 
 line, that the realm of England would have remained in the 
 hands of an unmixed race, and that the great dominant people 
 — most falsely named by an absurd misnomer Anglo-Saxon, 
 since with the slightest possible coloring of the ancient British 
 blood, they are the offspring purely of an intermingling of 
 Saxon and Norman blood ; owing to the former their stubborn 
 pertinacity of will, to the latter their fiery energy, their daring 
 enterprise and quick intellect — would never have sprung into 
 existence to hold the balance of power, if not the absoluteness 
 of sway on each side of the ocean, and in the four quarters of 
 the globe. 
 
 But he was not a man, only a monk — a miserable lay monk 
 — a husband of Earl Godwin's lovely daughter, yet a fanatical 
 celibatarian — not fit to be a king — not fit to be a man — not fit 
 even to be a Saxon monk, when monks were men like Becket. 
 
 Jealous of his Saxon nobles, he had recourse to Norman 
 favorites, and England was already half a Norman province, 
 and William of Normandy his favorite, until the counter jea- 
 lousy of his nobles compelled him again to have recourse to 
 Godwin, and his gallant sons, Harold, and Gurth, and Leofwin, 
 who cleared the kingdom of the intrusive Norman courtiers, re- 
 established the Saxon constitution, and nominally as the minis- 
 
EDITH A, THE SWAN-NECKED. 13 
 
 ters and deputies of the weak king, but really as his guar- 
 dians and governors, ruled England happily, well, and lawfully, 
 in his stead. 
 
 (jfodwin, meantime, had departed this life, full of years and 
 honors. Edward, the nephew of Edward the Confessor, whom 
 he had invited over from Hungary, and destined to be his suc- 
 cessor, had departed also, leaving his son, Edgar Atheling, a 
 minor, heir to his empty expectations and his noble blood. 
 And now what little intellect there was and spirit in the monk- 
 king awoke, and he perceived, with that singular clearness of 
 perception which sometimes seems to visit men, dull before and 
 obtuse of intellect, when they are dying, that his people now 
 would willingly adopt the Norman for a ruler, or submit to the 
 sway of William the Bastard, to whom he had in past days 
 well nigh promised the succession of his kingdom. 
 
 Therefore, of late, Harold, the son of Godwin, the flower of 
 the whole Saxon race, and, in fact, their ruler, as the king's lieu- 
 tenant and vicegerent, came to be looked upon by the whole 
 Saxon population of the land, as their next Saxon king, in the 
 to-be hereafter. The jealousies which had disturbed the mind 
 of Edward had long since passed away ; and Harold, whom he 
 once had looked upon almost with the eyes of popular aversion, 
 he now regarded almost as his own son. Yet still the Saxon 
 hostages, Ulfroth, the youngest son of Godwin, and Harold's 
 brother, and the still younger son of Swega — who, in the time 
 of his mad distrust of his own countrymen, his unnatural pre- 
 dilection for the Normans, had been delivered for safe keeping 
 into the hands of William of Normandy — still lingered melan- 
 choly exiles, far from the white cliffs of their native land. And 
 now for the first time since their departure, did the aspect of 
 affairs look propitious for their liberation ; and Harold, brother 
 of the one and uncle of the other, full of proud confidence in 
 
14 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 his own intellect and valor, applied to Edward for permission 
 that he might cross the English channel, and, personally visiting 
 the JSTorman, bring back the hostages in honor and security to 
 the dear land of their forefathers. The countenance of the 
 Confessor fell at the request, and conscious, probably, in his 
 own heart, of that rash promise made in days long past, and 
 long repeated to the ambitious William, he manifested a de- 
 gree of agitation amounting almost to alarm. 
 
 " Harold," he said, after a long pause of deliberation, 
 " Harold, my son, since you have made me this request, and 
 that your noble heart seems set on its accomplishment, it shall 
 not be my part to do constraint or violence to your affection- 
 ate and patriotic wishes. Go, then, if such be your resolve, 
 but go without my leave, and contrary to my advice. It is not 
 that I would not have your brother and your kinsman home, 
 but that I do distrust the means of their deliverance ; and 
 sure I am, that should you go in person, some terrible disaster 
 shall befall ourselves and this our country. Well do I know 
 Duke William ; well do I know his spirit, brave, crafty, daring, 
 deep, ambitious, and designing. You, too, he hates especially ; 
 nor will he grant you anything save at a price that shall draw 
 down an overwhelming ruin on you who shall pay it, and on 
 the throne of which you are the glory and the stay. If we 
 would have these hostages delivered at a less ransom than the 
 downfall of our Saxon dynasty, the slavery of merry England, 
 another messenger than thou must seek the wily Norman ; be 
 it, however, as thou wilt, my friend, my kinsman, and my son." 
 
 Oh ! sage advice, and admirable counsel ! advice how fatally 
 neglected ! counsel how sadly frustrated ! Gallant and brave 
 and young, fraught with a noble sense of his own powers, a 
 full reliance on his own honorable purposes, untaught as yet in 
 that hardest lesson of the world's hardest school, distrust of 
 
EDITHA, THE SWAN-NECKED. 15 
 
 others, suspicion of all men, it is not wonderful that Harold 
 thought lightly of the wisdom of the old in the self-sufficient 
 confidence of youth. 
 
 Stranger it is, and sadder, that he thought lightly of the 
 apprehensions, laughed at the doubts, and resisted the tears 
 of one whom he had sworn to love dearer and better and more 
 truly than any other living thing on earth, or in Heaven — 
 whom, as yet, he did love as perfectly as any mortal man may 
 love who is ambitious — for what is ambition, but the most 
 refined and sublimated of all selfishness? Editha, the swan- 
 necked, the fairest, brightest, purest of the Saxon maids of Eng- 
 land, — Editha, playmate of his guileless and happy boyhood- 
 betrothed of his promising and buoyant youth — mistress — alas ! 
 alas ! — though under promise still of honorable wedlock — of 
 his aspiring and ambitious manhood. 
 
 For she too had loved not wisely, but too well ; she too had 
 fallen not an ignoble nor unreluctant victim to man's cupidity, 
 ambition, selfishness, and treason — and sad penance did she too, 
 almost lifelong, for that one fatal error, and by most cruel suf- 
 fering win its absolution. 
 
 " Be sure," she said, severely weeping with her fond white 
 arms about his muscular neck, and her luxuriant light brown 
 tresses floating around them both, clasped in that lingering, 
 last embrace, like a veil of orient sunlight ; " be sure, Harold, 
 that if you do go on this fatal journey — fatal at once to you, 
 and me, and England — we never shall meet more on earth, 
 until we meet ne'er again to sever in the dark grave. Never- 
 theless, go you will, and go you must ; therefore no tears, no 
 prayers of mine shall thwart the purpose which they may not 
 alter, nor shake the spirit which they may not turn from its 
 set will. The weird that is spaed to every man when he is 
 born, he must dree it to the end. And my weird is to die for 
 
16 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 you, as it is yours to die — in vain ! in vain ! — for England. 
 But it is not our weird ever to be, or here or elsewhere, man 
 •and wife. Go your way, therefore, go your way, and God's 
 blessings go with you, and be about you ; but you and I have 
 met this time, to meet no more for ever !" 
 
 They parted ; and on the morrow Harold set forth upon his 
 journey, as if it were in pursuit of pleasure, surrounded by a 
 blythe train of gay companions, gallantly mounted, gorgeously 
 attired, with falcon upon fist and greyhound at heel — gaily 
 and merrily he set forth on that serene autumnal morning, for 
 the coast of Sussex. And on the morrow Edith a set forth 
 upon her journey, as if it were to the grave, surrounded by 
 weeping attendants, clad in the darkest weeds, with veiled 
 faces, and crucifixes borne before them — sadly and forebodingly 
 she set forth on that serene autumnal morning, for the seques- 
 tered cloisters of the nunnery of Croyland. 
 
 Nor had Harold tarried long in the princely court at Avran- 
 ches, ere all the sad prognostications, alike of the aged monarch 
 and the youthful lady, were made good ; for having been in- 
 duced first to promise in an unguarded hour to aid William in 
 obtaining the possession of the English crown, that wily prince 
 soon enveiglec* him into swearing to the due performance of 
 that rash and unholy promise, on relics the most sacred that 
 could be collected, which were secretly concealed beneath the 
 altar cloth, and displayed only when the unhallowed oath was 
 plighted. The pledges on both sides were determined. Alice, 
 the Norman's daughter, should be the Saxon's promised bride ; 
 Ulfroth, the Saxon's brother, should remain the Norman's hos- 
 tage until the crown of Edward should bind the brows of 
 William. 
 
 So Harold set sail immediately for England, leaving the 
 brother — for whose liberty he came a suitor — ten times more 
 
EDITHA, THE SWAN-NECKED. 17 
 
 forfeit than he had been before, and to find the woman whom 
 he had so disloyally forsworn, the bride of heaven, sequestered 
 in the nunnery of Croyland. 
 
 On his first interview with Edward, he related all that had 
 occurred — even his own involuntary oath ! and the old sove- 
 reign trembled and grew pale, but manifested nothing of sur- 
 prise or anger. 
 
 " I knew it," he replied, in calm but hollow tones. " I knew 
 it, and I did forewarn you, how that your visit to the Norman 
 should bring misery on you and ruin on your country ! As I 
 forewarned you, so has it come to pass. So shall it come to 
 pass hereafter, till all hath been fulfilled. God only grant that 
 I live not to see it." 
 
 Nor did he live to see it. But he did live to see Harold, 
 once forsworn to Editha, forsworn again to Alice. For being 
 sent to suppress a rebellion in the North, raised by Morcar and 
 Edwin, Earls of Northumberland and grandsons of the great 
 Duke Leofric, against his own brother Tostig, he openly 
 took sides with the former, espousing their sister Adelgitha, 
 and pronouncing against Tostig, who had fled infuriate to his 
 father-in-law, the Duke of Flanders, soon to raise war against 
 his native land and its kindred usurper. 
 
 For worn out with anxiety and sorrow, the feeble monk-king 
 passed away, and was gathered to his fathers, leaving an im- 
 becile heir to his throne of right, in the helpless Edgar Athel- 
 ing, and two fierce, capable, and mutually detested rivals, in 
 Harold, the Saxon, and the Norman William. 
 
 Little time had Harold, who stepped as by right, and of 
 course, into the vacant seat of royalty, to attend now to wife or 
 friend ; for scarcely was he seated on the perilous throne, ere 
 the. same gale filled the sails of two royal armaments, both 
 hastening to his own shores to dispute his ill-won greatness — 
 
 2* 
 
18 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 one from the cold shores of Norway, bearing the fierce and 
 
 envious Tostig, backed by Harold Hardrada, king of Norway, 
 
 with all his wild sea-kings and terrible Berserkers, under the flag 
 
 of Norseland — the other from the sunny coasts of Normandy 
 
 and the fair Cotentin, filled with the mailed Norman chivalry, 
 
 the men who never charged in vain, or couched lance but to 
 
 conquer, under the banner consecrated by the pope against the 
 
 perjured and the traitor, led by the mighty bastard. 
 
 Still it is said that, false to Editha, false to Alice, he was 
 
 ft&fein false to Adelgitha, and would have recalled his swan- 
 is O ' 
 
 necked beauty from the cold couch of . vowed virginity, to the 
 genial marriage bed ; from the grey cloister to the gorgeous 
 court, of which she should be the queen. But he met no re- 
 sponse, save the most significant of all — silence. 
 
 The sinner had repented and become a saint. The weak 
 girl had been ripened through the fire of anguish into the 
 heroic woman. 
 
 How Tostig fared with his ally, Harold Hardrada, the gigan- 
 tic, the bridge of Staneford witnessed ; and the raven banner 
 borne down the bloody streams of Derwent to the exulting 
 Ouse, and the Saxon cry of victory ! Hurrah for king- 
 Harold ! 
 
 How William fared with his Norman chivalry, the downs of 
 
 Hastings witnessed, and the heights, known to this day, of 
 
 Battle, and the consecrated banner high in air r and the 
 
 Norman cry of victory, " Dex aide les gentils gens de JVor- 
 
 mandie" 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 It was the morning after the exterminating fight of Hastings. 
 The banner blessed of the Roman pontiff streamed on the taint- 
 ed air, from the same hillock whence the Dragon standard of 
 the Saxons had shone unconquered to the sun of yester even ! 
 
EDITHA, THE SWAN-NECKED. 19 
 
 Hard by was pitched the proud pavilion of the conqueror, who, 
 after the tremendous strife and perilous labors of the preceding 
 day, reposed himself in fearless and untroubled confidence 
 upon the field of his renown ; secure in the possession of the 
 land which he was destined to transmit to his posterity, for 
 many a hundred years, by the red title of the sword. To the 
 defeated Saxons, morning, however, brought but a renewal of 
 those miseries, which, having yesterday commenced with the 
 first victory of their Norman lords, were never to conclude or 
 even to relax, until the complete amalgamation of the rival 
 races should leave no Normans to torment, no Saxons to en- 
 dure ; all being merged at last into one general name of Eng- 
 lish, and by their union giving origin to the most powerful, and 
 brave, and intellectual people the world has ever looked upon 
 since the extinction of Rome's freedom. At the time of which we 
 are now speaking, nothing was thought of by the victors save how 
 to rivet more securely on the necks of the unhappy natives, 
 their yoke of iron — nothing by the poor subjugated Saxons, ^ 
 but how to escape for the moment the unrelenting massacre, 
 which was urged, far and wide, by the remorseless conquerors 
 throughout the devastated country. With the defeat of 
 Harold's host, all national hope of freedom was at once lost to 
 England — though to a man the English population were brave 
 and loyal, and devoted to their country's rights. The want of 
 leaders — all having perished side by side, on that disastrous 
 field — of combination, without which myriads are but dust in 
 the scale against the force of one united handful — rendered 
 them quite unworthy of any serious fears, and even of con- 
 sideration to the bloodthirsty barons of the invading army. 
 Over the whole expanse of level country, which might be seen 
 from the slight elevation whereon was pitched the camp of 
 William, on every side might be descried small parties of Nor- 
 
20 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 man horse, driving in with their bloody lances as if they were 
 mere cattle, the unhappy captives, a few of whom they now 
 began to spare, not from the slightest sentiment of mercy, but 
 literally that their arms were weary with the task of slaying, 
 although their hearts Were yet insatiate of blood. It must be 
 taken now into consideration by those who listen with dismay 
 and wonder to the accounts of pitiless barbarity, of ruthless, 
 indiscriminating slaughter on the part of men, whom they have 
 hitherto been taught to look upon as brave, indeed, as lions in 
 the field, but not partaking of the lion's nature after the field 
 was won — not only that the seeds of enmity had long been 
 sown between those rival people, but that the deadly crop of 
 hatred had grown up, watered abundantly by tears and blood 
 of either ; and lastly, that the fierce fanaticism of religious per- 
 secution was added to the natural rancor of a war waged for 
 the ends of conquest or extermination. The Saxon nation, 
 from the king downward, to the meanest serf who fought 
 beneath his banner, or buckled on the arms of liberty, were all 
 involved under the common bar of the pope's interdict ! — they 
 were accursed of God, and handed over by His holy church to 
 the kind mercies of the secular arm ! and, therefore, though 
 but yesterday they were a powerful and united nation, to-day 
 they were but a vile horde of scattered outlaws, whom any 
 man might slay wherever he should find them, whether in 
 arms or otherwise, amenable for blood neither to any mortal 
 jurisqMctipn, nor even to the ultimate tribunal to which all must 
 submit hereafter, unless deprived of their appeal, like these 
 poor fugitives, by excommunication from the pale of Christi- 
 anity. For thirty miles around the Norman camp, pillars of 
 smoke by day, continually streaming upward to the polluted 
 heaven, and the red glare of nightly conflagration, told fatally 
 the doom of many a happy home I Neither the castle nor the 
 
EDITHA, THE SWAN-NECKED. 21 
 
 cottage might preserve their male inhabitants from the sword's 
 edge, their females from more barbarous persecution ! Neither 
 the sacred hearth of hospitality, nor the more sacred altars of 
 God's churches, might protect the miserable fugitives — neither 
 the mail-shirt of the man-at-arms, nor the monk's frock of 
 serge, availed against the thrust of such as the land, wherein 
 those horrors were enacted, has never witnessed since, through 
 many a following age. 
 
 High noon approached, and in the conqueror's tent a gor- 
 geous feast was spread — the red wine flowed profusely, and 
 song and minstrelsy arose with their heart-soothing tones, to 
 which the feeble groans of dying wretches bore a dread burden 
 from the plain whereon they still lay struggling in their great 
 agonies, too sorely maimed to live, too strong as yet to die. 
 But, ever and anon, their wail waxed feebler and less frequent ; 
 for many a plunderer was on foot, licensed to ply his odious 
 calling in the full light of day, reaping his first, if not his rich- 
 est booty, from the dead bodies of their slaughtered foemen. 
 Ill fared the wretches who lay there, untended by the hand of 
 love or mercy — " scorched by the death thirst, and writhing 
 in vain" — but worse fared they who showed a sign of' life, to 
 the relentless robbers of the dead — for then the dagger, falsely 
 called that of mercy, was the dispenser of immediate immor- 
 tality. The conqueror sat at his triumphant board, and barons 
 drank his health — u First English monarch, of the pure blood 
 of monarchy." "King by the right of the sword's edge." 
 " Great, glorious, and sublime !" — yet was not his heart soften- 
 ed, nor was his bitter hate toward the unhappy prince, who 
 had so often ridden by hi* side in war, and feasted at the same 
 board with him in peace, relinquished or abated. Even while 
 the feast was at the highest, while every heart was jocund and 
 sublime, a trembling messenger approached, craving, on bended 
 
22 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 knee, permission to address the conqueror and king — for so he 
 was already schooled by brief, but hard experience, to style 
 the devastator of his country. 
 
 " Speak out, dog Saxon," cried the ferocious prince ; " but 
 since thou must speak, see that thy speech be brief, an thou 
 would'st keep thy tongue uncropped thereafter !" 
 
 " Great Duke, and mighty," replied the trembling envoy, " I 
 bear you greeting from Elgitha, erewhile the noble wife of 
 Godwin, the queenly mother of our late monarch — now, as she 
 bade me style her, the humblest of your suppliants and slaves. 
 Of your great nobleness and mercy, mighty King, she sues you 
 that you will grant her the poor leave to search amid the heaps 
 of those of our Saxon dead, that her three sons may at least 
 lie in consecrated earth. So may God send you peace and 
 glory here, and everlasting happiness hereafter !" 
 
 " Hear to the Saxon slave !" William exclaimed, turning as 
 if in wonder towards his nobles, " hear to the Saxon slave, that 
 dares to speak of consecrated earth, and of interment for the 
 accursed body of that most perjured, excommunicated liar! 
 Hence ! tell the mother of the dead dog, whom you have dared 
 to style your King, that for the interdicted and accursed dead, 
 the sands of the sea-shore are but too good a sepulchre !" 
 
 " She bade me proffer, humbly, to your acceptance, the weight 
 of Harold's body in pure gold," faintly gasped forth the terrified 
 and cringing messenger, " so you would grant her that permis- 
 sion." 
 
 " Proffer us gold ! — what gold J or whose ? Know, villain, 
 all the gold throughout this conquered realm is ours. Hence, 
 dog and outcast, hence ! nor presume e'er again to come, in- 
 sulting us, by proffering, as a boon to our acceptance, that which 
 we own already, by the most indefeasible and ancient right of 
 conquest ! Said I not well, knights, vavasours, and nobles ?" 
 
EDITHA, THE SWAN-NECKED. 23 
 
 " Well ! well ! and nobly," answered they, one and all. 
 " The land is ours — and all therein is — their dwellings, their 
 demesnes, their w T ealth, whether of gold or silver, or of cattle 
 — yea ! they themselves are ours ! themselves, their sons, thejr 
 daughters and their wives — our portion and inheritance, to be 
 our slaves for ever !" 
 
 " Begone ! you have our answer," exclaimed the Duke, 
 spurning him with his foot, " and hark ye, arbalastmen and 
 archers, if any Saxon more approach us on like errand, see if 
 his coat of skin be proof against the quarrel of the shaft." 
 
 And once again the feast went on, and louder rang the rev- 
 elry, and faster flew the wine-cup round the tumultuous board ! 
 All day the banquet lasted, even till the dews of heaven fell on 
 that fatal field, watered sufficiently, already, by the rich gore of 
 many a noble heart. All day the banquet lasted, and far was 
 it prolonged into the watches of the night, when, rising with 
 the wine cup in his hand, "Nobles and barons," cried the Duke, 
 "friends, comrades, conquerors — bear witness to my vow! 
 Here, on these heights of Hastings, and more especially upon 
 yon mound and hillock, where God gave to us our high victory, 
 and where our last foe fell, — there will I raise an Abbey to His 
 eternal praise and glory ; richly endowed it shall be from the 
 first fruits of this our land. Battle, it shall be called, to send 
 the memory of this, the great and singular achievement of our 
 race, to far posterity, — and, by the splendor of our God, wine 
 shall be plentier among the monks of Battle, than water in the 
 noblest and the richest cloister else, search the world over ! This 
 do I swear, so may God aid, who hath thus far assisted us for 
 our renown, and will not now deny His help, when it be asked 
 for his own glory !" 
 
 The second day dawned on the place of horror, and not a 
 Saxon had presumed, since the intolerant message of the Duke, 
 
24 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 to come to look upon his dead ! But now the ground was 
 needed, whereon to lay the first stone of the abbey William 
 had vowed to God. The ground was needed ; and, moreover, 
 the foul steam from the human shambles was pestilential on 
 the winds of heaven — and now, by trumpet sound and procla- 
 mation through the land, the Saxons were called forth, on pain 
 of death, to come and seek their dead, lest the health of the 
 conquerors should suffer from the pollution they themselves had 
 wrought. Scarce had the blast sounded, and the glad tidings 
 been announced, once only, ere from their miserable shelters 
 — where they had herded with the wild beasts of the forest, 
 from wood, morass, and cavern, happy if there they might es- 
 cape the Norman spear — forth crept the relics of that perse- 
 cuted race. Old men and matrons, with hoary heads, and 
 steps that tottered no less from the effect of terror than of age 
 — maidens and youths, and infants, too happy to obtain per- 
 mission to search amid those festering heaps, dabbling their 
 hands in the corrupt and pestilential gore which filled each 
 nook and hollow of the dinted soil, so they might bear away, 
 and water with their tears, and yield to consecrated ground, 
 the relics of those brave ones once loved so fondly, and now so 
 bitterly lamented. It was toward the afternoon of that same 
 day, when a long train was seen approaching, with crucifix, 
 and cross, and censer ; the monks of Waltham Abbey, coming 
 to offer homage for themselves, and for their tenantry and vas- 
 sals, to him whom they acknowledged as their king — express- 
 ing their submission to the high will of the Norman pontiff, 
 justified, as they said and proved, by the assertion of God's 
 judgment upon the hill of Hastings. 
 
 Highly delighted by this absolute submission, the first he had 
 received from any English tongue, the conqueror received the 
 monks with courtesy and favor, granting them high immuni- 
 
EDITHA, THE SWAN-NECKED. 25 
 
 ties, and promising them free protection and the unquestioned 
 tenure of their broad demesnes for ever. Nay, after he had 
 answered their address, he detained two of their number, men 
 of intelligence, as with his wonted quickness of perception he 
 instantly discovered, from whom to derive information as to the 
 nature of his new-acquired country and newly-conquered sub- 
 jects. 
 
 Osgad and Ailric, the deputed messengers from the respect- 
 ed principal of their community, had yet a farther and higher 
 object than to tender their submission to the conqueror. Their 
 orders were, at all and every risk, to gain permission to consign 
 the corpse of their late king and founder to the earth, previously 
 denied to him. But they, for all his courtesy to them, and 
 kindness, churchmen although they were, dared not so much as 
 to mention the forbidden name of their unhappy king — nor 
 was there any hope that any tomb should receive the mangled 
 relics of the last Saxon King o& England, although the corpses 
 of his brothers, Leofwin and Gurth, had been found on the 
 hillock whereon the last Saxon blow was stricken, whereon the 
 last Saxon banner floated — found, recognised, though sorely 
 mangled, and consigned to the grave with rites of sepulchre so 
 freely granted as might have proved to those craven priests, that 
 the wrath of the conqueror was at end, and that the valiant 
 though fierce Norman was not one to wage war, after the first 
 burst of wrath had blown over, on the gallant dead. 
 
 Tidings at length reached Editha — Editha, the swan-necked, 
 who, deserted and dishonored when he she loved had a throne 
 in prospect, had not ceased from her true-hearted adoration, 
 but in her joyless home still shared her heart in silence be- 
 tween her memories and her God. 
 
 Her envoy won the conqueror's ear, and it is avouched that 
 a tear dimmed his unblenching eye, when he heard her sad tale 
 
26 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 received her humble prayer. He swore a great oath as he 
 started from his regal throne. "By the splendor of God's 
 eyes !" he swore, " a true woman ! worthy to be the mother of 
 men !" So her request was granted, and to their wonder and 
 delight, Osgad and Ailric heard the mandate that they should 
 seek for, and entomb the poor and fallen clay that so late boast- 
 ed itself king. 
 
 Throughout the whole of the third day succeeding that un- 
 paralleled defeat, those old men toiled among the naked corpses, 
 gory and grim, maimed and disfigured, festering in the sun, 
 weltering in the night dews, infecting the wholesome airs of 
 heaven with a reek, as from the charnel-house — toiled, if they 
 might find the object of their veneration. But vain were all 
 their toils — vain all their searchings, even when they called in 
 the aid of his most intimate attendants, ay ! of the mother that 
 bore him. Leofwin and Gurth had been recognised with ease, 
 but not one eye, even of those who had most dearly loved him, 
 could now distinguish the mutilated features of the king. 
 
 But if there was no eye at Hastings, there was a heart at 
 Croyland that could not be deceived, even by the corruption and 
 the worm. Forth from her nunnery in Croyland, whence she 
 had never thought to move again, save to her long last home, 
 Editha, the swan-necked, came. Nine days had elapsed ere she 
 should reach the fatal spot, and the appalling horrors of the 
 search, the awful extent of the pollution, denied the smallest 
 hope of his discovery. Yet she still expressed her full and 
 confident conviction that she could recognise that loved one, 
 so long as but one hair remained upon that head she had once 
 so dearly cherished. 
 
 It was night when she arrived on the fatal field, and by the 
 light of torches once more they set out on their awful duty. 
 
EDITHA, THE SWAN-NECKED. 27 
 
 " Lead me," she said, " lead me to the spot where the last 
 blow was stricken, where the last warrior fell." 
 
 And they led to the knoll where Leofwin and Gurth had 
 been discovered. It was a hideous pile of pestilential carnage, 
 horses and men, Normans and Saxons, piled on each other, 
 twenty deep, around a shattered pole, which had been once the 
 staff of the Saxon's royal banner. 
 
 She sprang down from her palfrey, unassisted, and with an 
 instinct that nothing could deceive went straight to the corpse 
 of Harold. It had been turned already to and fro, many times, 
 by those who sought it. His mother had looked on it, and 
 pronounced it not her son's, but that devoted heart knew it at 
 once, and broke ! Whom rank and wealth and honors had 
 divided, defeat, ruin, and death made one ! and the same grave 
 contained the cold remains of the swan-necked Editha, and the 
 last scion of the Saxon kings of England. 
 
 Was not she, then, frail sinner as she was, one not the least 
 heroic of the heroic women of the olden days, and with the 
 truest woman's truest heroism ! 
 
ۤt Cntttite rflfiflttW; 
 
 OE, 
 
 THE RELIEF OF HENNEBON. 
 
 1346. 
 
THE COUNTESS OF MONTFORT ; 
 
 OK, THE BELIEF OF HEKNEBOK 
 
 I wish now to return to the Countess of Montfort, who possessed the courage of a man, 
 and the heart of a lion. Froissart— Chronicles, vol. i. o. 72. 
 
 The age of knight-errantry, as we read of it, and in some 
 degree believe, as recited in the Morte d' Arthur, and the other 
 British or Breton romances, had never any real existence more 
 than its heroes, Lancelot du Lac, Tristran le Blanc, or Pelli- 
 nant or Pellinore, or any of the heroes of " the table round ;" 
 the very date of whose alleged existence, centuries before chi- 
 valdry or feudalism was heard of, {secludes the possibility of 
 their identity. 
 
 The age of chivalry, however, had a real being ; it was in 
 very truth " the body of a time, its form and pressure ;" and 
 that was the age of Edward the Third and the Black Prince of 
 England, of the Captal de Buch and Sire Eustache de Ribeau- 
 mont, of Bertrand du Guesclin and Charles of Luxemburg, the 
 valiant blind king of Bohemia, and those who won or died at 
 Crecy or Poictiers. 
 
 That was the age when knights shaped their conduct to the 
 legends which they read in the old romances, which were to 
 them the code of honor, bravery, and virtue. 
 
 That was the age when " Dicu, son honneur et sa dame" was 
 the war-cry and the creed of every noble knight, when noblesse 
 
32 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 oblige was a proverb not — as now — without a meaning. And 
 of that age I have a legend, reproduced from the old chronicles 
 of old Froissart, so redolent of the truth, the vigor, and the 
 fresh raciness of those old days, when manhood was still held 
 in more esteem than money, and the person of a man some- 
 thing more valuable than his purse, that I think it may be held 
 worthy to arrest attention, even in these days of sordid defer- 
 ence to the sovereign dollar, of stolid indifference to everything 
 in humanity that is of a truth good, or great, or noble. 
 
 " I wish now to return," says Froissart, in a fine passage, a 
 portion of which I have chosen as my motto, "»to the Count- 
 ess of Montfort, who possessed the courage of a man, and the 
 heart of a lion." 
 
 Previous to this, the veracious chronicler of the antique wars 
 of France and England has related, how by the death of the 
 Duke of Brittany, who left no issue, the ducal coronet of that 
 province, which, together with Normandy and Anjou, had 
 always since the Norman conquest maintained relations with 
 the crown of England, was left in dispute between John Count 
 de Montfort, the half-brother of the late duke, who had mar- 
 ried the sister of Lewis Earl of Flanders, and a daughter of the 
 late duke's brother-germ an, who was wedded to Charles, younger 
 son of Guy Count de Blois, by the sister of Philip of Valois, 
 the reigning king of France. 
 
 With which of these the absolute right rested, is not a mat- 
 ter of much moment ; as it is with the romance of feudalism, 
 not the accuracy of heraldic genealogies, that I am now dealing. 
 Nor, were it important, have I at hand the means of deciding 
 certainly ; since the solution of the question depends on facts 
 not clearly presented, as regarding the seniority of the brothers, 
 the precise degrees of consanguinity, and the local laws of the 
 French provinces. 
 
THE COUNTESS OF MONTFORT. 33 
 
 Both parties appear to have relied on alleged declarations, 
 each in his own favor, by the late duke, John of Brittany. 
 
 The Bretons it would seem, almost to a man, sided with 
 the Count de Montfort ; and this would in these days go very 
 far towards settling the question. 
 
 King Philip of France naturally took part with his niece, the 
 wife of a great feudator}^ of his crown ; Edward the Third of 
 England, as naturally, favored the opposite claimant ; expecting 
 doubtless that he should receive the count's homage as his 
 vassal for Brittany, in case of his recovering his duchy by the 
 aid of British arms. 
 
 The Count de Montfort was summoned before the king and 
 peers of France to answer to the charge of having already done 
 homage to the English king, as suzerain of a French province — 
 a charge, by the way, which he absolutely denied — and to 
 prove his title to the duchy before Parliament. To their de- 
 cision he expressed his willingness to defer, and offered to abide 
 by their judgment ; but the same night, suspecting ill faith on 
 the part of his rival and the French king, and fearing treach- 
 ery, he withdrew secretly into his own duchy, of which he 
 had already gained absolute possession, holding all its strong 
 places with the free consent of the lords, the burgesses, the 
 clergy, and the commonalty of the chief towns, and being 
 everywhere addressed as Duke of Brittany. 
 
 After the departure of the count from Paris, the Parliament, 
 almost as a matter of course, decided against him — firstly par 
 contumace, or as we should now say, by default — secondly, for 
 treason, as having done homage to a foreign liege lord — and 
 thirdly, because the Countess of Blois was the daughter of the 
 next brother of the late duke, while the Count John de Mont- 
 fort was the youngest of the family. 
 
 I may observe here, that it is more than doubtful whether the 
 3 
 
34 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 alleged homage to Edward was at this time rendered ; that the 
 fact was positively denied by Montfort himself, and by his other 
 historians ; and furthermore, that the descent to the female line 
 is very questionable in any French province or principality, the 
 Salique law, adverse to the succession of females, prevailing in 
 that country. 
 
 Be this, however, as it may, the princes and peers of France, 
 considering that the dispute between the rival claimants had 
 resolved itself into a question between the rival crowns of 
 France and England, whjch it virtually had, espoused to a man 
 the party of Charles of Blois. 
 
 Thereupon, the Dukes of Normandy, of Alencon, of Bur- 
 gundy, of Bourbon, the Lord Lewis of Spain, the Constable of 
 France, the Count de Blois, and the Viscount de Rohan, with 
 all the princes and barons present, undertook to maintain the 
 rights of Charles ; entered Brittany with powerful forces ; and, 
 after some sharp fighting, shut the Count of Montfort up in 
 Nantes, where he was shortly afterwards delivered to the enemy, 
 not without suspicion of treachery on the part of Sir Herve de 
 Leon, his late chief adviser, whom he had blamed severely for 
 retreating too readily into the city, before the troops of Charles 
 de Blois. 
 
 John de Montfort hereupon nearly disappears from history ; 
 Froissart supposing that he died a prisoner in the tower of the 
 Louvre. But it appears that, after three years' confinement, he 
 made good his escape to England, and then, not before, did ho- 
 mage to Edward ; who aided him with a force under "William 
 de Bohun, Earl of Northampton, to recover his duchy, which 
 his sudden death, after an unsuccessful attempt on Quimperle, 
 finally prevented. This is, however, in anticipation of the cur- 
 rent of history, and more especially of those events which it is 
 my purpose to illustrate in this sketch ; for, from the very 
 
THE COUNTESS OF MONTFORT. 35 
 
 moment of his capture, the affairs, both civil and military, 
 of the duchy were administered with the most distinguished 
 energy, ability, and success by his wife, sister of Lewis Count 
 of Flanders, a race noble and brave by descent and nature, 
 "the Countess of Montfort, who possessed the courage of a 
 man and the heart of a lion." 
 
 "She was in the city of Rennes," says her historian, "when 
 she heard of the seizure of her lord ; and, notwithstanding the 
 great grief she had at heart, she did all she could to reanimate 
 her friends and soldiers. Showing them a young child, called 
 John, after his father, she said, ' Oh, gentlemen, do not be cast- 
 down for what we have suffered by the loss of my lord ; he 
 was but one man. Look at my little child here ; if it please 
 God, he shall be his restorer, and shall do you much service. I 
 have plenty of wealth, which I will distribute among you, and 
 will seek out for such a leader as may give you a proper confi- 
 dence.' When the Countess had, by these means, encouraged 
 her friends and soldiers at Rennes, she visited all the other 
 towns and fortresses, taking her young son John with her. She 
 addressed and encouraged them in the same manner as she had 
 done at Rennes. She strengthened her garrisons both with 
 men and provisions, paid handsomely for everything, and gave 
 largely wherever she thought it would have a good effect. She 
 then went to Hennebon, near the sea, where she and her son 
 remained all that winter, frequently visiting her garrisons, whom 
 she encouraged and paid liberally." 
 
 Truly a noble woman — a true wife, a true mother, a true 
 princess of her principality — she sought no woman's rights, but 
 did a woman's duty — her duty as her absent husband's repre- 
 sentative — her duty as her orphaned son's protectress — her 
 duty as her unsovereigned people's sovereign lady. Nobility 
 
36 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 and circumstance obliged lier ; and nobly she discharged her 
 obligation. 
 
 Much as I contemn women whom a morbid craving after 
 notoriety and excitement urges to grasp the attire, the arms, 
 the attributes of the other sex ; in the same degree do I honor, 
 in the same degree admire and laud, the true-hearted woman, 
 the true heroine, who not forcing or assailing, but obeying the 
 claims of her nature, compels her temper to put on strength 
 instead of softness, steels herself to do what she shrinks from 
 doing, not because she arrogates the power of doing it better 
 than the man could do it, but because she has no man to whom 
 she might confide the doing of it. 
 
 The hen fighting the sparrow-hawk careless of self for her 
 defenceless brood, is a spectacle beautiful to behold, filling 
 every heart with genuine sympathy, because her act itself is 
 genuine ; is part and parcel of her sex, her circumstances, her 
 maternity ; in a word, is the act of the God of nature. The 
 hen gaffed and cropped and fighting mains against the males of 
 her own family in the beastly and bloody cock-pit, is a spectacle 
 that would make the lowest frequenter of such vile arenas shud-' 
 der with disgust, would wring from his lips an honest cry of 
 shame. 
 
 Margaret of Anjou, in Hexham forest awing the bandit into 
 submission by the undaunted royalty of her maternal eye — 
 the Countess of Montfort, reanimating her faint-hearted garri- 
 sons, even by donning steel harness for " her young child John" 
 — Elizabeth of England, a-horse at Tilbury, for her Protestant- 
 ism and her people — Maria Theresa, waving her sabre from the 
 guarded mount to the four quarters of heaven in the main- 
 tenance of her kingdom and her cause — Marie Antoinette of 
 France, defying her accusers at the misnamed judgment seat, 
 fearless of her butchers at the guillotine — these are the true 
 
THE COUNTESS OF MONTFORT. 37 
 
 types of nature, the true types of their sex, the true heroines, 
 mastering the weakness of their sexual nature, through the 
 might of their maternal nature — these are the hens champion- 
 ing their broods against the falcon. 
 
 But of this day of cant and fustian, the man-women, not 
 heroines, called by no duty to the attire or the attributes of 
 men, but panting indelicately for the notoriety, the fierce, pas- 
 sionate excitement of the political, nay ! for aught that appears, 
 of the martial arena — these are the hens, if they could but see 
 themselves as they see effeminate, unsexed men, gaffed and 
 cropped and fed to do voluntary battle in the sinks and 
 slaughterhouses of humanity, against the gamecocks of their 
 species. 
 
 The Lady Macbeths of a falser period, who fancy that, by 
 proving themselves so much less the woman, they can shine out 
 so much more the man. 
 
 " But I wish now to return," with my old friend Froissart, 
 " to the Countess de Montfort, who possessed the courage of a 
 man, and the heart of a lion," and I will add — the soul, the 
 instincts, and the excellence of a true woman. 
 
 During the winter succeeding the seizure of her lord, and 
 the treason of Sir Herve de Leon, who had attached himself to 
 the Count de Blois, she remained peacefully occupied in Hen- 
 nebon, in the education of her young child John ; and how she 
 educated him was seen in his after career, as a knight valorous 
 and gentle, a prince beloved and popular. 
 
 But with the summer there came strife and peril, and protec- 
 tion became paramount to everything beside. 
 
 During the winter, while the Countess de Montfort lay tran- 
 quil in Hennebon, the Count Charles de Blois lay as tranquilly 
 in Nantes, which — as I have before related — had been treason- 
 ably surrendered to him by Sir Herve de Leon and the citizens 
 
38 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 of the place. But now that the fair weather had returned, 
 that the swallows were disporting themselves in the summer 
 air, the cuckoos calling by the river-sides, now that armies 
 could hold themselves in the fields with plenty of all tfeorts 
 around them, he summoned to him all those great princes of 
 the royal blood, and all the noble barons and valiant knights 
 who had fought with him in the last campaign. And, mind- 
 ful of their promises, they drew all their forces to a head, and 
 came with a great array of spears of France, and Genoese 
 cross-bowmen, and Spanish men-at-arms, under the leading of 
 the Lord Lewis d'Espagne, to re-conquer for him all that re- 
 mained unconquered of the fair land of Brittany. 
 
 During the last year the strong Castle of Chateauceux had 
 been won by them by sheer dint of arms, and Nantes, the ca- 
 pital of the province, by the vileness of the traitor Herve de 
 Leon ; the next strongest place to these was the city of Rennes, 
 which had been put into complete readiness for war by its late 
 lord, and further fortified by the countess, who had intrusted it 
 to Sir William de Cadoudal, a brave Breton knight, and in all 
 probability an ancestor of the no less valiant George, of the 
 same patronymic, the great Vendean chief and victim of Na- 
 poleon, co-murdered with the princely Due d'Enghien. 
 
 This town the French lords surrounded on all sides, and as- 
 sailed it with fierce and continual skirmishes at the barricades, 
 and wrought it much damage by the persistency of their on- 
 slaughts ; but still the defenders ' defended themselves so 
 valiantly, resolute not to lose their liege-lady's city, that the 
 besiegers lost more than they gained — for many lives were lost 
 on both sides, but far most on the French part ; and yet more 
 wounded — nor could they amend it anything ; nor win a 
 tower, nor force a gate, though they made assaults daily, and 
 plied the walls from mighty engines, with great store of artil- 
 lery. 
 
THE COUNTESS OF M0NTE0RT. 39 
 
 Now, when the Countess of Montfort heard how the French 
 lords had returned into Brittany, and were laying waste the 
 country and besieging her strong city, she sent one of the best 
 of all her knights, Sir Amauri de Clisson, who should repair 
 straightway to King Edward, in England, to entreat his as- 
 sistance, upon condition that her young son should take for 
 his wife one of the daughters of the king, and give her the title 
 of Duchess of Brittany. 
 
 And the king, well pleased to strengthen his claim on that 
 fair province, readily assented, and ordered Sir Walter Manny, 
 one of the prowest and most skilled in war of all his knights, 
 to gather together so many men-at-arms as he should with Sir 
 Amauri's advice judge proper ; and to take with him three or 
 four thousand of the best archers in England, and to take ship 
 immediately to the succor of the Countess of Montfort. 
 
 And Sir Walter embarked with Sir Amauri de Clisson, and 
 the two brothers Sir Lewis and Sir John de Land-Halle, the 
 Haze of Brabant, Sir Herbert de Fresnoi, Sir Alain de Sire- 
 fonde, and many others, leaders of note ; and men-at-arms not 
 a few ; and archers of England six thousand, the best men in 
 the realm, whose backs no man had seen. And they took 
 their ships, earnest to aid the countess with all speed ; but they 
 were overtaken by a mighty storm and tempest, and forced to 
 remain at sea forty days, so that much ill fell out, and more 
 would have befallen, but that it was not to be otherwise in the 
 end, but that the countess should hold the duchy as her own, 
 and her, son's for ever. 
 
 In the meantime, the Count Charles of Blois pressed closer 
 and closer to the town, and harassed the people sorely, so that 
 the gentlemen and soldiers being but a few, and the rogue 
 townsmen many, when they saw that no succors came nor 
 seemed like to come, they grew impatient ; and when Sir Wil- 
 
40 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 liam de Cadoudal was determined to make no surrender, they 
 rose on him by night, and cast him into prison ; and so basely 
 and treacherously yielded up the place to the Count Charles, 
 on condition only that the men of the Montfort party should 
 have no let or hindrance to go whither they would, with their 
 effects and followings, under assurance. 
 
 Then Sir William de Cadoudal joined the Countess de Mont- 
 fort where she abode in Hennebon, but where she had yet no 
 tidings from the King Edward of England, or from Sir Amauri 
 de Clisson, or any whom she had sent in his company. 
 
 And she had with her in Hennebon the Bishop of Leon, the 
 uncle of that traitor Sir Herve de Leon, Sir Yves de Tresiquidi, 
 the Lord of Landreman, Sir William de Cadoudal, the Gover- 
 nor of Guincamp, the two brothers of Quirich, Sir Oliver, and 
 Sir Henry de Spinefort, and many others. 
 
 Now the Count de Blois well foresaw that the countess once 
 delivered into his hands with the child John de Montfort, the 
 war was at an end for ever ; and, without tarrying at Eennes 
 when he had taken it, he marched direct upon Hennebon, to 
 take it if he might by assault, and if not, to sit down before it ; 
 and the number of his host without was, as by thousands to 
 hundreds of those within ; and there were among them many 
 great names for valor and for prowess — but there was that 
 within which without was lacking, the indomitable heart, the 
 immortal love of a true woman. 
 
 It was a little before noon on the 20th day of May, 1342, 
 when the vanguard of that great host might be seen from the 
 walls of Hennebon ; and a beautiful sight it was to see them 
 come; to behold the pennons and pennoncelles, the helmets 
 and habergeons, the plumes and surcoats, flashing and shim- 
 mering in the sunshine, and waving in the light airs ; and such 
 numbers of men-at-arms that the eye might not compass them ; 
 
THE COUNTESS OF MONTFORT. 41 
 
 all marshalled fairly beneath the square banners of their lordly 
 and princely leaders, so that they seemed like a moving forest, 
 so upright did they hold their lances. Then came the dense 
 array, on foot, of the Genoese cross-bows, in their plate coats of 
 Italian steel, with terrible arbalasts ; and the unrivalled infantry 
 of Spain, a solid column, bristling like the Greek phalanx of 
 old, with serried lines of spears. 
 
 The earth shook under the thick thunder of their horse- 
 hoofs ; the air was alive with the clash and clang of their steel 
 harness ; and all the echoes rang with the shrill flourishes of 
 their trumpets, and the stormy roar of their kettle-drums. 
 
 But no terror did such sights or sounds strike to the hearts 
 of that undaunted garrison — the deafening clang of the alarm- 
 bells, the tremendous tocsin answered the kettle-drums and 
 clarions ; and all within the city armed themselves in hot haste. 
 The flower of the French and Spanish chivalry galloped up to 
 skirmish at the barriers, and the iron bolts and quarrels of the 
 Genoese cross-bows fell like a hail-storm, even within the ram- 
 parts. 
 
 But ere that fierce storm had endured many minutes, up 
 grated the portcullises, down rattled the drawbridges, and as 
 the barriers were withdrawn — banners and spears, and barbed 
 destriers and knightly burgonets poured out from all the city 
 gates at once, and burst in full career upon the skirmishers of 
 the besiegers ; then many a knight was borne to earth, and the 
 chivalry of France and Spain fared ill before the lances of the 
 Bretons ; for they could not bide the brunt, but scattered back, 
 dismantled and discomfited, to their main body ; while the 
 maces and two-handed glaives and battle-axes of the men-at- 
 arms did bloody execution on the Genoese, who were not armed 
 to encounter the charge of steel-clad horse, and to whom no 
 quarter was given, not only that they were foreigners and 
 
 3* 
 
42 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 Condottiwi, but that themselves sparing none, they neither 
 looked for nor received mercy. 
 
 At vesper time, on both sides they retired ; the French in 
 great fury at their repulse, the garrison of Hennebon well con- 
 tent with themselves and with that they had done. 
 
 On the next day again, with the first rays of the sun, " the 
 French made so very vigorous an attack on the barriers, that 
 those within made a sally. Among them were some of their 
 bravest, who continued the engagement till noon with great 
 courage, so4hat the assailants retired a little to the rear, carry- 
 ing with them numbers of their wounded, and leaving behind 
 them a great many dead." 
 
 But not for that had they any respite or relaxation ; for the 
 lords of the French were so enraged at the dishonor which 
 had thus twice befallen their arms, that they ordered them up 
 a third time to the attack, in greater numbers than before, 
 swearing that they would win the walls ere the sun should set; 
 but for all their swearing they did not win that day, nor for all 
 their fighting ; for those of the town were earnest to make a 
 handsome defence, combating under the eyes of their heroic 
 chatelaine ; and so stoutly held they out, that the assailants 
 sent still to the host for succors till their last men were in the 
 field, and none were left, with the baggage and the tents, but a 
 sort of horseboys, scullions, and such rascals. 
 
 And still from the hot noontide, till the evening breeze began 
 to blow in cool from the sea, the din of arms, and shouts and 
 war-cries, and the clamor of the wounded, rose from the barri- 
 cades ; and many gallant deeds of arms were done on that day 
 on both sides, and many doughty blows given and received ; 
 but still the Lord Charles and his men made no way, but lost 
 more than they gained. 
 
THE COUNTESS OF MONTFORT. 43 
 
 And in tlie end the los and glory of the day, for the most 
 daring deed, rested with a woman. 
 
 For the countess on that day had clothed herself cap-a-pie in 
 armor, and mounted on a war-horse ; though ever till that day 
 she had been tender and delicate among women, of slender 
 symmetry and rare soft beauty, with large blue eyes and a 
 complexion of snow and golden tresses ; and she galloped up 
 and down the streets encouraging the inhabitants to defend 
 themselves honorably — for she had no thought yet but to com- 
 fort them and kindle their spirit by her show of example ; nor 
 as yet did she know her own courage, or the strength that 
 resides in the heart of a true woman. 
 
 " She had already," to quote old Froissart, whose account is 
 here so spirited and graphic in his own words, that I prefer giv- 
 ing the narration in that old quaint language, to adding any- 
 thing, or expanding the striking relation of facts too strong to 
 bear expansion, " she had already ordered the ladies and other 
 women to cut short their kirtles, carry the stones to the ram- 
 parts, and throw them on their enemies. She had pots of quick- 
 lime brought to her for the same purpose. That same day the 
 countess performed a very gallant deed : she ascended a high 
 tower, to see how her people behaved ; and, having observed 
 that all the lords and others of the army had quitted their 
 tents, and were come to the assault, she immediately descended, 
 mounted her horse, armed as she was, collected three hundred 
 horsemen, sallied out at their head by another gate that was 
 not attacked, and galloping up to the tents of her enemies, cut 
 them down, and set them on fire, without any loss, for there 
 were only servants and boys, who fled upon her approach. As 
 soon as the French saw their camp on fire, and heard the cries, 
 they immediately hastened thither, bawling out, ' Treason ! 
 Treason !' so that none remained at the assault. The countess 
 
44 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 seeing this, got her men together, and finding that she could 
 not reenter Hennebon without great risk, took another road, 
 leading to the castle of Brest, which is situated near. The 
 Lord Lewis of Spain, who was marshal of the army, had gone 
 to his tents, which were on fire ; and, seeing the countess and 
 her company galloping off as fast as they could, he immedi- 
 ately pursued them with a large body of men-at-arms. He 
 gained so fast upon them, that he came up with them, and 
 wounded or slew all that were not well mounted ; but the 
 countess, and part of her company, made such speed that they 
 arrived at the castle of Brest, where they were received with 
 great joy. 
 
 M On the morrow, the lords of France who had lost their 
 tents and provisions took counsel, if they should not make huts 
 of the branches and leaves of trees near to the town, and were 
 thunderstruck when they heard that the countess herself had 
 planned and executed this enterprise ; while those of the town, 
 not knowing what was become of her, were very uneasy ; for 
 they were full five days without gaining any intelligence of her. 
 The countess, in the meanwhile, was so active that she assem- 
 bled from five to six hundred men, well armed and mounted, 
 and with them set out about midnight from Brest, and came 
 straight to Hennebon about sunrise, riding along one side of 
 the enemy's host, until she came to the gates of the castle, 
 which were opened to her : she entered with great triumph and 
 sounds of trumpets and other warlike instruments, to the asto- 
 nishment of the French, who began arming themselves to make 
 another assault upon the town, while those within mounted the 
 walls to defend it. This attack was very severe, and lasted till 
 past noon. The French lost more than their opponents ; and 
 then the lords of France put a stop to it, for their men were 
 Jrilled and wounded to no purpose. They next retreated, and 
 
THE COUNTESS OF MONTFORT. 45 
 
 held a council whether the Lord Charles should not go to be- 
 siege the castle of Aurai, which King Arthur had built and 
 inclosed. It was determined that he should march thither, ac- 
 companied by the Duke of Bourbon, the Earl of Blois, Sir 
 Robert Bertrand, Marshal of France ; and that Sir Herve de 
 Leon was to remain before Hennebon, with a part of the 
 Genoese under his command, and the Lord Lewis of Spain, the 
 Viscount of Rohan, with the rest of the Genoese and Spaniards. 
 They sent for twelve large machines which they had left at 
 Rennes, to cast stones and annoy the castle of Hennebon ; for 
 they perceived that they did not gain any ground by their 
 assaults. The French divided their army into two parts: one 
 remained before Hennebon, and the other marched to besiege 
 the castle of Aurai. The Lord Charles of Blois went to this 
 last place, and quartered all his division in the neighborhood" 
 
 With the Count Charles de Blois we have naught to do, 
 save in so much as his doings or sufferings have to do absolutely 
 with the Countess de Montfort ; I shall leave him, therefore, to 
 win or lose the castle of Aurai, under the fortune of war, while 
 I shall follow the chances of that noble chatelaine, the countess, 
 who remained, as we shall see, not only beset by enemies with- 
 out, but by traitors within, the walls of Hennebon. 
 
 It may be as well to state here, however, that the Count 
 Charles of Blois did not take Aurai, whether it was built by 
 King Arthur or no — which, despite Dom Froissart, is rather 
 more than doubtful — any more than the Lord Lewis d'Espagne 
 took Hennebon, which he came perilous nigh to doing, yet had 
 to depart frustrate. 
 
 So soon as the French host had divided itself into two parts, 
 after the taste it had received of the quality of the Breton gar- 
 rison within the walls of Hennebon, and of the noble character 
 of its heroic chatelaine, they made no attempt any more to 
 
40 PERSONS AND TICTURES. 
 
 skirmish at the barriers, r>v to assault the walls, for in good 
 sooth they dared not, but day and night they plied those 
 dreadful engines hurling in mighty beams of wood, steel-headed 
 and ponderous iron bars, and vast blocks of stone, shaking the 
 walls and ramparts, wheresoever they struck them, so that the 
 defenders knew not at what moment they would be breached, 
 and the city laid open to the pitiless foe. 
 
 And now the hearts of all, save of that delicate and youth- 
 ful lady, failed them ; and if she had set them before a fair 
 example of chivalric daring, she set them now a fairer of con- 
 stancy, more heroical than any action ; of feminine endurance, 
 and fortitude, and faith, grander than any daring. 
 
 The false bishop, Guy de Leon, contrived to leave the town 
 on some false pretext, and hold a parley with his traitor kins- 
 man Herve de Leon — but for whose villany that bright young 
 dame never had cased her gentle form in steel, nor wielded the 
 mortal sword in warfare. Where traitors are on both sides, 
 treason is wont to win ; and so it well nigh proved in this in- 
 stance ; for the bishop returned with offers of free pardon to 
 the garrison, and passports to go whither they would, with their 
 effects unhurt, so they would yield the town to Sir Herve. 
 
 And, though the countess perceived what was on the wind, 
 and besought the lords of Brittany with tears and sighs, that 
 made her but more lovely, " for the love of herself, and of her 
 son ; friendless but for them ; for the love of God himself, to 
 have pity on her, and faith in heaven, that they should receive 
 succor within three days," it seemed that she could not prevail. 
 
 Nor was there not cause for apprehension ; since it was clear 
 to all that the ramparts could not stand one more day's breach- 
 ing; and, those once battered down, Hennebon and all within 
 it were at the mercy of the merciless. 
 
 The bishop was eloquent, and fear and hope more eloquent 
 
THE COUNTESS OF MONTFORT. 47 
 
 yet ; and ere, long after midnight, the council closed, all minds 
 but those of three, Sir Yves de Tresiquidi, Sir Waleran de 
 Landreman, and the governor of Guincamp, were won over to 
 yield up the city to Sir Herve ; and even those three doubted. 
 None so hopeful but to trust that to-morrow's conference would 
 be final ; none so strong in courage as to dare support one 
 other day's assault. 
 
 All passed the night in doubt and fear ; the countess alone 
 in brave hope, and earnest prayer. 
 
 The day dawned, and — as men crowded to the ramparts, 
 gazing towards the camp and the plain where Sir Herve might 
 be seen approaching with his Genoese, closing up to the town 
 to receive possession — the countess arose from her knees, and 
 she alone of all in Hennebon, turned her eyes towards the sea ; 
 for she alone, of all in Hennebon, had faith in her God. 
 
 The sea ! the sea ! it was white with sails, from the mouth 
 almost of the haven, to the dark line of the horizon, flashing 
 to the new-risen sun with lance-heads and clear armor, flutter- 
 ing with pennoncelles and banners, blazing with embroidered 
 surcoats and emblazoned shields. 
 
 And the lady flung her casement wide, and gazed out on her 
 people, in the market-place, along the ramparts, in the tumul- 
 tuous streets, with dishevelled hair, and disordered raiment, and 
 clasped hands and flushed cheeks, and eyes streaming with 
 tears of joy — " God and St. George !" she cried, in tones that 
 rang to every heart like the notes of a silver trumpet — " God 
 and St. George ! an English fleet ! an English fleet ! It is the 
 aid of God !" 
 
 And, as the people crowded to the seaward bastions, and saw 
 the great ships rushing in before a leading wind, with their 
 sails all emblazoned with Edward's triple leopards ; and the 
 banners and shields of the English Manny, and of their own 
 
48 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 Amauri de Clisson, displayed from the yard-arms, and the im- 
 mortal red cross blazing, above all, on its argent field, they, too, 
 took up the cry. 
 
 " God and St. George ! God and St. George ! It is the aid 
 of England ! it is the aid of God !" 
 
 "Thereafter," adds my author, whom I quote once more, for 
 the last time, " when the Governor of Guincamp, Sir Yves de 
 Tresiquidi, Sir Waleran de Landreman, and the other knights, 
 perceived this succor coming to them, they told the bishop that 
 he might break up his conference, for they were not now inclined 
 to follow his advice. The bishop, Sir Guy de Leon, replied, 
 4 My lords, then our company shall separate ; for I will go to 
 him who seems to me to have the clearest right.' Upon which 
 he sent his defiance to the lady, and to all her party, and left 
 the town to inform Sir Herve de Leon how matters stood. Sir 
 Herve was much vexed at it, and immediately ordered the 
 largest machine that was with the army to be placed as near 
 the castle as possible, strictly commanding that it should never 
 cease working day or night. He then presented his uncle to 
 the Lord Lewis of Spain, and to the Lord Charles of Blois, who 
 both received him most courteously. The countess, in the 
 meantime, prepared, and hung with tapestry, halls and cham- 
 bers, to lodge handsomely the lords and barons of England 
 whom she saw coming, and sent out a noble company to meet 
 them. When they were landed, she went herself to give them 
 welcome, respectfully thanking each knight and squire, and led 
 them into the town and castle, that they might have convenient 
 lodging ; on the morrow she gave them a magnificent enter- 
 tainment. All that night, and the following day, the large 
 machine never ceased from casting stones into the town. 
 
 " After the entertainment, Sir Walter Manny, who was cap- 
 tain of the English, inquired of the countess the state of the 
 
THE COUNTESS OF MONTFORT. 49 
 
 town, and of the enemy's army. Upon looking out of the 
 window, he said, he had a great inclination to destroy the large 
 machine which -was placed so near, and much annoyed them, 
 if any would second him. Sir Yves de Tresiquidi replied, that 
 he would not fail him in this his first expedition ; as did also 
 the Lord of Landreman. They went to arm themselves, and 
 sallied quietly out of one of the gates, taking with them three 
 hundred archers ; who shot so well, that those who guarded 
 the machine fled ; and the men-at-arms who followed the 
 archers, falling upon them, slew the greater part, and broke 
 down and cut in pieces this large machine. They then dashed 
 in among the tents and huts, set fire to them, and killed and 
 wounded many of their enemies before the army was in motion. 
 After this, they made a handsome retreat. "When the enemy 
 were mounted and armed, they galloped after them like mad- 
 men. Sir Walter Manny, seeing this, exclaimed, ' May I never 
 be embraced by my mistress and dear friend, if I enter castle or 
 fortress before I have unhorsed one of these gallopers.' He 
 . then turned round, and pointed his spear towards the enemy, as 
 did the two brothers of Lande-Halle, le Haze de Brabant, Sir 
 Yves de Tresiquidi, Sir Waleran de Landreman, and many- 
 others, and spitted the first coursers. Many legs were made to 
 kick the air. Some of their own party were also unhorsed. 
 The conflict became very serious, for reinforcements were per- 
 petually coming from the camp ; and the English were obliged 
 to retreat towards the castle, which they did in good order until 
 they came to the castle ditch : there the knights made a stand, 
 until all their men were safely returned. Many brilliant actions, 
 captures, and rescues might have been seen. Those of the 
 town who had not been of the party to destroy the large 
 machine now issued forth, and ranging themselves upon the 
 banks of the ditch, made such good use of their bows, that they 
 
50 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 forced the enemy to withdraw, killing many men and horses. 
 The chiefs of the army, perceiving they had the worst of it, and 
 that they were losing men to no purpose, sounded a retreat, and 
 made their men retire to the camp. As soon as they were gone, 
 the townsmen reentered, and went each to his quarters. The 
 Countess of Montfort came down from the castle to meet them, 
 and with a most cheerful countenance, kissed Sir Walter Manny, 
 and all his companions, one after the other, like a noble and 
 valiant dame." 
 
 Such was the heroism of that true lady. And so was her 
 heroism and her faith rewarded. Hennebon was relieved ; and 
 the Count Charles de Blois soon died, but died not Duke of 
 Brittany. 
 
^liilijjpa nf 3$atanlt: 
 
 WIFE OF EDWARD III. OF ENGLAND. 
 
 1347. 
 
PHILIPPA OF HAINAULT ; 
 
 WIFE OF EDWAKD in. OF ENGLAND. 
 
 The great defect of history, so far as regards the general 
 reader, is its habit of systematizing and generalizing, its method 
 of dealing with principles to the almost entire exclusion of 
 persons, of narrating events, effects, and causes in the mass, 
 with little, if any, allusion to individual character or action ; 
 of leaping from war to war, from revolution to revolution, 
 without condescending, for one instant, to customs or costumes, 
 to physical or social anecdotes, unless in the form of a lumping 
 supplemental summary at the end of a chapter, or of an epoch 
 so dry, so bald, and so mixed up with questions of political 
 economy, and other abstruse and unpopular topics, that they 
 are skipped as tedious and irrelevant episodes. It is to their 
 adopting the very reverse of this plan ; to their introducing us 
 personally to the halls, the tournaments, the courts, the camps, 
 the oratories, and the prisons of individual characters of his- 
 tory; to their letting us hear the very words that they did 
 speak, or might have spoken ; letting us be present at their 
 banquets and beside their biers, that the school of historical 
 dramas introduced by Shakspeare, and of historical romances 
 having their origin in Scott; and yet more than these the 
 
54 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 delightful and artless contemporaneous narratives of the old 
 chroniclers, owe their deathless charm ; and it is to this that 
 Macaulay owes the success of his brilliant and picturesque, 
 though partial and irresponsible history of England. 
 
 The consequence of this is, that men and women of the pre- 
 sent day, in general, depend for their events and facts of history 
 on the sparse and disjointed memories of the crude and bald 
 abridgments; of the, themselves, crude and bald generaliza- 
 tions, passing for history, which they picked up as children, 
 abhorring, not unnaturally, that abhorrent task, while their 
 active and actual ideas of historical events as acted realities, 
 and of historical personages as real men and women, walking 
 and standing, eating and drinking, waking and sleeping, wear- 
 ing clothes and speaking their own thoughts, they owe one and 
 all to the historical plays of Shakspeare, the historical romances 
 of Scott and his followers. In some sort, it is well that this 
 should be so. It would be well altogether, were the readers 
 able to discriminate between that which is true and that which 
 is only truth-like in the dramatical or romantical fiction ; were 
 they, in short, to limit their belief to the costume, the language, 
 and the social scenery only of the fiction, without giving to the 
 events of the narrative, or the actions of the personages, a cre- 
 dence which they were not intended to deserve. 
 
 For, we say it distinctly, that no reader of English History, 
 of Hume or Lingard, or even Mackintosh himself, ignorant of 
 the chroniclers, can form half so correct an idea of the usages, 
 the language, the dress, and the demeanor, the daily lives and 
 the daily doings of the English Kings, Barons, and Commons, 
 from the days of King John in the early feudal ages, to those of 
 the immediate predecessors of Elizabeth ; when constitutional 
 government, though irregular as yet and ill-defined, had taken 
 a firm foothold in the land ; and yet, he who should accept as 
 
PHILIPPA OF HAINAULT. 55 
 
 truths, Shakspeare's representations of the course of events, of 
 the characters and actions of men; forgetful that he wrote 
 according to the bias of his inclinations and his interest, and 
 reviewed history so as to gratify his patrons of the house of 
 Tudor, would err lamentably in his conclusions as to the great 
 and fundamental facts of history. 
 
 In like manner, the reader of Ivanhoe, of the Talisman, and 
 of the Betrothed, will gain more insight into the social life, the 
 domestic occupations, the military costume, the state of arts and 
 arms, the civil, religious, and literary condition of the people of 
 England, of all classes, in the times of the crusades — the reader 
 of Kenilworth will learn more of the state of England at large, 
 from the court to the cottage, during the heyday of Elizabeth, — 
 and the reader of the Fair Maid of Perth, and that noble novel, 
 Quentin Durward, of the real life of Scotland and of France, at 
 their respective periods, than the students of all the modern 
 histories of England, France, and Scotland, which still pass as 
 standards, and which boast high names of authors, published 
 from the reign of Anne, inclusively, to those of the elder 
 Georges. At the same time, however, while he may ascribe 
 perfect truth to the general coloring, and to all the details of 
 Scott's gorgeous historical pictures, he must not give implicit 
 credit to his individual portraitures ; he must not, we would 
 say, accept events built into tales, having a true historical foun- 
 dation, in order to connect and ornament the superstructure, as 
 being themselves truths of history. 
 
 It is to these delightful creations of the two greatest poetical 
 creators and constructors, in our opinion, who have ever written 
 in any language, Shakspeare and Walter Scott, that we owe our 
 own love of history and historical research. It was the eloquent 
 eulogium of Froissart, ascribed by the latter to one of his most 
 questionable heroes, John Graham of Claverhouse, that first 
 
56 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 induced us to open that richest mine of romance and history — 
 of truth stranger and more" exciting than fiction ; of prose more 
 thrilling, more effective, and more picturesque than poetry, the 
 pages of the ancient chroniclers. It was then and it was thence, 
 that we learned that it is not history, not the living body, with 
 its muscles, its sinews, its energy and action, its doings and suf- 
 ferings, its smiles and tears, its lights and shadows, of history 
 itself as it was, and as it was written by those who saw it, and. 
 lived with, and were a part of it ; but the marrowless and arid 
 skeleton into which the schools have boiled it down, and scraped 
 it clean, and distorted it, and set it up with wires, that we find 
 so cold, and base, and arid, so rigid in its lines, so pallid in its 
 hues, so distasteful to the human imagination, so unsatisfactory 
 to the human reasoning. It was then that we began to suspect 
 that the conquerors and prelates, the kings and queens, the 
 knights and ladies, who are so identical in their stiff-starched 
 effigies, as we are introduced to them, row after row, by grave 
 and cold historians, might possibly have been special individu- 
 alities, with characters and distinctions, each of their own and 
 different from those of others, with human hearts, human hopes, 
 human affections, human fears, and human sorrows ; that they 
 might, nay that they must, have had their histories of inter- 
 mingled vice and virtue, of interconnected sin and sorrow ; 
 their histories of the human heart of that olden day, with which 
 the human heart of this present day must have much with which 
 it can sympathize ; must have much from which it can learn — 
 no word of which will be found in that great compendium of 
 national growth and grandeur, crime and conquest, treason and 
 triumph, debility and downfall, which those, whom the world 
 calls its historians, have given as the history of the world. 
 
 Our object it is now, to endeavor to lay before the eyes of 
 our readers the portraiture of some whom they never regarded, 
 
PHILIPPA OF HAINAULT. 57 
 
 if they have regarded them at all, in any other light than that 
 of historical pageants, in the new guise of real persons ; and first 
 one, not the lowest or the least estimable, to whom two notices, 
 and those of the briefest, are given by Hume, and who, though 
 the wife and mother of two of the greatest and most estimable 
 heroes of the true chivalric era, and herself, in every respect, a 
 true heroine, and a true woman, is scarcely known to this day 
 as a real individual, other than an almost forgotten queen of 
 England. 
 
 Philippa, in. after days the wife of Edward III., and mother 
 of Edward, the Black Prince of England, was the second 
 daughter of William, Earl of Hainault, and first became 
 acquainted with her future lord, then Prince of Wales, when 
 he was compelled to fly in company with his infamous mother, 
 Isabella, " the wolf of France," of the poet Gray, and her com- 
 panion in evil, Roger of Mortimer, as well as his father's brother, 
 the Earl of Kent, from the intolerable tyranny and arrogance of 
 the Le de Spencers, who then, by the influence of the younger 
 Sir Hugh, over the weak, imbecile, and luxurious Edward II., 
 held absolute dominion over England," for protection to the 
 court of her father. 
 
 The royal fugitives had, at first, found refuge in Paris with 
 King Charles, the brother of Isabella, who was as famous for 
 her beauty as she was infamous for her crimes, and, above all, 
 for her connivance in the atrocious butchery of her hapless 
 husband ; but they had not long received asylum there, before 
 the Le de Spencers, fearing that the queen would be enabled to 
 make a descent on England by aid of her foreign allies, and so 
 to rally the malcontent barons to her standard and overthrow 
 their usurped authority, set all engines at work to bring about 
 her expulsion from the court of her brother. Cardinals and 
 prelates were bought with gold, until the Pope was induced to 
 
 4 
 
58 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 command Charles of France, on pain of excommunication, to 
 banish his sister the realm ; nor, it is probable, had the same 
 puissant worker on the minds of men been brought to bear 
 upon the king himself, for we find it recorded by the Lord 
 Berners, in his graphic and eloquent translation of Froissart, 
 that " he was in sagude and will to make his sister to be taken ;" 
 and it is an undoubted fact, that at the warning of her cousin, 
 the Count Robert of Artois, she set out at the dead of night for 
 the empire, apprehending the surrender of herself with Roger 
 Mortimer, the Prince Edward, and the Earl of Kent, into the 
 hands of Sir Hugh Le de Spencer ; and that she there found a 
 refuge first in Ostrevant, at the house of a poor knight, Sir 
 Eustace d' Ambreticourt, afterwards one of her son's paladins, 
 and himself father of one of the first knights of the garter, and 
 thereafter at Valenciennes, in the house of the Earl William of 
 Hainault ; " who, as well as his countess," says old Jehan Frois- 
 sart, " received her very graciously. Many great feasts were 
 given on this occasion, as no one knew better than the countess 
 how to do the honors of her house. This Earl William had, at 
 that time, four daughters, Margaret, Philippa, Zoar, and Isabella ; 
 the young King Edward, — it must be observed, however, that 
 he was, at this time, only Prince of Wales, and that a fugitive 
 prince, with no very direct prospects of obtaining his succession — 
 paid more court and attention to Philippa than to any of the 
 others ; and the young lady also conversed with him more fre- 
 quently, and sought his company oftener than any of her 
 sisters." 
 
 With this brief record ends all we know or can discover of 
 the courtship of the prince and his fair and virtuous bride, but 
 that their love must have been of that ardent and impulsive 
 character, which is known as love at first sight, cannot be 
 doubted, when we learn that they were Only at this time in 
 
PHILIPPA OF HAINAULT. 59 
 
 company during eight short-winged days, after which the young 
 prince departed with his mother, and such allies as his good 
 cause and the spirit of genuine knight-errantry, which was, at 
 that day, in its prime of real life, mustered to his standard, to 
 strike a blow for his crown, and for the emancipation of his 
 country from the abject state of degradation into which it had 
 fallen. 
 
 The uncle of Philippa, Sir John of Hainault, contrary to the 
 opinion of the earl, his brother, and of his council, who deemed 
 the enterprise hazardous, on account of the well known jealousy 
 of the English against foreign interference, resolved to accom- 
 pany the princely exiles, and aid in reinstating them in their 
 birthright, saying, in reply to all the remonstrances which were 
 made to him, " that he could die but once ; that the time was 
 in the will of God ; and that all true knights were bound to aid, 
 to the utmost extent of their power, all ladies and damsels driven 
 from their kingdoms, comfortless and forlorn." When the earl 
 had heard this, he said to him — " Dear brother, God forbid that 
 there should be any hindrance to your wish, therefore I give 
 you leave, in the name of God." He then kissed him, and 
 squeezed his hand, in sign of great affection. 
 
 How young Philippa parted from her princely lover history 
 has not thought it worth the while to record, but who can 
 doubt that, sprung from men whose every thought, every action, 
 was imbued with the very odor and sanctity of true chivalry, 
 brought up in the midst of all associations high and noble, held 
 far aloof from the contamination of any low, base, or ignoble 
 thought, any lucre-loving mercantile association, she sent him 
 away cheered with serene and soul-stirring encouragement ; that 
 she bade him do kingly, and, if he might not live a king, die 
 kingly ; that she assured him she would rather be the widowed 
 leal-love of one brave, royal Edward, dead under his shield 
 
60 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 knightly, than the crowned queen of the greatest king in Chris- 
 tendom. And who can doubt that, when his tall plume faded 
 from her sight, and the gleam and glitter of his panoply was 
 lost in the distance among the mists of evening, the tears dim- 
 med her bright eyes, and darkness fell upon her heart ; and 
 she doubted the truth of the high counsel she had been true 
 enough and brave enough to give — for, though she w&s nobly 
 born, and herself noble, and no recreant to her race, she was a 
 woman, a true woman, and she loved truly and wisely, and for 
 once, not too well ; for he, the loved one, deserved and returned, 
 and forgot not ever, but awarded and prized to the last, the 
 true love of Philippa of Hainault. 
 
 For once, contrary to all that Shakspeare did ever hear, did 
 ever read, in tale or history, their tale of true love did run 
 smooth. 
 
 The expedition was successful, the faction of the Le de Spen- 
 cers was put down, and themselves overpowered by a party 
 scarcely less infamous than that of Isabella and Mortimer — for 
 Edward III., yet a minor, and taking no share in the govern- 
 ment, fortunately for him elf, took no share of the guilt — suffered 
 by the hands of the common executioner ; and soon afterwards, 
 the unhappy and imbecile king ended an ignominious and 
 useless life by a death so ignominious and so horribly atrocious, 
 that, while history itself shrinks from recording it, it has almost 
 altered the sentence of utter condemnation of scorn and detes- 
 tation, which would otherwise have attached to his memory, 
 into something of that pity which is still nearer akin to con- 
 tempt than to love. Shortly afterwards, however, Edward, who 
 had attained his eighteenth year, and was already remarkable 
 for intellect and abilities, which might have been termed preco- 
 cious, but that they did not meet the fate of precocity in pre- 
 mature decay, succeeded in emancipating himself from the 
 
PHILIPPA OF HAINAULT. 61 
 
 arrogant domination of Mortimer, who, justly doomed by his 
 peers, died the deserved but bloody death of a traitor on the 
 scaffold ; and was crowned with a royal diadem, in his palace 
 of Westminster, on Christmas day, among the rejoicings of his 
 subjects of all classes, and the happy auguries, all of which, by 
 a most unusual success for popular-succeeding monarchs, he 
 fulfilled to the letter, for the benefit of his people, the honor of 
 his country, and his own eternal glory. 
 
 He had not long sat upon the throne of England, his acces- 
 sion to which was signalized, as was very wont in those days 
 to be the case, by an invasion of the Scots, which he repelled 
 in person, before he bethought himself seriously of the sweet 
 damsel whose heart he had won when but an exiled outlaw 
 prince, and whom, in the spirit of a true knight and true man, 
 he was now resolved to marry, a for that he loved her more 
 dearly, on her own and her father's account, than any other 
 lady." 
 
 He sent, therefore, a sumptuous embassy to demand her hand 
 of her father, the Earl of Hainault ; and having obtained a dis- 
 pensation from the Pope, which was necessary on account of 
 their near relationship, their mothers being cousins-german, 
 married her by procuration at Valenciennes ; after which she 
 was escorted to London by her uncle, Sir John of Hainault, 
 and crowned amongst great rejoicings of the people, and 
 " great crowds of the nobility, and feastings and tournaments, 
 and sumptuous entertainments every day, which lasted three 
 weeks." 
 
 Immediately on her being thus elevated to the throne of a 
 foreign country, she had the rare wisdom — most rare, indeed, 
 among crowned heads in the female line — to adjudge herself 
 entirely and wholly to the country of which she had become 
 one, to devote herself to studying the interests and gaining the 
 
62 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 affections of her people, and to identify herself wholly with 
 England by becoming herself an Englishwoman, as she was 
 already an English queen. Consequently, although but a little 
 while before her accession and coronation there had been sharp 
 feuds and even actual hostility between the English archers — a 
 force peculiarly national, English, and even Saxon in their 
 origin, and as such embodying the prejudices and expressing 
 the feelings of the people — and the Hainaulters, with her own 
 honored uncle at their head, we hear of no bickerings or 
 jealousies, much less of any partialities on the Queen's part 
 toward her own kin or countrymen — that block on which so 
 many queens have stumbled to their own disastrous downfall 
 — that we can find that "but few of our countrymen," as 
 Froissart writes, who was himself a Hainaulter born, and an 
 especially grateful servant of Philippa — " remained with the 
 young queen ; among whom was a youth called Wastelet de 
 Mauny, to attend on and carve for her, who performed after- 
 ward so many gallant deeds of arms, in such various different 
 places, that they are not to be counted." 
 
 To be the wife of such a champion, and such a king as 
 Edward, the mother and instructor of such a son as the Black 
 Prince — the only two men of actual existence, with the excep- 
 tion of Bayard, le sans pen et sans reproach, and the good and 
 gallant Philip Sidney, who have ever realized the beau-ideal of 
 knight-errantry, and the blended greatness and prowess of true 
 chivalry, were glory enough for any one woman ; but she added 
 to this to be the judicious and constant, as well as consistent 
 rewarder of true merit, whether in art or in arms ; to be the 
 defender of her husband's crown and of her adopted country ; 
 to show that, like her great successor, the lionlike Elizabeth, 
 though she were " but a weak woman, she had a man's heart 
 in her bosom, and that man's a king of England " — for she, 
 
PHILIPPA OF HAINAULT. 63 
 
 too, when her liege lord and sovereign was abroad, fleshing his 
 victorious sword in the heart of France, feared not to mount 
 the war-horse and gird the steel upon her thigh, and to address 
 her troops, on the eve of battle, with words of fire, that lighted 
 up an equal daring in the heart of the meanest groom and of 
 the proudest earl that fought at Neville's cross, on English soil 
 against a Scottish foeman, and caused the capture of a Scottish 
 king, not many days before the monarch of the French yielded 
 himself, conquered in chivalry and courtesy alike, to the victo- 
 rious prowess of her son. 
 
 We are no admirers, not we, of military glory, as attached 
 to women. We believe that the mission of women, as the 
 slang of the present day runs, is a mission to the home and 
 the hearth, to the fireside and the cradle, to the nursery and 
 the sick bed — that it is a mission to civilize, and humanize, and 
 soften, not to teach or to preach or to conquer — that it is a 
 mission to cheer the toils, comfort the homes, sympathize w r ith 
 the griefs, and by affectionate and gentle firmness to maintain 
 the courage of man against the shocks of this world, and the 
 apprehensions of the next. We believe, in a word, that the 
 God of nature, as nature itself indicates, intended them to be 
 the mothers and the wives of men, to love and to be loved, to 
 lean on the superior hardihood of man, and to soften and adorn 
 his hardness as the honeysuckle embellishes the oak, to which 
 it clings for shelter and support. We believe that the rights 
 of women are to be held highest and holiest of human things, 
 above all pollution, aloof from all insult, free from all harm, to 
 be loved, cherished, honored, worshipped next below God — but 
 neither to be orators nor statesmen, heads of firms nor chiefs of 
 battalions, champions of aristocracy nor propagandists of liberty. 
 We have no sympathy with your gallant dragoonesses of modern 
 Hungary or modern Poland, no respect for your Miss-Captain 
 
64 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 of Hussars, Emily this, or Countess-General of Artillery, Lady 
 Sarah that — we believe that if women choose voluntarily to 
 take to the work of men, and make themselves men, they have 
 no right to complain when they share the fate of men. Let 
 them follow squadrons, if they will, cheer their wounded, sus- 
 tain their dying husbands ; so shall they earn that deathless 
 renown, as true heroines, which clings to the Baroness de 
 Eeidesell, and the Lady Harriet Acland, of Saratoga and Still- 
 water — but let them not presume to lead squadrons and unsex 
 themselves, descending into soldiers, else shall they merit their 
 true name of termagants and viragoes, and " taking to the 
 sword shall die by the sword," whether on the field or on the 
 scaffold, by us at least un pi tied and despised, not honored. 
 
 To all rules, however, there are exceptions — and the excep- 
 tion to this rule is this, that when by accident of position, of 
 rank, or of circumstance, the woman is elevated or compelled 
 into such eminence or deadly necessity of trust, as compels her 
 to do actual battle in defence of those committed to her charge, 
 she is not only absolved of the charge of unsexing herself, of 
 the suspicion of unwomanly ambition for notoriety and loud 
 report, of yet more unwomanly love for masculine attire, mas- 
 culine display, perhaps masculine thirst for blood and glory, 
 but is entitled to the highest praise for daring, at the call of a 
 higher moral duty, to " overstep the modesty of nature," and 
 forgetful of the gentleness of woman to put on the fiery courage 
 and the stern endurance of man, for daring, in a word, " to do 
 her duty in that sphere of life to which it has pleased God to 
 call her." 
 
 Such was the position of Philippa, when her brave husband 
 and her brave son afar off in foreign lands, doing battle for 
 their country, herself appointed the vicegerent of the crown 
 and regent of the realm, with a foreign enemy polluting Eng- 
 
PHILIPPA OF HAINATJLT. 65 
 
 lish soil with their footsteps, and foreign banners flouting the 
 free wind of England, she buckled the lion casque over her 
 matron pillet, and drew the sword, and breathed the breath of 
 liberty into the hearts of all who heard her thrilling words on 
 that wild plain of Cumberland, and filled the meanest of her 
 followers with that heaven-reaching valor which makes triumph 
 certain. 
 
 Such was the position of Elizabeth, when she rode her war- 
 horse, in full caparison, along the mustered train-bands and 
 militia of her realm, weak-seeming bulwark for the liberties 
 and the religion of her land, against the ianconquered veterans 
 of the low country, the far famed Spanish infantry, the freight 
 of the invincible Armada, and swore that she would fight, and 
 if she could not live, then die, a king of England. 
 
 Such was the position of Maria Theresa, when she drew her 
 sabre, on the guarded mount, all as she harangued her tumul- 
 tuous legions of noble cavalry, before the unhallowed partition 
 of her realm, and her words of flame were answered by the 
 unanimous cry, while every sword leaped from its scabbard, 
 through that mighty host, moriamur, moriamur, pro rege nos- 
 tro, Maria Theresa. 11 
 
 Such is the position of the backwoodsman's wife ; Kentucky 
 and Tennessee, the dark and bloody ground, can tell of many 
 a one who, when alone at dead of night, or with her terrified 
 and helpless little ones only around, startled from sleep by the 
 appalling sounds of the war-whoop, far pealing through the 
 arches of the forest, has snatched the weapons of her absent 
 husband, and done victorious battle for her hearth and her 
 home against the fierce and wily savage. 
 
 And cold must be his heart, and weak his glow of manly 
 spirit, who does not in the same degree admire, and venerate, 
 and almost canonize such true examples of pure, legitimate, and 
 
 4* 
 
66 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 holy feminine heroism, as he doubts, and tries, and finally con- 
 demns, rejects as base and spurious, that false, fierce, unfeminine 
 spirit, which, assuming the garb of heroism to cover ambition 
 and love of notoriety, leaps to arms, backs chargers, and lite- 
 rally slays men in hand to hand encounter, only to cringe and 
 quail — while the gulled, gaping mob, shrieks horror at the sight 
 — when taken in the soldier's self-elected trade, they are com- 
 pelled to abide by the soldier's doom. 
 
 But such was not the character, such not the action of the 
 gentle and brave Philippa. Compelled by her rank and state 
 to defend her husband's crown, and son's hereditary kingdom, 
 she came forward for one little moment, she showed herself for 
 one passing glance able to perform her duties, even if these 
 duties were the duties of a man, and the next, when victorious 
 over her foes, and the saviour of her country and her crown, 
 retired into the gentle and unassuming routine of her sweet 
 and humble life, and is next found — as we find recorded in 
 history — as crossing over the British channel, " to throw her- 
 self at the feet of the indignant king, and beg with tears the 
 lives of the six rebellious burgesses of Calais, doomed to a base 
 death on the gallows, by the wrath of the unrelenting victor." 
 
 "We care not that this anecdote has no foundation in history 
 — as it has very clearly been proved to have none, from actual 
 and direct testimony, as well as from the internal evidence of 
 the legend — for, though it is totally inconsistent with the cha- 
 racter of Edward III., who, on no single occasion, is known to 
 have acted otherwise than generously, mercifully, and knightly 
 to all men, whether of high or low degree, and who in that 
 very siege of Calais had shown proof of mercy, very unusual 
 even in the comparatively humane warfare of modern times, in 
 permitting the unwarlike inhabitants of the city to withdraw 
 themselves from the hardships and sufferings of a beleaguered 
 
PHILIPPA OF HAINAULT. 67 
 
 city, after the blockade had been completed — still it is evident 
 that no contemporaneous writer could have invented such an 
 anecdote had it been very much at variance with the spirit of 
 the times, or at all inconsistent with the known character of the 
 princess whom he desired to laud, that she should " with tears 
 have said, 'Ah, gentle sir, since I have crossed the sea with 
 great danger to see you, I have never asked you one favor ; now, 
 I most humbly ask as a gift, for the sake of the Son of the blessed 
 Mary, and for your love to me, that you will be merciful to 
 these six men ; T " or, that " the king should have looked at her 
 for some time in silence, and then said, ' Ah, lady, that you had 
 been anywhere else than here ; you have entreated in such a 
 manner that I cannot refuse you ; I therefore give them to you, 
 do as you please with them.' " The anecdote is known, proved, 
 and by all historians admitted to be untrue ; it is therefore un- 
 worthy of a place in history, except as a foot note, illustrative 
 of the spirit of the times, and the character by her own contem- 
 poraries ascribed and believed to belong to Philippa of Hai- 
 nault — to her honor it was composed, and in her|honor it ought in 
 some sort to hold good, since it is clearly what she was capable 
 of doing, might well have done, would probably have done had 
 it been in her way so to do, and was actually believed to have 
 done by her servant and historiographer. 
 
 From this time forth we hear little of her, a proof that her 
 life flowed evenly and serenely towards its close ; it is the tor- 
 tured and the turbulent waters that are the most loudly bruited— 
 those which are most placid, which most brilliantly re^°t the 
 hues of heaven, are the peaceful and the silent. <#he lived to 
 see her husband, who never varied from his l^e for her, or was 
 seduced from alleg-i*"^ to her beauty bj younger or more bril- 
 liant charw^j the greatest king in Christendom ; she lived to 
 *<*3 her son, the Black Prince, the most famous champion, the 
 
C8 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 bravest, gentlest, best knight in the world, the glory of his 
 native land, and the wonder of the world, as he lives in his 
 great renown to this day, for all the real attributes of the best 
 and brightest of earthly things— true Christian chivalry ; a gen- 
 tleman, a soldier, a noble, a man, a Christian, and a knight par 
 excellence, for ever. 
 
 Happy as she had been in her life, she was no less happy in 
 her death, for she survived nothing — neither friends nor fame, 
 neither happiness nor love. She died as she had lived, the 
 honored of her children, the beloved of her husband, the adored 
 of her adopted country, the regretted of all — the best woman, 
 the best queen of her own day — almost the best of any. 
 
 Hear what fell out when this lovely woman passed away, for 
 the passage which relates to it is one of t}ie gems of Froissart, 
 in the quaint, old, simple, Saxon English, of his best, if first 
 translator, Johan Bourchier, Lord Berners. 
 
 " There fell in Englande a heavy case and a common, how- 
 beit it was right pyteouse for the kinge, his children, and all 
 his realm. For the good queene of Englande, that so many good 
 deeds had done in her tyme, and so many knights succored, 
 and ladyes and damosels comforted, and had so largely departed 
 of her goods to her people, and naturally loved always the nation 
 of Heynaulte, the country where she was born. She fell sick 
 in the castle of Wyndsore, the which sickness continued on her 
 so long that there was no remedy but dethe. And the good 
 Wlye, when she knew and perceived that there was with her no 
 retfMy but dethe, she deigned to speke with the king, her hus- 
 bande. A n d when he was before her, she put out of her bed 
 her right hano, an( i took the king by his right hand, who was 
 right sorrowful in hVa heart. Then she sa id, ? Sir, we have in 
 peace, joy, and great prosperity, used all our time together. Sir, 
 now, I pray you, at pur departing, that ye will grant me ttuo* 
 
PHILIPPA OF HA1NAULT. 69 
 
 desires.' The kinge, right sorrowfully weeping, said, * Madame, 
 desire what ye will ; I will grant it.' ' Sir,' said she, ' I require 
 of you, first of all that all, manner of people, and as I shall have 
 dealt with in merchandise, in this side of the sea or beyond it, 
 that it may please you to pay every thing that I owe them or 
 any other. And secondly, sir, all such ordnance and promises 
 as I have made to the churches, as well of this country as be- 
 yond the sea, whereas I have had. any devotion, that it may 
 please you to accomplish and fulfil the same. Thirdly, sir, I 
 require you that it may please you to take none other sepulture, 
 whensoever it shall please God to take you out of this transitory 
 life, but beside me in Westminster.' The kinge, all weeping, 
 said, ' Madame, I grant you your desire.' Then the good ladye 
 and queene made on her the sign of the cross, and commended 
 the king, her husband, to God, and her youngest son, Thomas, 
 who was then beside her. And anone, after, she yielded up the 
 spirit, the which I believe surely the holy angels received with 
 great joy up to heaven, for in all her life she did neither in 
 thought nor deed thing whereby to lose (hurt) her soul, as far 
 as any creature could know. Thus the good queene of England 
 died, in the year of our Lord MCCCLXIX. in the vigil of our 
 lady, in the myddle of August. Kest to her soul." 
 
tflje fmd rf it J&m, 
 
 OR, 
 
 THE FRENZY OF CHARLES VI. 
 
 1387. 
 
THE FOREST OF LE MANS; 
 OK, THE FRENZY OF CHARLES VI. 
 
 It was a blazing day in August. For above six weeks the 
 earth had been scourged with intolerable heat ; not a drop of 
 rain had fallen to refresh the fading verdure, or swell the chan- 
 nels of the wasted rivulets. The meadows and the pasture- 
 lands of Brittany were as sere and yellow as the sands of the 
 Olonne ; the foliage of the forests had put on, two months be- 
 fore their time, the melancholy tints of autumn. A few mise- 
 rable, half-starved cattle were to be seen, the only signs of life, 
 panting beneath the scanty shelter of the half-denuded trees, or 
 standing, fetlock-deep, in the muddy hollows which a little 
 while before had been cool ponds and watering places. No 
 song of birds was to be heard in the deserted woodlands ; all 
 was sad, solitary, silent. 
 
 From the horizon to the zenith there was not a cloud so large 
 as a man's hand in the lurid sky, which shone with a strange 
 brassy glare, as if the light were transmitted through a dusty 
 haze, amid which the blood-red sun stood portentous, " shorn 
 of his beams," yet withering and scorching everything within 
 the sphere of his malign influence. 
 
 Not a breath of wind moved the torpid air — not a leaf, not 
 a blade of grass quivered. 
 
74 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 All that preserved its green unaltered over a vast tract of 
 country was the dark prickly furze, patient of all extremes of 
 heat or cold, the long sprays of the Spanish broom, child of the 
 arid waste, the stunted furs which spotted, singly or in clumps, 
 the surface of that blasted heath, and the heavy masses of 
 almost black pine-forest, which gloomed on the level horizon. 
 
 The only sounds were the monotonous and droning cry of the 
 field-crickets, and the snapping of the seed-pods of the broom, 
 which crackled away continually like a pigmy fusillade under 
 the hot noon-tide. If the casual passage of a dull and weary 
 ox, or the stealthy tread of the fox, the wild-cat, or the wolf of 
 the neighboring forest, disturbed the deep dust, which lay six 
 inches deep on the many unfenced roads which meandered 
 through those sterile commons, it rose thick and dark, and hung 
 there long, fanned away by no breath of air, and immovable as 
 though it were a point of question whether the earthy particles, 
 or the atmosphere on which they seemed upborne, were the 
 heavier. 
 
 Such was the day, most strange, and most unfit, on which 
 it was determined that a royal army — one of those stupendous 
 chevauchees of mail-clad men-at-arms — numbering thousands 
 upon thousands of high-born cavalry, which formed the feudal 
 array — the ban and arriere ban of France — should take the field. 
 
 Charles the Sixth, the unhappy king of France, who but 
 twelve years before had mounted the throne with auguries so 
 proud and happy, whose gay youth had been blessed with 
 visions ominous of great glory, even while his mad orgies were 
 making the sepulchral vaults of St. Denys to resound with 
 revelry and riot, now a king in little more than name, betrayed 
 by whom he should most have trusted, deserted by his nearest 
 relatives, alone among traitors, had resolved — at length resolved 
 
THE FOREST OF LE MANS. 75 
 
 when it was too late, to assert his royalty and rights, to be — no 
 longer seem — a king. 
 
 A few months before an atrocious crime had been committed 
 in the streets of Paris, on the holy festival of the Fete Dieu, 
 almost within ear-shot of the palace, whence the intended victim 
 had scarce departed, leaving the presence of the king. " This 
 was an attack of expiring feudality upon feudal right, traitor- 
 ously made by an arriere vassal on his suzerain's office, within 
 the very palace of his suzerain."* That was a villanous night 
 attack, a murderous ambuscade, executed under the instigation, 
 if not by the positive orders of the Duke of Brittany — the secret 
 enemy of France, and sworn friend of the English. 
 
 The victim of this base outrage was Sir Oliver le Clisson, High 
 Constable of France, and the only man, perhaps, in all his realm 
 on whom the unfortunate monarch could really place reliance; 
 for his uncles, the Dukes of Burgundy and Berry, were his ill- 
 counsellors at least, and ill-wishers, while his own brother, the 
 young and handsome Duke of Orleans, recently espoused to the 
 beautiful daughter of the Duke of Milan, was neither firm 
 friend, nor sure dependence. 
 
 By these men, and by all the secret evil-doers and enemies 
 of the king, Clisson was mortally hated, and in addition 
 feared. 
 
 " In France,f he was Constable, the king's sword against the 
 barons ; in Brittany, on the contrary, he was the leader of the 
 barons against the duke. Closely allied to the houses of Anjou 
 and Penthievre, he only waited his opportunity to expel this 
 duke, and dismiss him to his friends the English. The duke> 
 who knew De Clisson thoroughly, lived in constant fear of him, 
 
 * Michelet's History of France, book viii., chap. iii. 
 \ Ibid., book viii., chap. iii. 
 
76 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 and dreamed only of the terrible man with one eye, could never 
 forgive himself for having had his enemy within his hands — hav- 
 ing held him, and not having had the courage to make away 
 with him. ■ Now there was one who had an interest in Clisson's 
 death, having everything to fear from the Constable, and the 
 house of Anjou. This was an Anquin lord, Pierre du Craon, 
 who, by his theft of the treasures of the Duke of Anjou, his 
 master, during his Neapolitan expedition, was the cause of his 
 perishing unsuccored. His widow never lost sight of this man ; 
 and Clisson, the ally of the house of Anjou, never met the 
 thief without treating him as he deserved. 
 
 " These two fears, these two hates, came to an understanding. 
 Craon promised the Duke of Brittany to rid him of Clisson. 
 Returning secretly to Paris, he entered the city by night — the 
 gates being constantly open since the punishment of the Mail- 
 lotins. He filled his hotel in the market St. Jean with cut- 
 throats, and here they waited many days with doors and win- 
 dows closed. At last, on the 13 th of June, the Fete Dieu, a 
 grand gala being given in the hotel Saint Paul, with jousts, 
 supper, and dances, till after midnight, the Constable returned 
 from it almost alone to his hotel, Rue de Paradis. The vast 
 and silent Marais, desert enough now, was much more so then ; 
 great hotels, gardens, and convents being scattered here and 
 there over it. Craon stationed himself on horseback, with forty 
 bandits, at the corner of the rue St. Catherine. On Clisson's 
 coming up, they extinguished their torches, and fell upon him. 
 At first the Constable took it to be a freak of the king's younger 
 brother. But Craon would add to death the bitter pang of 
 letting him know by whose hand he died. ' I am your enemy/ 
 he cried, * I am Pierre de Craon.' 
 
 " The Constable, who had no other weapon than a small 
 cutlass, defended himself as long as he could, but at length a 
 
THE FOREST OF LE MANS. 77 
 
 blow on the head felled him, and, in falling, he luckily struck 
 against a half-open door — a baker's, who was heating his oven, 
 the night being far advanced. He had fallen head-foremost, 
 half into the shop, so that to complete the murder, it would 
 have been necessary to enter it. But not one of the forty durst 
 alight ; and preferring to believe that the deed was done, they 
 escaped at full gallop through the gate St. Antoine. 
 
 " The news was instantly brought to the king, who had re- 
 tired to bed. He would not wait to dress, but throwing a cloak 
 over him, hurried off without waiting for his attendants. He 
 found the Constable come to himself, and promised that he 
 would avenge him, swearing that nothing should ever be more 
 dearly paid. 
 
 a Meanwhile the murderer had secreted himself in his castle 
 of Sable au Maine, and then in some secret nook of Brittany. 
 The king's uncles, who were overjoyed at the event, and who 
 had some intimation of it beforehand, to put off the king and 
 gain time, asserted that Craon was in Spain. But the king was 
 not to be deceived ; it was the Duke of Brittany whom he de- 
 sired to punish." 
 
 Some time had elapsed since the perpetration of the foul 
 deed of assassination, so great was the desire of the king's 
 uncles to shelter the miscreant, whose crime they in sooth 
 regarded as good service, and their reluctance to proceed to ex- 
 tremities against the Duke of Brittany, who was of their party, 
 and their good friend. 
 
 But the king was very urgent, and for once resolute in his 
 will, so that nothing could make him change it. For he was 
 determined to drive the Duke of Brittany from his duchy, and 
 nominate a governor over it till his children should be of age, 
 that it might be restored to them. And it was of no avail that 
 while the king tarried at Le Mans, his uncles caused a letter to 
 
78 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 be written to him by the Lady Jolande de Bar, Queen of Ar- 
 ragon, and cousin-germ an of the King of France, informing 
 him that she had caused to be arrested, and detained in prison 
 at Barcelona, a French knight, who had come thither with a 
 handsome array, intending to pass the sea to Naples, and whom 
 she believed to be Sir Pierre de Craon. The king, however, 
 was not to be deceived, but persisted in his resolve ; and his 
 uncles could not refuse to accompany their sovereign with their 
 vassals, since they were bound in honor to do so ; the rather 
 that in order " to put an end to their repugnances and delays, 
 he had restored to the Duke de Berri that Languedoc, of which 
 he had on such just grounds deprived him."* 
 
 Now, although the king had been for some time past lan- 
 guishing from the effects of a raging fever, from which he was 
 not well recovered, and was, moreover, heart-sick with impa- 
 tience and anger at the delays imposed upon him by his trai- 
 torous kinsmen, he would now be held back no longer ; nor 
 would he listen to any discussions, but ordered the orirlamme to 
 be unfurled, for that on the morrow he would surely march. 
 
 On the preceding evening he had sent for the marshals of his 
 army to his chamber, and ordered them to have the men-at- 
 arms ready by early morn to march to Angers ; " For," he 
 added, " we have determined never to return from Brittany until 
 we have destroyed the traitors who give us so much trouble." 
 
 And in the morning of the terrible and oppressive August 
 day which I have described, in the middle of the month, when 
 the sun has the greatest force, after having heard mass and 
 drunk a cup, the king mounted his horse, and took his way into 
 the forest of Le Mans, accompanied by all the following of his 
 realm ; his uncles, with their vassals, and all the great feudato- 
 
 * Michelet's France, ut sup. 
 
THE FOREST OF LE MANS. 79 
 
 ries of the kingdom, and men -at- arms, from Artois, Beauvais, 
 Fermandois, and Picardy, and other distant countries ; in seem- 
 ing, a right royal host. And yet, for all that, Charles was 
 alone with all that glorious following — alone in the midst of 
 traitors. The men were about him, by whose very hands, or at 
 whose instigation, his Constable had been attacked and stricken 
 down at his own palace-gates, and was it likely that such 
 should be overscrupulous about laying hands on him ! 
 
 During the? whole of his, detention at Mans, the king had 
 labored hard at the council, where he had met more opposition 
 than assistance ; he was feeble both in mind and body, daily 
 attacked by fever fits, which were increased by any contradic- 
 tion or fatigue ; and these his counsellors thrust upon him 
 daily. No wonder if his intellects were at times disordered and 
 obscured — for it would seem they would have it so ; and the 
 more that they observed his looks, wild and wandering, or his 
 words strange and inconsistent, the more they affronted his 
 desires and thwarted him. 
 
 Moreover, he felt, although he gave no inch to the feeling, that 
 he was beset with domestic enemies ; that he was marked out 
 by the men of his own blood, by the nobles of his realm, the 
 clergy, the whole people, for hatred — perhaps for destruction. 
 14 What, however, had he done, to be thus hated by all, he who 
 hated none, but rather loved all the world ? his desires were for 
 the alleviation of his people's burdens — at least his heart was 
 good ; and this all the right-minded knew full well." 
 
 In this state of mind and body, the young king mounted his 
 horse between nine and ten o'clock of the morning, and rode 
 forth from Le Mans, followed by the whole of his mighty caval- 
 cade, across a wide and sandy plain, exposed to the full glare 
 of the scorching sun. And the dust surged up in clouds from 
 beneath the thousands of trampling hoofs, and hung fixed in the 
 
80 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 sweltering and stirless atmosphere, like the dread crimson cloud 
 that heralds the deadly simoom of the Arabian desert, stifling 
 and almost intolerable to both man and beast. 
 
 The horses, although travelling at a foot's pace only, literally 
 sprinkled the soil with the sweat that streamed from their 
 limbs — the stoutest of the men-at-arms could scarcely endure 
 the weight of their solid panoply, while the younger and weaker 
 of their number fainted from heat, or fell from their saddles, 
 . overdone by the excess of toil. So insufferable, in fact, was the 
 closeness of the weather, that it was found utterly impossible, 
 not only to march in order, or to preserve anything like regular 
 rank, but even to hold together in compact bodies. And, con- 
 sequently, as they were marching through a friendly territory, 
 with no enemy within many leagues' distance, and as the coun- 
 try — open, level, unencumbered by fences, and traversed by 
 innumerable roads, or rather tracks, running parallel one to the 
 other, over the heaths and commons — favored such operations, 
 the army subdivided itself into various bands, columns, and 
 divisions, each under the banner of its own lord or leader, and 
 each marching, at its own pleasure, without concert or order, 
 towards a common point. 
 
 Nor, when the vanguard entered the great wooded tract, 
 known as the forest of Le Mans, was the case materially altered. 
 For, in the first place, the woodland, like the commons, was 
 intersected by numerous wood-paths and glades, used by the 
 charcoal-burners", and, in the second, except in rare spots, 
 where the underwood, grew into tangled thickets, or masses of 
 large timber-trees had overcrowded the coppice, the forest was 
 composed for the most part of thin straggling underwood, 
 scattered more or less sparsely over barrens overspread with 
 dwarf heather, fern, and broom, such as offered no impediment 
 to the progress of an array so open and loose, not to say undis- 
 
THE FOREST OF LE MANS. 81 
 
 ciplined, as that of a chevauchee of feudal horse. Along the 
 principal causeway only, which ran in a direct line across the 
 forest, was the woodland dense and continuous ; but here, and 
 on either side, for a breadth of a quarter of a mile, a dense and 
 almost impenetrable pine- wood still prevailed, with trees so 
 tall and shadowy, that at high noon the road was gloomy, and 
 at early evening dark as midnight. 
 
 At a distance, the deep green shadows of this avenue seemed 
 to promise something of coolness and relief from the hourly- 
 increasing rage of the sunbeams, and to it therefore the king 
 directed his way, followed only by a few of his personal attend- 
 ants, and some men-at-arms of his immediate guard. 
 
 It is hardly possible, on reviewing the history of the singular 
 occurrences which followed, not to believe that deep treason was 
 intended on this occasion to the unhappy monarch ; and that, 
 although in some degree hideously successful, the plans of the 
 conspirators were frustrated, or, at least, fell out differently from 
 what they intended, since the final consequences of the cata- 
 strophe were such as could scarcely have been contemplated, and 
 were, moreover, too distant and too little certain to have been 
 devised aforehand. 
 
 Certain it is, that no advanced party was thrown forward — 
 no flankers detached to scour the woods on either hand — no 
 precautions taken against treachery or ambuscade, in a place 
 singularly adapted for the harbor of lurking assassins, and in an 
 age when no place was safe to those in power, and when pre- 
 cautions, the strictest and most ceremonious, were of daily 
 custom. 
 
 No friend, moreover, no man of rank, or councillor, with 
 whom he could hold converse, by which to while away the 
 weariness of the hot and tedious march, or to distract the heavy 
 
 5 
 
82 , PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 and distempered gloom which weighed on his spirits, accom- 
 panied him, or was within call. 
 
 It can hardly be imagined that he was not so left alone of set 
 purpose ; so that, whatever might occur — and it was probably 
 well known that something would occur — there should be no 
 ready aid at hand, nor any witnesses. 
 
 So the king rode along, slowly, in gloom — in distempered 
 spirits — in dreamy and unsettled mood. It must be remem- 
 bered, that, from his childhood, he had been different from other 
 children, that he had ever a strange and visionary turn of mind, 
 that he believed himself to have seen visions and have held 
 intercourse with things supernatural. 
 
 Hunting the stag some twelve years before in the forest of 
 Senlis, he had encountered a miraculous deer, which had sur- 
 vived to display the golden collar with which it had been deco- 
 rated by Julius Csesar, fourteen centuries ago, to the infant king 
 of Christendom — who was destined, his flattering courtiers 
 swore, to emulate the glories of the first emperor of Eome. 
 
 From that day the mystic stag had been his chosen emblem ; 
 from that day the wildest mysticism of occult science, of mythi- 
 cal romance, of awful superstition had laid hold of him ; and 
 that they doubtless knew full well, and counted on, who devised 
 that which followed. There is a narrow, scanty rill, which tra- 
 verses that wide, thirsty tract, fed by perennial sources, crossing 
 the high road not many miles from Le Mans, and nourishing 
 along its banks to the present day a heavy coppice of alders 
 and water-willows. Even in that burning drought its shallow 
 channel, too insignificant to require a bridge which should span 
 it, contained a small thread of water. 
 
 A huge oak tree completely overhung it, and the path 
 beneath its heavy umbrage was cool with grateful exhalations 
 from the brooklet. 
 
THE FOREST OE LE MANS. 83 
 
 The king, merciful to his beast by nature — and the horse he 
 rode was a favorite — drew him in as he set his fore-feet in the 
 channel, and casting his reins down upon his glossy neck, 
 suffered him to bend down his head and drink, smiling the 
 while with a faint, melancholy smile at the eagerness with 
 which he plunged his muzzle into the cool current, and clap- 
 ping him on his neck with his ungloved hand. Seeing that 
 the king paused, his pages, who rode next behind him, halted at 
 some hundred yards' distance, and the men-at-arms again a 
 little space behind them, unwilling to intrude upon the monarch 
 in his mood of gloom. 
 
 Suddenly, a wild, prolonged, plaintive wail arose from the 
 thicket, more like to the dolorous howl of some animal in mor- 
 tal suffering than to any sound of human agony or sorrow ; 
 and before any one might even surmise what was the meaning 
 of the outcry, a hideous apparition glided out from the forest 
 shadows, and confronted the astounded monarch. 
 
 It was a tall, emaciated figure of a man, barefooted and 
 bareheaded, with wild, knotted elf-locks, hollow-eyed, hollow- 
 cheeked, white-lipped, liker to an animated corpse than to any 
 living thing. He was clad in a miserable cassock of white 
 russet, and nothing can be imagined more- deplorable than his 
 whole aspect and condition — the like of him was never seen 
 before that day, nor was he ever seen or heard tell of by any 
 after it. 
 
 As he confronted the king, startling his horse, which threw 
 up its head at the strange vision, he caught the reins boldly; 
 and the charger, one of the bravest and most fiery that was 
 ever backed of man, stood snorting, with wide eyes and ex- 
 panded nostrils, trembling in every limb, sweating at every pore. 
 
 "Ride back!" he cried, in a low, deep, monotonous voice, 
 " ride back, noble king. You are betrayed ! — betrayed !" 
 
84 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 And whether it was an echo, or an accomplice, or something 
 beyond nature, a deep response, " Betrayed ! betrayed !" ap- 
 peared to the distempered senses of the king — who sat in his 
 saddle, rigid, glaring on his strange visitant like one stricken 
 with catalepsy — to resound through the thickets. But, at this 
 moment, some of the men-at-arms came up at the gallop, and 
 beat the hands and bare arms of the man, maniac, impostor, or 
 seer — be he which he might — until he let go his hold, and the 
 terrified horse sprang forward, and bore his royal master on- 
 ward, almost unconscious as it seemed of all that had passed, 
 and plunged in profound meditation. 
 
 But no one stayed to arrest or question that strange person- 
 age — it might be, because no persons of authority were at 
 hand ; it might be, because the men-at-arms were themselves 
 shaken by superstitious fancies ; it might be because they were 
 so ordered. 
 
 And the figure ran along, the way, beside the army, until the 
 men-at-arms had all passed him by, still waving his arms aloft, 
 and screaming in that dismal, doleful tone — "Ride back, ride 
 back, sir king ! betrayed ! betrayed !" and none harmed him, 
 nor meddled with him at all. But when the last men-at arms 
 had outstripped and passed him by, some of them looked 
 back — it may be trembling— and he had disappeared ; nor from 
 that day did any human eyes behold him. 
 
 But the king rode on — for none came near to comfort him, 
 or converse with him, or question him of what had passed ; not 
 his uncles, nor his brother of Orleans,- nor any of his nobles — 
 on " through the weary forest, stunted and affording no shade ; 
 on, into the sultry heaths and dazzling mirages of southern 
 sand"* — solitary, alone, with a multitude around him. 
 
 * Michelet's France. 
 
THE FOREST OF LE MANS. 85 
 
 It was high noon, when they cleared the forest and entered 
 on the vast, open plains ; on which, as all the separate bands 
 denied out of the forest, and spread out, as best they might, to 
 avoid the dust and the pressure of the multitude, all might 
 behold each other, and each one the king, his master. 
 
 And the sun was resplendent, and the heat was intolerable ; 
 so that there was none so well used to arms but he suffered by 
 it fearfully, and many of the horses perished. 
 
 At this time the king rode by himself, as before, to avoid the 
 dust, and the Dukes of Berri and Burgundy, conversing toge- 
 ther, kept on his left hand, at about two acres' distance from 
 him. The other lords— such as the Count de la Marche, Sir 
 James of Bourbon, Sir Charles d'Albret, Sir Philip d'Artois, 
 Sir Henry and Sir Philip de Bar, Sir Peter de Navarre — rode 
 in different paths. The Duke of Bourbon, the Lord de Coucy, 
 Sir Charles d'Angers, the Baron dTvry, were following at a 
 gentle pace, talking together, at some distance from the king, 
 nothing suspecting, as it seemed, the misfortune that should 
 befall him. 
 
 The sandy plain reflected the heat fearfully ; and, as it fell 
 out, the king was dressed, or buried rather, in a dress of black 
 velvet, and wore on his head " only a single hood of crimson, 
 ornamented with a chaplet of beautiful pearls, which the queen 
 had given him on leaving her. He was followed by one of his 
 pages, who had a Montauban cap of polished steel upon his 
 head, that glittered in the sun ; and behind him another page 
 rode on horseback, carrying a vermilion-coloured lance, en- 
 veloped with silk, for the king, the head of which lance was 
 broad, sharp, and bright. 
 
 " As they were thus riding, the pages — who were but chil- 
 dren — grew negligent of themselves and their horses ; and the 
 one who bore the lance fell asleep, and forgetful of what he had 
 
86 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 in Lis hand, let it fall on the casque of the page before him, 
 which made both the casque and the lance ring loudly."* 
 
 At the clash and glimmer of the steel, the king's frame was 
 shaken as if by a convulsive spasm, and he started in his 
 saddle, and erected his head, which had hung drooping on his 
 breast, and glared about him for a moment with the clear, keen 
 glance of an awakened eagle ; he gathered up his reins, giving 
 his horse the spur, and made a demivolt, unsheathing his 
 sword as he did so, and flashing it in the hot sunlight. 
 
 " Forward !" he shouted. " Forward, and set on ! God and 
 Saint Denys ! Set upon these traitors who would sell us !" 
 
 And, with the words, he dashed between the terrified pages, 
 who scattered as they saw him coming, and charged full upon 
 the knights who followed him, reining his horse, and dealing 
 sweeping blows with his sword from side to side at all whom 
 he approached ; for he was quite distraught, and fancied that 
 all around him were his enemies. The Duke of Orleans, his 
 brother, saw him coming, and fled in terror ; for he saw that the 
 king knew him not, or, perhaps, fancied that he knew him too 
 well. And Charles spurred after him at full speed, shouting 
 and gaining on him at every stride of his horse — for he was 
 the better mounted. And of a surety, he had there, on that 
 day, overtaken and slain him, but that he turned and winded 
 his horse, and so eluded him ; and now, as he did so, some 
 knights or men-at-arms rode in between and interposed them- 
 selves — not resisting the king or defending themselves, but 
 striving to avoid him. But right dearly did they pay for their 
 gallantry and devotion : for the king was in no sort himself, 
 but was as one possessed ; and he struck hard blows with his 
 sword, which was well tempered of fine Bordeaux steel, and cut 
 
 * Froissart's Chronicles, vol. iv., c. 45. 
 
THE FOREST OF LE MANS. 87 
 
 down all who crossed his path — four gallant men-at-arms, who 
 all died afterwards of the wounds which he dealt them ; and 
 lastly a good knight of G-ascony, the bastard of Polignac, whom 
 he slew outright at a single blow. 
 
 And there was a mighty concourse of men galloping in all 
 directions, and shouting; for those who were near at hand, and 
 saw what was to do, spurred this way and that — some striving 
 to avoid the king, and some to lay hold on him, that he might 
 do no more evil, and called to each other that he should do 
 likewise ; and they who were at a distance, and might not see, 
 fancied that it was a deer or a hare that they were hunting — 
 but it was the king. And they, too, shouted and galloped ; 
 and the wilder the tumult waxed the madder grew the king ; 
 until, at length, " when he was quite jaded and streaming with 
 sweat, and his horse in a lather from fatigue, a Norman knight, 
 who was one of his chamberlains and much beloved by him, 
 came behind and caught him in his arms, though he had his 
 sword still in his hand. When he was thus held, all the other 
 lords came up, and took the sword from him. He was dis- 
 mounted, and gently laid on the ground, that his jerkin might 
 be stripped from him, to give him more air and cool him."* 
 
 They had done better and shown more mercy had they slain 
 him on that day ; for, thenceforth, his life was crueller to him and 
 sadder than any death had been, how cruel soever — and those 
 who were the causes of it God will judge, for he knoweth. 
 
 Then they laid him on his litter, and carried him back to Le 
 Mans ; and the marshals called back the van, and told them 
 that the expedition was at an end for that season. 
 
 But, as they returned, the word passed among the knights 
 and men-at-arms, how, that " to ruin France, the king was 
 poisoned, or bewitched, before he left Le Mans this morning." 
 
 * Froissart's Chronicles, vol. iv., c. 45. 
 
88 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 And the word reached the ears of the Duke of Orleans and 
 the princes of the blood-royal. So when they reached Le Mans, 
 they questioned his physicians what was his distemper ; and 
 they laid it on his fever, and cleared themselves honestly— 
 showing that they had advised him to rest quiet, and forbear 
 from riding in the heat, but he would not. 
 
 And they inquired of his chamberlain and butler, Sir Robert 
 de Lignac and Robert Tulles, who had given him his last wine 
 and tasted it, and they cleared themselves, and brought bottles 
 of the same wine which he had drunk of, and proffered them- 
 selves to drink. 
 
 " Then said the Duke of Berry — 
 
 " ' We are debating here about nothing. The king is poi- 
 soned, or bewitched only by bad advisers — but it is not time, at 
 present, to talk of these matters. Let us bear the misfortune 
 as well as we can for the moment.' 
 
 "And the Duke of Burgundy said — 
 
 " l We must return to Paris — the expedition is at an end.' 
 
 " They did not then say all they thought ; but they made 
 their intentions very apparent to those who were not in their 
 good graces, on their return to Paris."* 
 
 * Froissart's Chronicles, vol. iv., c. 45. 
 
tfjjt 3Mo& tf Mum: 
 
 M20. 
 
THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 
 
 It is not within the compass of argument to maintain that 
 the progress of society, the advance of civilization, and the 
 growth of science, have not, in some degree, affected and even 
 altered the standards, by which men judge of thoughts, princi- 
 ples, and actions, as praiseworthy or culpable — nay, in the 
 abstract, as virtuous and vicious. So, if we are in error, it is 
 perfectly possible and consistent that, in two different periods of 
 the world — two different constitutions of society, the very same 
 line of conduct in man or woman should call forth the highest 
 admiration, and acquire deathless fame, or awaken criticism 
 only, and be judged dubious at the least, if not disgraceful. 
 
 We might instance the recorded hardihood of Spartan 
 mothers, inaccessible to the slightest touch of womanly or 
 motherly feeling, a hardihood which it is still the fashion to 
 laud in Fourth of July orations as the beau-ideal of patriotism, 
 heroism, and a genuine love of freedom, whereas it was in truth 
 no more than the cold and stupid insensibility of minds unrefined 
 by civilization, unswayed by sentiment, and unsoftened by any 
 of those redeeming graces, which, it is said, even among the 
 most barbarous and savage hordes, are observed to relieve the 
 primitive ruggedness of nature in the softer sex — a hardihood 
 
92 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 which, were it now affected or put on by maiden, wife, or mo- 
 ther- of our race, would consign her to endless scorn and loath- 
 ing, as a woman deprived of the best attributes of womanhood, 
 and differing only from the lost and lowest of her sex as inferior 
 to them in the want of that " one touch of nature," which, in 
 the words of the great English dramatist, "makes the whole 
 world kin." 
 
 In like manner, we might adduce the practice — for, among 
 the ancients, before the Christian era, it was a practice, and a 
 time-honored practice, too, among the wisest and the bestjof 
 men — of deliberate and long premeditated suicide. For in 
 those days, not to die by his own hand, for one guiltlessly sen- 
 tenced to the hand of the executioner, or fallen into the power 
 of unrelenting enemies, was certainly regarded as an act of 
 cowardice and dishonor ; while self-murder, in a similar state 
 of circumstances, was held an added title to the immortal honor 
 of the sage, the patriot, or the unsuccessful hero. 
 
 At a much later period, to decline the arbitration of the sword 
 in quarrels of a private and social nature, and, whether in the 
 case of receiving a wrong at the hands of another, or inflicting 
 it at his own, to deny the appeal to single combat, was suffi- 
 cient — nay, in some countries, to this very hour, is sufficient — to 
 deprive the highest member of society of all claim to social 
 position, to stigmatize him as a poltroon, and banish him, 
 deprived of caste for ever, from the companionship of men of 
 honor ; whereas, it is now the cry of that popular voice, which 
 some infatuated Roman once defined as being the voice of God, 
 that to endure obloquy, calumny, insult, nay blows, without 
 resenting them, is the best proof of manhood, of gentlemanly 
 bearing, and of a clear and correct sense of honor. 
 
 Without entertaining the slightest idea of entering into the 
 discussion of any one of these vexed and disputed questions, 
 
THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 93 
 
 we have thought it well to dwell somewhat at length upon the 
 alteration of popular sentiment on these several points, the 
 rather that in the very person of the Heroine, whom we have 
 selected as the subject of the present article, we have an 
 instance directly in point — an instance of conduct on the part 
 of a young woman, which occurring as it did, in the early 
 part of the fifteenth century, we cannot hesitate to pronounce 
 the offspring of genuine patriotism, of genuine heroism, and 
 absolved, in consequence of the mode of thinking and acting 
 in those days, from any censure of indecorum or want of those 
 feminine attributes, to which everything else is now*, and most 
 justly, held subservient. 
 
 We are the more especially called upon to note this discre- 
 pancy, as we might otherwise ourselves fall under the charge 
 of inconsistency, since in a preceding paper on the character of 
 Philippa of Hainault, the admirable and womanly wife of the 
 third Edward of England, we took occasion to express our 
 abhorrence and loathing of those women, who in an age of 
 gentleness, civilization, refinement, and a thorough apportion- 
 ment of their appropriate rights, duties, and tasks to the two 
 sexes, have chosen, in defiance of the laws of nature, the mo- 
 desty of nature, and the wholesome prescriptions of society, and 
 in obedience to a morbid love of excitement, or masculine lust 
 for power or fame, to undertake the parts, unsolicited and 
 uncalled for by anything of duty or of station, of propagan- 
 dists, conspirators, patriots, and statesmen ; and have actually so 
 far forgotten themselves as to don — not figuratively, but actually 
 — the breeches, to become colonels of dragoons, and to fight 
 hand to hand among the shock of martial gladiators. Of a truth, 
 little as we can sympathize with the executioners — the scourgers, 
 as it is alleged, of women, quite as little can we feel for the 
 scourged ; who, according to our judgment, having made their 
 
94 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 election, were bound to abide by the consequences ; and, having 
 adopted the duties of manhood, had no right to complain of 
 finding that they had thereby incurred the responsibilities of 
 manhood also. 
 
 It is to her gentleness, to her weakness, and to her alleged 
 incapacity to contend with man, in braving the shocks of the 
 world, the inclemency of seasons, the severity of toils, and more 
 especially the brunt of battle, that woman is entitled to the pro- 
 tection, the reverence and — even when perverse and reprobate — 
 to the pitiful clemency and considerate tolerance of man. The 
 moment she assumes an equality of mental hardness, of phy- 
 sical robustness, or of active hardihood and daring, she forfeits 
 the indulgences willingly conceded to the implied weakness of 
 her feminine organization, and having deliberately unsexed 
 herself, may properly and most righteously be judged as one 
 of those among whom she has chosen to enrol herself, not as 
 one of those whom she has deserted, in defiance of every prin- 
 ciple of decorum, decency, or nature. 
 
 An effeminate, and effete, and unsexed man, the Hercules 
 degraded into a willing Omphale, has at all times been regarded 
 with scorn, abhorrence, and that disgust which is felt for rep- 
 tiles beyond and below the attributes of nature. Men shrink 
 from him with plainly discovered loathing, and true women 
 shake the contamination of his vile presence from the very 
 skirts of their raiment. 
 
 Why is it then ? why should it be ? How can it be ? — for 
 it is, alas ! — it is even among ourselves, that the loud-tongued 
 viragoes, the sword-drawing termagants, who, ashamed of their 
 highest attributes, the delicate sensibilities, the finer organiza- 
 tion, the more perfect perceptions, purer motives, holier aspira- 
 tions, and more admirable powers of their own sex, who, in 
 love with the brute force, the fierce ambition, the fiery excite- 
 
THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 95 
 
 ment peculiar to us, " Pagod things of sabre way, with fronts 
 of brass and feet of clay," — who forgetful of all modesty, pro- 
 priety, decorum, nature, unsex themselves even to the putting 
 on not the garb only, but the feelings of the gladiator, looking 
 on death with wolfish eyes, nay! dealing death with gory 
 hands. How can it be that these, and such as these, can meet 
 with sympathy, nay! but with raptures of applause, triumphs 
 of adulation, not from the men alone — though that were bad 
 enough — but from the women — the sensitive, the delicate, the 
 feminine y would that we could add, the true-hearted women of 
 America ? 
 
 Even in men, and with a good cause to boot, heroism of the 
 battle-field — is it not a bloody and a beastly business ? and if the 
 state of society may not dispense with it, nor the constitution of 
 the human heart deny its thrill of admiring sympathy to the 
 brave man, the strength and daring of whose spirit conquers 
 the weakness of his flesh, and in whom the love of country or 
 of glory is greater than the fear of death — in Heaven's high 
 name let us at least limit the license of the sword to the male 
 hero, and doom the woman who betakes herself to so bloody 
 work to a sentence as disgraceful as that which in the male 
 attaches to the coward. It were a just doom, sanctioned by 
 nature and analogy, for each is alike guilty of unfitness to 
 rational duties, of rebellion against the veriest law of nature — 
 and here the woman is the worst sinner, as offences of commis- 
 sion must needs be heavier than those of omission, and as wil- 
 fulness is at all times less the subject of pity than weakness 
 which cannot always be controlled. 
 
 But, as I have before remarked, there have been ages of the 
 world, in which the generally received opinions concerning 
 duties, obligations, and the appropriate functions and fitnesses 
 of the sexes have been so different from these which now exist, 
 
96 PERSON'S AND PICTURES. 
 
 that the historian of modern days is bound to judge of the 
 actions and principles, the characters and conduct of the great 
 and good, as well as of the base and bad, in accordance with 
 the lights which they possessed and the views which theu 
 obtained, not as if they had occurred under the clearer blaze 
 of recent knowledge, or under the better ordered standards of a 
 wiser and more generous society. So that many deeds may 
 have been done, nay have been done, in the troublous times 
 of the middle ages, which we must admire, must elaborate, must 
 hold aloft, as examples of splendid heroism ; though they would 
 nowadays be stigmatized with propriety as indecorous, and as 
 indicative of feelings and impulses which must be regarded as 
 anything rather than honorable. And again, many deeds which 
 would now be recorded with execrations on the heads of the 
 perpetrators, as prodigies of cruelty and horror, must be narrated 
 as lamentable instances of the ignorance and semi-barbarism of 
 general society at that period, but by no means as examples of 
 unusual or peculiar ferocity, or insensibility, or ignorance of the 
 individual. Of the former class are many of the most highly 
 lauded warlike exploits of the middle ages, many of which are 
 tinctured with a degree of -hardness, ruthlessness, insensibility, 
 and love of battle, if not of bloodshed, which would be pro- 
 nounced in the nineteenth century as purely detestable. High- 
 bred and gentle women looked upon strife and slaughter, not 
 with dismay and loathing, but with applause and admiration, 
 and rewarded the most bloodstained homicide with renown and 
 love. The dearest ties of affection were broken on trivial points 
 of honor. Insensibility to the death of children, parents, wives, 
 nay, the sacrifice of near kinsmen to small points of chivalry, 
 were held claims for honorable note and fame of patriotic hero- 
 ism. Quarter was rarely given on the field of battle, until the 
 victors were weary and worn out with slaying, unless for the 
 
THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 07 
 
 sake of immeasurable ransoms ; and men of the highest rank, 
 character, and condition, were suffered to languish miserable 
 years in closer durance than the worst felons of our days, if once 
 they were so hapless as to fall into the hands of an enemy as 
 prisoners of war. 
 
 Of the second class are the judicial combats, the fearful pun- 
 ishments inflicted on innocent persons for witchcraft, magic, 
 devil-worship, and the like, all which absurdities were then 
 more generally believed to be positive truths, and atrocities of 
 hourly occurrence, by the nations at large, from the highest 
 and best to the lowest intellects, than are the truths of Holy 
 Writ accepted as truths by the masses of even the most Chris- 
 tian communities. It is much to be doubted whether down to 
 the fourteenth century there were even ten men living in Europe, 
 from the Danube to the Bay of Biscay, who disbelieved the 
 actual and present agency of the Supreme Being in judicial 
 battles, or of the Evil Being in necromancies, magical murders, 
 false prophecies, and all the fanciful wickedness comprised under 
 the vulgar name of witchcraft. 
 
 In reviewing, therefore, the first class, we must not be de- 
 terred by the ruggedness, the hardness, the impossibility, nor 
 even by the fierce and sanguinary habits of the times, from at- 
 tributing the praise of true heroism to many who were in their 
 days, and according to their acceptance of the nature of hero- 
 ism, true heroes, whatever might be the title which should be 
 justly given to their deeds done nowadays. 
 
 In like manner, recording the events of the second order, we 
 must beware of attributing individual cruelty and savageness 
 to rulers and magistrates who ordered the infliction of penal- 
 ties which make our blood run cold, for offences which we 
 know to have no existence, but in the reality of which they 
 implicitly believed ; for they were in reality in no wise more 
 
98 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 censurable than the judge or jury of a modern court is for pro- 
 nouncing a sentence, or rinding a verdict of death, this year, 
 for an offence, which the milder law of another year pronounces 
 worthy only of a milder penalty. 
 
 In both these classes of events and actions, so long as the 
 actors have acted up to the standards which their own ages 
 considered best, highest, purest, noblest, they must be acquitted 
 of all blame, and entitled to all honor. It is only where they 
 have fallen below the spirit of their time in morality, or cle- 
 mency, or virtue, or where they have grossly exceeded it in 
 superstition, intolerance, bigotry, or severity, or, once more, 
 where being themselves endued with clearer lights, purer per- 
 ceptions, and higher talents, they have used and perverted the 
 less elevated spirit of the times to their own selfish, views that 
 they deserve our sternest denunciations. 
 
 The heroine to whom I have assigned this paper, presents a 
 remarkable case in point, under both the views in question — 
 under the first, as regards her character, and the light in which 
 we are to regard her — under the second, as relates to her 
 lamentable and unmerited end. 
 
 The first question, as regards written history, has always been 
 decided in her favor, though it is quite certain that, according 
 to existing ideas, a woman playing such a part to-day would 
 receive no higher credit from the judicious or the right-minded 
 than a Marie Ambrse, an Augustina of Saragossa, an Apollonia 
 Jagello, or any other high-spirited vivandiere, whom we puff 
 in newspaper columns and praise in after dinner speeches, yet 
 never dream of introducing to our wives, or holding up as 
 objects of imitation to our daughters. The second question 
 has as generally been mistreated by historians, and attributed 
 nationally as a peculiar disgrace to England, and, individually, 
 as an act of unusual atrocity, to the regent Bedford, though it 
 
THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 99 
 
 is perfectly evident that her fate would have been identical, if 
 her captors had been Frenchmen, and her judges Charles or 
 Dunois, for as the winning side really believed her mission, 
 inspiration, and powers to be divine, the losers as readily sup- 
 posed them to be fiendish : aad in truth, the whole of her 
 career is so strange, unaccountable, and marvellous, even apart 
 from the supernatural wonders added to it by the one party, 
 and implicitly received by both, that it would be scarce sur- 
 prising if, in much milder and more recent times, and among 
 more enlightened actors, such a course of success were consi- 
 dered by the vulgar minds, of which by the way there are many 
 in every place, as the result of superhuman powers. Nay ! I 
 believe that, could such a thing have occurred, as the checking 
 of the career of the French arms, after Lodi, Marengo, Auster- 
 litz, and Jena, the total and repeated overthrow of Napoleon, 
 and the rolling back the refluent tide of battle from the Po and 
 Danube to the Seine and Loire, by an Austrian or Italian pea- 
 sant maiden, half the consular or imperial armies would have 
 cried sorcery, and the other treason ; and if taken, she would 
 unquestionably have shared the fate, if not of Joan of Arc, at 
 least of Hofer, and a hundred Spanish partisans, shot in cold 
 blood as brigands. Nor do I think the case would have been 
 much altered if Wellington had been driven from the conquered 
 Pyrenees to the Tagus by a French paysanne, or the victor of 
 Buena Vista into the Rio Grande by a black-browed Mexicana 
 — at least I am sure that such events would go further to justify 
 the belief of supernatural agency, than any part of the perfor- 
 mance of the Misses Fox of Rochester with their assistant knock- 
 ers, which are believed by many, of what some are pleased to 
 call " the best minds in the country," to be, not only super- 
 human and divine, but the best, if not sole convincing proofs 
 of the immortality of the soul. Oh ! Plato, Plato, if thy 
 
100 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 reasonings were well, some of them have been received into 
 most ill understandings. 
 
 But to come more directly to the personality of my heroine, 
 it cannot, I think, be doubted, whatever hypothesis we may take 
 of her career, that she was a very extraordinary, unusual, and in 
 some sort superior person. That she was an impostor is incre- 
 dible; and if, as I doubt not to have been the case, she was a 
 visionary or enthusiast, and perhaps something approaching to 
 what we call a somnambulic or mesmeric personage, she must 
 have had very rare faith in her own mission as a reality, and, 
 what is more, very rare powers of making others also believe in 
 its truth and divinity, to have effected what she did, with the 
 means which she had at her command. For the minds with 
 which, and against which, she acted, were all minds of greatly 
 above average capacity ; and yet it appears to me to be very 
 certain that the leaders of both hosts did believe in her real 
 possession of superhuman powers — indeed, I scarcely see how 
 at that day and in the then state of the human mind, they 
 could have believed otherwise — though the French would of 
 course regard the supernaturalism as a divine, the English as a 
 diabolical agency ; for such is the natural constitution of the 
 human mind, the partisans of any cause, which they have once 
 fairly adopted, under whatever views, coming in the end to 
 regard it as the true and heaven-favored cause. 
 
 But in order to get a little more nearly at this let us see 
 what was the state of France at her appearance ; what the cir- 
 cumstances of her success, and what the real extent of her ser- 
 vices to her king and country. 
 
 About fourteen years before, the tremendous battle of Agin- 
 court, won by the fifth Henry of England, had more than 
 decimated the aristocracy, and completely subdued the feudal 
 military power of France ; all the leading princes of the blood 
 
THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 101 
 
 royal, and a fearful proportion of the nobility of the realm, had 
 been slain on the fatal field, or still languished in English dun- 
 geons. From that day forth every species of calamity had 
 befallen the unhappy France ; the Queen-mother hostile to her 
 own son, a minor, the dauphin Charles ; the furious factions of 
 the Armagroes and Burgundians literally deluging the streets 
 of Paris with French blood ; province against province ; prince 
 against prince ; and ever and anon the. English profiting by the 
 dissensions and disasters of the enemy to break in and over- 
 run, and desolate and take possession, until it really did seem 
 as though the boastful pretensions of the English king were 
 true ; and as though his utmost ambition was about to be 
 realized, when he replied to the Cardinal des Ursias, who would' 
 have persuaded him to peace — " Do you not see that God has 
 led me hither as by the hand ? France has no sovereign ; I 
 have just pretensions to the kingdom ; everything here is in 
 the utmost confusion — no one thinks of resisting me. Can I 
 have a more sensible proof that the Being who disposes of em- 
 pires has determined to put the crown of France upon my head V 
 And shortly afterward, though the battle of Bauge, wherein 
 the Duke of Clarence fell by the spear of the Scottish cham- 
 pion, Allan Swinton, and Dorset, Somerset, and Huntingdon 
 were made prisoners, threw a solitary gleam of lustre over the 
 dark affairs of France, it availed not to retard the progress of 
 Henry, who had, in fact, conquered all the northern provinces, 
 and held them in quiet possession ; who was master of the 
 capital, Paris, wherein his son, afterwards Henry VI., of most 
 hapless memory, was born amid general acclamations, and 
 almost unanimously hailed as heir to both crowns ; and who 
 had chased the Dauphin beyond the Loire, whither he was 
 pursued, almost in despair, by the victorious and united arms 
 of Burgundy and England. 
 
102 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 Had Henry's life been prolonged, it is difficult to conjecture 
 what would have been the end, for he was no less politic as a 
 prince, and shrewd as a man, than daring, skilful, and successful 
 as a leader. But the Disposer of empires, whose fiat he had so 
 recently anticipated, had already disposed of his tenure of his 
 own, much more of his half-conquered and rashly-expected 
 crown, and he was summoned from the captured capital of 
 France before that throne where kings and clowns are judged 
 equally, in the thirty-fourth year of his age, and the tenth of 
 his reign — a great king, a great conqueror, a brave, honorable, 
 and, in the main, a just and good man. Few men have per- 
 formed more splendidly ambitious acts from less personally sel- 
 fish motives ; few kings have attained such glorious greatness 
 through their own personal action, with less alloy of evil or 
 detraction. 
 
 His son, whom he left not nine months old, and " whose 
 misfortunes in the course of his life," to quote the language of 
 Hume, " surpassed all the glories and successes of his father,'' 
 succeeded to the crown of his father, and to his claims on that 
 of France ; nor, although minorities are proverbially weak, and 
 the times were turbulent and stormy, did his tenure of the one, 
 or his accession to the other, appear at first doubtful. 
 
 This appears to me to be in no degree tenable. In the first 
 place, no person can be half-real enthusiast, half-impostor — the 
 one or other phase of character must prevail. The impostor who 
 knows his own jugglery, cannot believe in his own supernatural 
 power ; the enthusiast who does believe, has no need to have 
 recourse to imposture. Secondly, so general a religious impos- 
 ture, to which jurists, doctors of divinity, and ignorant, super- 
 stitious warriors must have lent themselves, is wholly inconsis- 
 tent with the spirit of the age and the character of the popular 
 mind. Thirdly, Dunois, and the other* French leaders, had been 
 
THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 103 
 
 daily and hourly beaten, and had never shown either the talents 
 or the force which they subsequently displayed. Fourthly, it is 
 little likely that on the faith of so shallow and childish an im- 
 posture as dressing u,p a simple village girl, not only sane but 
 shrewd and wise men, who had not previously ventured to un- 
 dertake the most trivial sally, now boldly should set armies in 
 the field, carry out enterprises of great .pith and moment, and 
 utterly paralyse foes so able as Suffolk, Talbot, Scales, and 
 Falstoffe, by a series of well directed blows, stunningly de- 
 livered and rapidly followed up. Fifthly, it is incredible, that, 
 if the French had been such fools as to try so silly a trick, if a 
 mere trick, the English could be so miserably gulled. And 
 lastly, the empty and useless pageant of the procession to 
 Kheims, the whole distance through the heart of an enemy's 
 country, and in the midst of his hostile and undismayed gar- 
 risons, cannot be accounted for by political, military, or rational 
 grounds, or by any supposition, unless this, that every person of 
 the French army, and of the English army also, was thorough- 
 ly convinced of her supernatural powers and irresistible 
 prowess. 
 
 This supposition accounts for the attempt, and accounts also 
 for its success. And such a conviction only could be wrought 
 upon such minds as those of Charles VII. and Dunois, of Suffolk 
 and Sir John Talbot, by a person who did really possess extra- 
 ordinary talents, extraordinary enthusiasm, and did really per- 
 form extraordinary things. No one now believes that Oliver 
 Cromwell really heard a voice, at the dead of night, telling him 
 in his obscure boyhood that he should be " not king, but the 
 first man in England," nor is it probable that John Hampden 
 then believed the vision — but he did believe the enthusiasm, 
 and did believe the fact, as he told Sir Philip Warwick, that 
 " yon slave would be the greatest man in England." The belief 
 
104 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 made the enthusiasm of the man — the enthusiasm of the man 
 made the belief of the followers, and the enthusiasm and belief 
 excited made the imagined vision to come to pass in a palpa- 
 ble fact. 
 
 The facts are, that she relieved Orleans, in the first giving up 
 her own opinion to the advice of Dunois, hers being the more 
 daring council — that she then threw herself into the city, 
 marching, according to her own plan, directly through the 
 English lines, the hitherto victorious Britons, before a dozen of 
 whom hundreds of French had been daily flying in panic terror, 
 not daring to attack her — that she stormed the lines of Suffolk, 
 and utterly defeated his whole army with prodigious loss — that 
 then, following up her successes, she stormed Jergean, whither the 
 Regent had retired, carried the town by assault, Suffolk himself 
 being obliged to surrender himself — and that a few days after, 
 she again attacked the rear of the late victorious army with such 
 headlong valor, that the redoubted FalstofFe fled like a poltroon 
 before her, and was deprived of his garter for cowardice, while 
 Talbot and Scales were made prisoners, and the whole army 
 and cause of the English utterly disorganized and lost. 
 
 These are not the acts of an impostor, nor of men palming an 
 enthusiast, in whom they did not believe, on inferior minds. 
 "Where did Charles and Dunois gain the audacity, the skill, and 
 the fortune to recover all that they had lost in fourteen years, 
 in as many days — where, indeed, if not in the conviction that 
 Joan's enthusiasm, visionary possession, and energetic will, were 
 indeed of heaven, and themselves consequently destined to be 
 victorious \ 
 
 The rest of her career is explained yet more easily on the 
 same hypothesis. She next declared that her future mission 
 was to conduct Charles in triumph, at the head of a small force, 
 to Iiheims, across one half the breadth of France, and there to 
 
THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 105 
 
 crown him with the due ceremonial of the kings of France ; 
 and this, too, she accomplished without a banner raised, a 
 trumpet blown, or a spear couched against her. The attempt 
 justified the success, for the very rashness of the. undertaking 
 and inadequacy of the object increased the panic of the English. 
 But in what possible light must we regard the statesmen and 
 warriors whom Hume believes to have been the moving actors 
 of this wonderful drama, if we believe them, when it was their 
 business to have hunted the invaders from post to post, while 
 their panic was fresh upon them, until they left the land they 
 had so long held as their own ; if we believe them, I say, at 
 such a time to have risked all they had won, and their army 
 and king to boot, for the sake of, a mere empty pageant, which 
 might well have followed, but absurdly preceded the invasion 
 of the enemy ? 
 
 This done, Joan declared her mission ended, her powers re- 
 voked, and made public her desire to resume the dress of her 
 sex and her former condition. She was overruled, and a few 
 days afterward taken in a sally from Compiegne, by John of 
 Luxembourg, and transferred to the Duke of Bedford, by whom 
 she was delivered over to the ecclesiastical power, tried by a 
 court of bishops at Rouen, in which only one Englishman sate, 
 and sentenced to be burned to death as a witch. Assailed on 
 all sides by doctors and divines, by promises and threats, and 
 naturally and consistently doubting, from her fall, the origin of 
 her former successes, she declared her visions to be illusions 
 and her powers impostures, and had her sentence thereupon 
 commuted. Having, however, resumed male habits, said to 
 have been purposely thrown in her way, and again returned to 
 her former belief in her supernatural inspiration, probably from 
 the idea that the male habiliments were supernaturally sent to 
 her, she was adjudged a relapsed heretic and magician, and 
 
 6 
 
106 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 she was cruelly, but in direct accordance with the notions and 
 ideas of the age, burnt to ashes in the market-place at Rouen. 
 
 I see no cause to agree in the belief that any peculiar cruelty 
 prompted, or that any political tactics actuated either Bedford 
 or her judges, nor that it was any " pretence," as Hume terms 
 it, " of heresy and magic," by which she was consigned to the 
 flames, but as full a belief on the part of her slayers that she 
 was a foul and fiendish wizard, as her own conviction, and that 
 of her followers, was full and certain that she was a messenger 
 of heaven. 
 
 Heroine and enthusiast as she was, spotless of life, dauntless 
 of courage, hapless of death, but most fortunate of glory — 
 certainly an agent and minister of providence, not by divine 
 mission, but by the working of natural causes — for she re- 
 deemed the throne of France to its native owners, never again 
 to be seriously disputed by an English claimant — few heroines 
 have a fairer title to the name, and none a fame more spotless. 
 
 Soon after the death of Henry, his rival, Charles VI., died 
 also. He had for many years possessed mere nominal author- 
 ity in France, and his life had been as unhappy to himself 
 as disastrous to his country. To his son he left only a dis- 
 puted crown and a divided country, and that he ever owned the 
 one unquestioned and the other entire, he owed in part to his 
 own high qualities, and in part to the character anr> achieve- 
 ments of Joan, the maid of Arc and Orleans. He was crowned 
 at Poictiers Charles VI. ; his Paris, and Rheims — the sacred co- 
 ronation city — being both in the hands of the English. This event 
 occurred in the year 1422, and, although Henry was an infant, 
 and when even he arrived at manhood little better than imbe- 
 cile, so splendid was the administration of the protector, the 
 Duke of Bedford, and so great the talents of the renowned 
 generals who commanded under him, Somerset, Warwick, 
 
THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 107 
 
 Arundel, Salisbury, Suffolk, and the still greater Talbot, that 
 they not only held Guienne, the capital, and all the northern 
 provinces, but pressed the war with vigor in the south and west, 
 so that the position of Charles VI. had become almost despe- 
 rate, when the disastrous battle of Verne nil, second only in the 
 slaughter of nobility to the fields of Cressy, Poic tiers, and Agin- 
 court, reduced him to the last extremity, and to such a state of 
 hopeless poverty and depression that not only was he compelled 
 to abandon every effort at sustaining the parade of a court, but 
 was scarcely enabled to procure daily subsistence for himself and 
 a few faithful followers. 
 
 Just at this moment some dissensions occurred in the Eng- 
 lish ministry, and the Duke of Bedford was recalled home, his 
 place being ably filled by Suffolk ; and, although the Duke of 
 Brittany was beginning to look distastefully on the English al- 
 liance, and Montargis was relieved by the bastard of Orleans, 
 better known in after days as the Count of Dunois, so little 
 effect did the change of hands appear to have produced on the 
 conduct of the war, that Orleans, the most important city of 
 France in the possession of Charles, was closely invested and 
 on the point of yielding, while the king himself was dissuaded 
 from retreating into the remote provinces of Dauphiny and 
 Languedoc by the entreaties of the fair but frail Agnes Sorel. 
 
 At this time an incident occurred so strange, and with con- 
 sequences so extraordinary, that one can scarce wonder at the 
 credulity of a French historian, who, describing the first appear- 
 ance of Joan on the scene of history, commences thus : " But at 
 this crisis the Lord, not desiring that France should be entirely 
 undone, sent a woman," <fcc, &c, evidently esteeming her mis- 
 sion as positive and direct as that of St. John or any of the 
 Holy Apostles — nor, I conceive, is it at all to be doubted that she 
 
108 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 herself, and those to whom she revealed her visions, were as 
 confident of her divine inspiration and superhuman power. 
 
 She was a poor girl, of the small village of Domremi, near 
 Vaucouleurs, in Lorraine, of the very lowest class of society. 
 She is variously stated to have been a hostler-wench at an inn, 
 and shepherdess ; but of irreproachable conduct, and undoubted 
 virtue. It is said that she had manifested no singularity nor 
 given any tokens of possessing superior genius, until she was 
 seized by a sudden idea that she saw visions and heard voices 
 commissioning her to re-establish the throne of France and 
 expel the foreign invaders. She first made her way to the 
 presence of Baudricourt, the governor of Vaucouleurs, to whom 
 she declared her mission, and, although he at first treated her 
 with neglect, she at length so far convinced him that he sent 
 her on with an escort to the -French court, at the little town of 
 Chinon. Here, it is asserted, that she at once recognised the 
 king, though purposely disguised and surrounded by his cour- 
 tiers, and that she claimed and described, even to -its minutest 
 ornaments, and the -place where it had long lain concealed, a 
 curious antique sword, which was found in the church of St. 
 Catharine de Fierbois. Hume, who is ever sceptical, leans to the 
 view that all this was jugglery, not exactly on Joan's part, but 
 on that of the French king and Dunois, who were determined 
 to use her as an instrument ; and to the talents and skill of the 
 leaders, whose tactics he supposed were followed, Joan being 
 merely led as a puppet through the host, he ascribes all that 
 follows. 
 
€l)t jTaitg Ctttjimnt limgtos: 
 
 1437. 
 
THE LADY CATHERINE DOUGLASS. 
 
 That was a dark and bloody age all the world over ; an age 
 in which, for the most part, might made right, and the law of 
 force was the only law in existence ; an age in which, if some 
 restraint of chivalry and courteousness was still maintained — 
 some relics of the resplendent heroism and gentle gallantry of 
 knight-errantry still animated the bosom and actuated the con- 
 duct of the warrior nobility of England, France, and Spain — 
 scarcely a ray of civilization enlightened the deep gloom which 
 still brooded over the masses even of those great and powerful 
 countries, who were in fact little elevated above the beasts their 
 companions, and like them easily satisfied so long as they 
 possessed a shelter against the weather, and nutriment to sup- 
 ply their merest wants. In the neighboring realm of Scotland, 
 however, the gloom of barbarism was impervious ; no gentleness 
 tempered the savage and unlettered valor of the fierce nobility, 
 which was at this period their sole virtue ; no gentleness even 
 towards the fair sex ; nor were these weaker and softer portions 
 of creation exempt from the hardness, the rigor, and sometimes 
 the cruelty of the age. The common people, whether on the 
 Borders, or the Lothians, and the Merse, were scarcely superior 
 to the veriest savages, either in their habits of thought or in 
 their mode of life ; and it was among the highest of the larger 
 
112 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 cities only that any of the comforts or refinements of life, only 
 k among the monastic orders that any tincture of the rude letters 
 of the middle ages, could be found existing. 
 
 Distracted by the feuds which existed among all the noble 
 families of Scotland — feuds fought out with all the deadly rancor 
 peculiar to family dissensions, with indiscriminate slaughter of 
 all ages, sexes, qualities — waged with the unmitigated ferocity 
 of the times — with the storming of the castle, but without the 
 sparing of the cottage — with the devastation of the open country, 
 the conflagration of sparse hamlets and smaller borough towns, 
 even in periods of the profoundest foreign peace — that the un- 
 happy realm of Scotland presented everywhere south of the 
 Highland line the aspect of a country visited with the extremi- 
 ties of fire and sword by an invading enemy ; while to the 
 northward of that dreaded demarcation, the Highland clans 
 were wilder in their costumes, and no less terrible to their 
 neighbors, than were the wildest Indian tribes of North America 
 at the commencement of the present century. 
 
 Yet, in this dark and bloody time, in this distracted and al- 
 most savage country, it was the fate of a sovereign to hold sway 
 over those ferocious barons, and over that turbulent and brutal 
 commons, whose virtues and whose talents would have done 
 honor to any age or nation, while his whole career speaks vo- 
 lumes of reproach against those in which his lot was cast. 
 
 James the First, of Scotland, the first monarch of that most 
 unhappy of all royal houses, the house of Stuart, which, com- 
 mencing miserably with his own troubled and disastrous reign, 
 terminated no less miserably with that of his second English 
 namesake, more than two centuries later, leaving, as its annals, 
 little more than one continual record of civil war and domestic 
 slaughter, of perjury, tyranny, persecution, and treason, equally 
 on the one and the other side, of exile and assassination, of judicial 
 
THE LADY CATHERINE DOUGLASS. 113 
 
 combats and judicial executions— James the First, of Scotland, was 
 the son of Kobert the Third, by Annabella Drummond, herself a 
 distant relative of the reigning house, born in 1394 to the perilous 
 heirship of that throne which proved so fatal to his race. His 
 father — a weak and priest-ridden prince, constantly over-ruled, 
 and, indeed, virtually dethroned by his ambitious brother, the 
 Duke of Albany — dreading the worst from that false kinsman, 
 sent his young son, then in his eleventh year, to France, where 
 he might be brought up and educated by the allied and friendly 
 monarch of that civilized and warlike kingdom, until he should 
 attain the age of manhood, when he should return and claim 
 his own, a man and a king indeed. 
 
 Fate interposed, however, and by her interposition sealed the 
 doom of the fated line, and determined, as it would seem, by 
 that one act, the subjugation of the Scottish realm and its ulti- 
 mate union with the cognate crown of England — a union pro- 
 lific of prosperity and peace alike to either country. An English 
 squadron, cruising in the North sea, intercepted the vessel, 
 freighted with the fortunes of a nation, and, as the respec- 
 tive countries were then involved in war, carried it to the 
 Thames as lawful prize of war ; whereafter the young prince 
 and his suite were consigned, according to the custom of the 
 day, state prisoners to the Tower of London. 
 
 Henry IV. was at that period king of England ; and being 
 engaged in the heat and fierceness of the French wars, imagined 
 that by the detention of the young prince, who, in the following 
 year, by the demise of his weak father, became the young king, 
 he could deprive France of her Scottish alliance, and therefore 
 held him in a species of free captivity, half a hostage, half a 
 captive, but subject to no other personal restraints than those 
 of compulsory residence within the guarded limits of one or the 
 other of the Royal Palaces. Ungenerous treatment of a surety. 
 
1 I 4 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 But when or where, in what period or what country, has policy 
 been generous ? — policy, whose very nature is selfishness — whose 
 only object is to win the present greatest good for the man of 
 the nation, irrespective altogether of the fate or sufferings of 
 others. When we think on Napoleon, pining within the narrow 
 limits of his ocean isle — a boundless empire and domain to the 
 untutored, unambitious rustic — yet to his overvaulting spirit 
 strait in dimension as the narrowest of dungeons ; when we 
 think on the noble Abd-el-Kader, gnashing his teeth, if not ac- 
 tually in fetters, yet pent within the circuit of stone walls ; his 
 eye accustomed to range over the illimitable desert, over the 
 topmost peaks of his native Atlas, bleared and blinking in the 
 glimmering twilight of his prison-house — when we think on 
 these, the victims of modern policy, how shall we visit with too 
 light reproach the sins, the crimes of that same policy, com- 
 mitted when the lights of truth, of science, of religion, burned 
 dimly with a wavering flame over the doubtful nations ! 
 
 Eichard, the Lion Heart, tuning the cithern of the Trouba- 
 dour in that Austrian fortalice — James Stuart composing u the 
 King's Aubair" in the green slopes of Windsor — John of 
 Valois, a languid captive in the Tower, "that den of drunkards 
 with the blood of Princes" — Joan of Arc, writhing on her pile 
 in Rouen's crowded market-place — Louis of Enghien, in the 
 ditch of Vincennes, at murky morning's dawn — Napoleon glar- 
 ing over the blue Atlantic from the steep crags of St. Helena — 
 and the wild Arab champion wasting like a chained eagle, in 
 slow agony, far from his sandy wastes — a paradise to him — in the 
 heart of republican, free France, are but so many tokens that 
 the nature of man and policy of nations is the same as it was, 
 as it has been, is now — will it not be the same for ever? — 
 and that the watchword of the conqueror is still the same, Vce 
 victis ! 
 
THE LADY CATHERINE DOUGLASS. 115 
 
 But save in tliis the ungenerousness of national policy and 
 natural humanity, Henry IV. was generous to his captive, for 
 in his guarded solitudes of Windsor the youthful James of 
 Scotland received such an education as he could not have 
 hoped to enjoy in the barren and unlettered battle fields of 
 Caledonia. He grew up fair and powerful, accomplished in all 
 manly exercises, fully up to the standard of that day's accom- 
 plishments of exercise and arms and manhood — accomplished 
 in ail gentle virtues, liberal letters, antique lore, and modern 
 fashions, how far beyond all his contemporaneous rivals ! 
 "While his youthful equal, Harry of Monmouth, one day to 
 paralyse the heart of France by the fruitless prowess, fruitless 
 carnage of Agincourt, was learning how to " turn and wind his 
 fiery Pegasus," that he might " witch the world" of his own day 
 with "noble horsemanship," young James of Scotland was already 
 drinking deep at the well of English undefiled" in the shades 
 not long before semi-deified by the rich chaunts of Chaucer, 
 soon to be made immortal by the wild wood-notes of the Ssvan 
 of Avon ; had already tuned his pipe to those strains which 
 shall survive the memory of his conquerors ; had already won 
 by the witcheries of his arts, the graceful gallantry of his de- 
 meanor, the gentle manners of his courteous youth, the heart 
 of one who claimed the style already of a right royal English 
 lady, one day, alas ! to bear the thorny crown and troublous 
 title of a right royal Scottish Queen — beautiful, high-born 
 Joanna Beaufort, whom he first saw, first loved, a captive, from 
 his prison casements in the round tower of Windsor, while she 
 was wandering, fancy-free, amid the verdant slopes and royal 
 gardens towards the Little Park and the smooth meads of Dat- 
 chet — places which live, gardens which glow, and meads which 
 bloom to this day, happy memorials of the happier past, lusty 
 mementoes of the time when English life was lusty, when men 
 
116 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 wore manhood with their beards, and women sought no rights 
 beyond the rights of womanhood; of conquering by their very 
 inability to conquer, and governing by virtue of submission. 
 And yet the women of that time, unprcscient as they were in 
 that old day of " what fantastic tricks 7 ' their sex should some 
 time " play before high heaven, most ignorant of what they're 
 most assured, their glossy essence, making the angels weep," 
 and all undreaming of the rights which they should one day 
 claim through their unborn posterity in a yet undiscovered 
 hemisphere, had, notwithstanding, a more clear insight into 
 the nature of their duties, and a more infinite capacity to do 
 and dare, and, if need were, to die, at duty's bidding, than ever 
 had the strongest-minded female of this nineteenth century 
 who pants, to don the masculine attire and to achieve manly 
 laurels in the field, the forum, and the senate, seeing not that 
 they overstep the modesty of nature. 
 
 Hear therefore all, especially ye who burn in the advocacy of 
 the rights, hear a tale of the olden time, and a true tale, of the 
 duties — or what a Scottish maiden took to be such — of a true 
 woman. 
 
 It may seem a strange tale, it may seem a mistaken duty to 
 those who, reared in very different days, in a far distant clime, 
 and under circumstances most diverse — to those I say, who far 
 from believing loyalty to be a duty or a virtue, can scarcely be 
 induced to regard it as a principle, or as a fact at all ; or in- 
 duced to consider it as other than the slavish truckling of a base 
 spirit, or the fanatical veneration of a superstitious spirit, to 
 something casually set above it ; to such I say, it may seem a 
 strange tale and a mistaken duty ; but I, for one, believe that, 
 in her line and season, the Lady Catherine Douglass did her 
 duty, as she understood it, and as it was ; and did it well — and 
 that where she has gone, and where sooner or later we all must 
 
THE LADY CATHERINE D0UGKASS. 11 7 
 
 follow her, she hath her exceeding great reward before Him, 
 who if he has said that he hath no regard for princes more 
 than for other men, has surely never said that he hath regard 
 for other men more than for princes ; but bade with his own 
 immortal voice, " Bender unto Caesar the things which are 
 Caesar's." 
 
 Years had flown — as they will fly, joyous or unhappy, swift 
 or slow — on ignoble and noiseless wings, with their unvarying, 
 unalterable flight, and the boy captive had waked into the cap- 
 tive man, the princely bud had bloomed into the royal flower. 
 Henry the Fourth, usurping Bolingbroke, had departed, mur- 
 muring with his last sigh, as he saw in the clearsightedness of 
 coming death, his son untimely grasping at the royal circlet, 
 which he, himself, had grasped untimely, and now first felt to 
 be no blessing but a burden — 
 
 " Then happy low lie down, 
 Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." 
 
 Henry the Fifth, the merry mad Prince Hal, the Victor of 
 Agincourt, had departed, and even in departing had discovered 
 that 
 
 "There is no armor against fate; 
 Death lays his icy hands on kings ; 
 Sceptre and crown 
 Must tumble down, 
 And in the dust be equal made 
 "With the poor crooked scythe and spade." 
 
 The Earl of Bedford, the wise regent, had succeeded to the 
 sway of England, and so much of France as yet remained sub- 
 missive to the English sword and sceptre. 
 
 The captive prince was now, through Bedford's wiser, nobler 
 policy, the wise, accomplished, and good king of the unruly, 
 
118 "PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 turbulent, and traitorous Scottish barons, of the tumultuous, 
 unlettered, savage Scottish people. The imprisoned bard of 
 Windsor was now the avenging judge of past crimes and past 
 abuses, the reforming monarch of an unreformed aristocracy, 
 the prince at peace with all foreign powers, but at the worst of 
 wars with the most perilous of all foes, his own jealous people. 
 
 His fate was, of course, that of all first reformers, to be aban- 
 doned and misunderstood by those' whom the reform should 
 have profited even to the raising them from brute nature to 
 humanity — to be overmastered and destroyed by the opponents 
 of all reform. 
 
 Deserted by his parliament, at terms of defiance with his bad 
 barons, misconceived by his rude people, never, perhaps, had 
 the captive's chain been so galling to his soul as was now the 
 king's crown — and often when served with bended knees, and 
 circled by uncovered heads, each of which, as he well knew 
 plotted daggers ; bearing the style and title, but not the liberty 
 or power of a king — aye, often did he sigh for the tuneful days 
 of his peaceful prison-house, when his whole pride was confined 
 to his own heart, his whole kingdom comprised in the alle- 
 giance of one other heart — now as then, fond, loyal, and his 
 own — the heart of bright and beautiful Joanna Beaufort. 
 
 For eighteen years he struggled wearily, yet well, against the 
 discontents and disorders which met him on every hand, having 
 no solace from his cares save in the society of his fair, accom- 
 plished wife, and the ladies of her court, whom she had selected 
 not merely for their beauty or their birth, but for their taste, 
 their literary or musical talents : and of whom she had formed 
 a circle which, while it excited the rude scorn and boisterous 
 mockery of the prince barons of the Marches, was to her unfor- 
 tunate lord the only brighter phase of his existence. 
 
 That eighteenth year was marked by one event which seemed 
 
THE LADY CATHERINE DOUGLASS. 119 
 
 for a moment to give promise of brighter fortunes in the future, 
 but like the most of the smiles of fortune, this also proved delu- 
 sive, and in the end disastrous. He had renewed the ancient 
 and time-honored alliance between France and his native land, 
 giving his daughter Margaret in marriage to the youthful heir 
 of the French throne, the then dauphin, afterwards Louis the 
 Eleventh, of evil memory, long- before whose majority she had 
 the good fortune to pass into the peace of the quiet grave. 
 With splendid pomp, and a gorgeous train of northern knights 
 and nobles, accompanied moreover by a powerful body of life- 
 guards, who, in after days, formed the nucleus of the famous 
 mercenary bands of Louis — known as the Scottish archers, long 
 after the bow had become obsolete and given place to the 
 musket — the child-wife and infant princess set sail from the dark 
 and misty shores of Caledonia for the sunny plains of " la belle 
 France," which she reached uninterrupted, although the English 
 fleet put to sea to intercept her ; encouraged by their success in 
 her father's case, to adopt the same procedure in her own. 
 They failed as far as the daughter was concerned ; but indi- 
 rectly their attempt proved the destruction of the hapless king 
 and father, whose life had been embittered from its very outset 
 by the intolerance and bitterness of their national hatred. 
 
 Exasperated by the cruel and ungenerous attempt, James set 
 a force on foot, and, declaring war on England, moved south- 
 wards to invade the northern provinces of Cumberland, North- 
 umberland, and Durham, which were then to the ever-warring 
 borderers of the two Island kingdoms, what Flanders has been 
 in all modern ages to the rest of Europe, the common battle- 
 field, and as it were, the lists open at all times to all comers 
 with the trumpet note and challenge-call to combat a Voutrance. 
 But such was the ill-will of his nobles, curbed in their violence, 
 limited in their covetous ambition, and straitened in their reve- 
 
120 . PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 nues by the confiscation of their wrongfully alienated crown- 
 lands, that James speedily discovered that his ill-regulated army 
 was like to prove more dangerous to himself than to his ene- 
 mies ; and learning the formation of conspiracies against his 
 person, disbanded it at once, and suddenly retired to Perth, in 
 which his royal father had for the most part resided, and where 
 he had himself founded a Carthusian Monastery — the abbot and 
 brothers of which were his firm, and perhaps his only adhe- 
 rents. 
 
 It was a dark and gusty evening of February, when the Court 
 was assembled in an upper chamber — one of a long connected 
 suite of apartments in the Carthusian Monastery, to which the 
 unfortunate monarch had retreated in the hope — fruitless hope, 
 as it proved to be — of being permitted to pass the remainder of 
 his blameless days in the pursuit of literary ease and the grati- 
 fication of his gentle social tastes, and, for that age, almost 
 unnatural accomplishments. There can, perhaps, be no greater 
 misfortune for any man than to be bom either far behind or far 
 in advance of his age ; to be the former, is to be scoffed at as an 
 old-time dotard, a mere laudator temporis acti — to be the latter, 
 is to be persecuted, perhaps martyred, for opinion's sake, as a 
 heretic to admitted holy doctrines, or a vile innovator on time- 
 hallowed usages ; and if so to a private individual, how much 
 more so to a monarch, untimely set to govern a people yet 
 unripe for change, and bigoted against reform. 
 
 Such was the case with the first of the Stuarts. Had he been 
 in his own day the king of France or England, he would have 
 still been a century in advance of the spirit of his kingdom. 
 Had he been, two centuries later in his own land, born to the 
 throne so fatally filled by the last Scottish sovereign of his race, 
 incomparable, guilty, hapless Mary, he would have still found 
 himself as unable to control the Euthvens and the Lyndesays, 
 
THE LADY CATHERINE DOUGLASS. 121 
 
 the Murrays and the Mortons, who drove her an exile to the 
 false hospitality of her southron sister-queen, as he was to com- 
 pel the respect and force the submission of his own Atholes and 
 Grahams. 
 
 The barons of his own fierce land required to be ruled by a 
 man as brave and fierce as themselves, who should govern them 
 with a sword for a*sceptre ; and in James Stuart they had one 
 whom they regarded as a sort of foreign jongleur ; and this 
 weak, frivolous, vain, outlandish thing, neither all woman nor 
 half man, attempting to enforce over them, who owned no supe- 
 rior but the wearer of a sharper sword, that supremacy which 
 they the most despised and loathed — the supremacy of the 
 law. 
 
 Therefore between him and them, as between the antago- 
 nistic principles of diverse and conflicting ages, it was war for 
 existence — war d Voutrance. 
 
 The chamber in which, on that wild gusty night, James sat 
 with his queen and her ladies in easy and familiar state, — which, 
 indeed, scarcely could be called state, — was a large, low-ceiled, 
 vaulted hall, with huge round arched and mullioned casements. 
 Through these the merry glare of the great wood-fire, as it went 
 soaring up the chimney in sheets of ruddy flame and volumes 
 of illuminated smoke, mixed with the lustre of fifty waxen 
 sconces with broad silver reflectors, shone out far into the 
 murky night, beaconing to all the city that there the king held 
 court. The other decorations of that stately room were as 
 superior to the modes of the time, as were the personal habits 
 of its royal resident to those of his contemporaneous kings. 
 Instead of rushes, the floor was covered with rich tapestries, the 
 walls were draped with embossed and gilded Moorish leather 
 from Cordova, and, instead of arms and weapons, implements of 
 the chase, and trophies of the battle, were adorned with works 
 
122 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 of art, such as art then was — ere its revival from the darkness 
 of the Middle Ages ; with musical instruments, some of the 
 king's own construction — for in addition to his unquestioned 
 merit as a poet, he was a musician and composer of no mean 
 order ; and with a few shelves of rare illuminated manuscripts. 
 One table strewn with missals, music, rude sketches, and a few 
 objects of what we should now call vertu, such as laerymatories, 
 bronze and golden ornaments, antique arms, and funeral vases 
 extracted from the graves without the Roman native camps, or 
 the yet more ancient Pictish barrows ; and another spread with 
 the delicacies of what was then termed a rare supper — for the 
 proper supper, which was the principal meal of the day, had 
 taken place some hours ago — with a due complement of the 
 cumbrous-looking, but picturesque settees and high-backed 
 arm-chairs, composed the furniture of this most unroyal royal 
 chamber — unroyal, for in it there was neither dais nor canopy ; 
 neither footstool nor chair of state ; neither the treasured fleurs- 
 de-lis, and unicorn of Scotland, nor any of the insignia of Cale- 
 donian royalty ; and in it there stood neither lords in waiting, 
 nor gentlemen of the household ; neither pensioners nor ushers 
 of the rod ; but only in attendance, by the board, two unarmed 
 pages, in the black and scarlet liveries of the realm, ready to 
 hand wine or refreshments to the company. 
 
 And that company — the king himself clad merely as a gen- 
 tleman of birth in plain black velvet ; a gentleman of noble 
 stature and fine features — the latter marked with something of 
 that melancholy which was the characteristic of all his race, 
 and especially of his equally unhappy descendant, the first 
 Charles of England, in whom it was believed- — long before the 
 first shadow gloomed on his political horizon — to be a prog- 
 nostic of violent and early death ; the queen, stately, and finely 
 formed, and fair, with the rich complexion and luxuriant sunny 
 
THE LADY CATHERINE DOUGLASS. 123 
 
 hair of England, and the high, aquiline features, still lineal in 
 the princely family of the house of Beaufort ; and, lastly, her 
 four maids of honor — damsels whose very names denoted that 
 they were of the highest blood of Scotland ; and of the blood, 
 from first to last, true and devoted to the Stuart — for there was 
 a Seyton and a Beatoun, a Carmichael and a Douglass — but of 
 these four, though all were young, graceful, and gentle, and fair 
 enough each one to be the cynosure, we have to do only with 
 the last; for she, the Lady Catherine Douglass, differed from 
 all the rest, not only in the style and character of her beauty, 
 but in her demeanor ; and, indeed, her whole aspect on that 
 eventful evening was unusual at least, if not unbecoming in 
 such a presence. 
 
 She was very tall, very largely formed, and though delicate 
 and even slender, so fully rounded in her figure as to give the 
 idea of her having attained years far more mature than she 
 indeed had, for she was scarcely yet seventeen. Her profuse 
 hair, closely banded over her tresses, and falling in luxuriant 
 masses over her neck and shoulders, was black as night, as 
 were her heavy, straight brows, which imparted a character of 
 unusual sternness to features naturally grave and almost austere. 
 She sate apart from the rest in an embrasure of one of those 
 high windows, gazing steadfastly towards the town, and evi- 
 dently all untouched by the fine music and fine poetry which 
 were enriching all the atmosphere around her, although the 
 music and the words were both the composition of a king — of a 
 king beloved and present. So still she sate that the others had 
 entirely forgotten her presence, the rather that she was con- 
 cealed from their view by a stout clustered pillar casting a mas- 
 sive shadow over the embrasure within which she had taken 
 post. But though she heeded not the company, nor was heeded 
 by them, it was evident that she was anything but pensive or 
 
124 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 abstracted, for her. face wore that air of strange excitement 
 which Scottish superstition believes to be the consequence of a 
 preternatural foresight, and which is commonly known to that 
 people as a raised look. Her lips are half apart ; her eyes fixed 
 on vacancy ; her ear turned in the peculiar attitude of listening. 
 One hand was pressed upon her heart as if it would repress its 
 beating ; the other, as it hung dow*n by her side, was clinched 
 as tightly as though it was closed upon the dudgeon of a 
 dagger. 
 
 Men said that Catherine Douglass loved her king with a love 
 that surpassed a subject's love of loyalty — even as a later Doug- 
 lass of the ruder sex loved the loveliest of all the Stuarts — 
 unhappy Mary. Had the strong blood of Douglass been mated 
 with the weak stream that ran in the veins of the Stuarts, it 
 might, perhaps, in either case, have saved its sovereign. As it 
 was, in both cases, the weak in falling dragged the stronger 
 down. 
 
 But now the time was close at hand — the hour had come, and 
 the men. And still the gay song went on, and the rich music 
 poured its stream unheard — unheard by those inspired ears of 
 Catherine, which, deaf to their merry minstrelsy, were filled 
 with sounds they could not hear, as were her eyes alive to sights 
 they could not see. 
 
 Without, the city had already sunk to sleep, and no sounds 
 had been heard over. the streets and wynds late so populous and 
 noisy for above two hours, except the sad, soft sough of the 
 westland wind, as it came wailing down from the Highland 
 hills ; and the dull, monotonous rush of the flooded Tay, as it 
 poured along beneath the city walls, swollen with the melting 
 snows, for it had thawed for several days, and the river was 
 bankful ; and from hour to hour the clang of the convent bell 
 telling how the night rolled away. 
 
THE LADY CATHERINE DOUGLASS. 125 
 
 No guard was set at the convent gate ; only within the porch 
 beside a close-barred picket, under a blinking lanthorn, dozed, 
 muffled in his cowl, an old Carthusian. 
 
 Hard by, but close concealed within the mouths of several 
 narrow and filthy wynds or lanes, debouching into the High 
 street of Perth, between rows of houses so disproportionately 
 tall as to cause their openings to resemble the cavernous gorges 
 between precipitous cliffs, rather than human thoroughfares 
 between human dwellings, about forty or fifty powerfully built 
 men had been standing on the watch motionless for above two 
 hours, closely wrapped in heavy serge cloaks, fitted with capes 
 projecting far over their faces, which they completely concealed 
 from view. At length the echoes of the convent bell died into 
 silence, after the twelve stern notes that tell of midnight, and as 
 they died away, a faint and guarded footstep, accompanied by 
 a muffled clash of metal, was heard approaching. 
 
 u It is he at length ! '.' whispered one of the watchers, utter- 
 ing a single low whistle, which was answered at once by two 
 similar notes, and followed by the approach of a person simi- 
 larly clad, but of more dignified port and taller stature than the 
 others. 
 
 " The time has come," he said. " The lights are all out ! 
 They have retired this half hour. Silence, and follow ! " 
 
 And as they went in single file, their feet gave scarce a 
 sound on the rugged pavement, so thickly were they clothed in 
 felt, gliding along through the dim streets like fleeting ghosts, 
 in total silence, unless when that strange muffled clash w T as 
 heard, ominous of evil. 
 
 They reached the convent gate, and the leader, knocking 
 very gently, and w r hispering a countersign, it opened seemingly 
 automatous, for, when they entered, the sleeping Carthusian 
 was no longer there, and the blinking lanthorn only kept the 
 
126 PERSONS AND PICTURES. ' 
 
 wicket. They entered one by one, and filed off silently one by 
 one into the cloistered court, the leader carrying the dull lan- 
 thorn with him, and the ten who entered last, remaining within 
 the porch to guard against interruption from without. 
 t The others, as they reached the grass-plat in the centre of 
 the cloister, threw off their mufflings, and stood revealed, a 
 band of grim and grisly warriors, with scar-seared faces, and 
 many with grey hair, and all with indubitable marks of high 
 birth and station in the insolent daring of their aspect, and the 
 fierce haughtiness of their bearing. All were armed cop-a-pie 
 in steel, but they had no crests on their basnets, no blazonings 
 on their steel coats, and they bore no weapons save — each in 
 his right hand — a long broad dagger, known as the misericorde, 
 unsheathed and ready for assassination. The tall, gaunt man 
 who led them still wore his vizor up, and the dark grizzled face 
 and snow-white hair revealed the uncle of the king — Walter, 
 the Earl of Athole. Lowering his aventaille, with a mute ges- 
 ture, he led onward, and all followed silently, for they still wore 
 their felt shoes over their mail hose, though little need there 
 seemed for such precaution. 
 
 No human being met them in the cloisters, nor in the vaulted 
 corridors, nor on the vast stone staircase — no human eye looked 
 down on them from the tall casements — no owl screeched at 
 the murderers, " not a mouse budged " for all their dull re- 
 sounding footsteps. 
 
 But within one faithful heart presaged their coming. 
 
 Within her embrasure, still as a marble statue, with lips 
 apart, clinched hand, and glaring, sate Catherine Douglass. 
 
 When the royal company arose for the night, she had not 
 arisen, and, none observing her where she sate withdrawn, all 
 fancied that she had retired before them, and was a-bed al- 
 ready. 
 
THE LADY CATHERINE DOUGLASS. 127 
 
 % 
 
 The dying brands glimmered feebly through the great hall — 
 the waxen lights were dead in the sconces, and the pale watcher 
 scarcely seemed less dead than they. 
 
 Hark ! hark ! one by one — one by one — stealthy, ghostlike, 
 only not silent — on they came, up the stairs, through the cor- 
 ridor, those muffled footsteps. They paused. 
 
 A loud, clear voice woke the night. 
 
 " The king ! The king ! To arms ! to arms ! within there, 
 Brandanes, look to your bills and bows I The traitors are 
 without ! The doors are barred ! Treason ! fie, treason ! " 
 
 It was the voice of Catherine Douglass — and at her cry there 
 was a rush from within, but it was not the steelclad rush of the 
 trusty Brandanes, the faithful body-guard, the men of Bute 
 and Islay — only the rush of unshod girlish feet, the rustle of 
 female garbs, and the firm stride of one manly foot — the foot 
 of a king come forth unarmed to die. 
 
 At the same instant came a hoarse whisper from without, 
 while a heavy hand pressed the door inward, as if expecting 
 to find no resistance. " Away ! silly minion ! There be no 
 Brandanes, nor no bars wherewithal to bar the gate ! " 
 
 " Traitor, thou liest ! " was the firm reply. " For I have 
 thrust mine arm into the staples, and when was not the blood 
 and bone of a Douglass stronger than bars of wood or bolts of 
 iron % Fly, my liege, fly — by the back stairway, and the pos- 
 tern — McLouis and the Brandanes keep the river gate ! away ! 
 I will hold them ! " 
 
 " Curses upon thee ! Yield, minion ! force it, Graham ; break 
 in, Ruthven ! Curses on her ! curses ! What if she be a 
 woman, or what avails a paltry wench's bones, when a king's 
 blood and a kingdom are at stake !" 
 
 There was the energetic rush of ten heavy shoulders of strong 
 men against the oaken door without — within there was the 
 
128 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 steady and undaunted nerve of one pale girl in agony — and for 
 an instant's space the girl's nerve carried. 
 
 Then came a fearful, craunching, shivering crash — low but dis- 
 tinct, and then the tearing of the white flesh and sinews, 
 drowned in the splintering din of wood, and the fierce tramp 
 of the armed assassins as they rushed in resistless. 
 
 ~No scream passed her pale lips in that extremity of torture 
 — her dying eyes swam towards her king, to see if her devotion 
 had availed to save him. But there he stood, horror-stricken, 
 trammelled by the clinging arms of his shrieking queen and 
 her maidens. Had he be«n free he would have dragged her 
 from that fatal, fruitless post; had he been armed he had 
 avenged her. . 
 
 As it was, he died with her ; manfully, as becomes a man, 
 in silence — royally, as becomes a king who cannot resist effec- 
 tually, unresistingly. 
 
 Fearfully in after days did the assassins rue their crime in 
 unheard-of tortures. But what tortures could expiate the 
 blood of that devoted girl, what price repay her glorious self- 
 abandonment, save that which we will not doubt she has 
 received — 
 
 The Crown of Martyrdom in Heaven ! 
 
Margaret of $ttjau; 
 
 WIFE OF HENRY VI. 
 
 1457. 
 
MARGARET OF ANJOU, 
 
 WIFE OF HENRY VI. 
 
 There is a very general habit among ordinary, and what 
 may be called everyday readers — even among that portion of 
 them who would feel themselves greatly aggrieved at being 
 supposed to underlie such a charge — of forming their general 
 estimate of events, persons, characters, and circumstances even 
 of veracious history, from the fictitious delineations of them 
 found in the pages of poets, dramatists, and romancers ; much 
 pleasanter reading certainly, if less to be relied on, than old 
 musty black-letter chroniclers, or modern pragmatical com- 
 pilers. Not a few even of our historians — themselves the teach- 
 ers, as they should be, of less solid and solemn falsehoods — have 
 too often, as it seems to me, condescended to become their 
 pupils ; and have transmitted tales, intended for the brief amuse- 
 ment of an audience wishing to be pleased for an hour, as grave 
 facts and authorities for the information of an audience desirous 
 to be instructed throughout ages. 
 
 Of no portion of history is this more true, than of that dark 
 and gloomy period known as the Wars of the Roses, which 
 devastated England for above thirty years, during which twelve* 
 
 * Hume II. 433. Phillips & Sampson's edition. 
 
132 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 pitched battles were fought, besides skirmishes innumerable ; 
 in which the lives of above eighty princes of the blood-royal were 
 lost either in the field or on the scaffold ; the ancient nobility 
 of England almost annihilated ; the ancient spirit of chivalry, 
 with its redeeming charities, and courtesies, and mercies, and 
 above all its high sense of honor, utterly eradicated ; and a 
 fierce, brutal, bloodthirsty, and scourgeful party furor — not pal- 
 liated even by a loyal adherence to party, and utterly regard- 
 less of the sanctity of oaths, or hospitalities, or ties of blood — 
 was for a long and hideous lapse of years ill-substituted. Of 
 this black page — the blackest, I think, take it all for all, of the 
 history of England — there is but one point on which the Anglo- 
 Saxon reader can dwell with any satisfaction ; it is the ad- 
 mitted truth, that, whereas in the civil wars of the European 
 continent, it is the masses, the peaceful citizens and the hard- 
 handed peasantry, who have ever suffered, the yet bloodier civil 
 Wars of the Koses were literally war to the castle, peace to the 
 cottage. 
 
 While eighty princes of the blood-royal perished, many 
 slaughtered in epid blood by noble, nay, but by kindred hands, 
 many more arbitrarily doomed to the scaffold ; while the old 
 feudal aristocracy were so hewn down, root and branch, that 
 an eloquent writer* has asserted — a little extravagantly, per- 
 haps, but still with some base whereon to stand — that " after 
 the battle of Bosworth, a pure Norman-descended Baron was 
 a rarer thing in England than a wolf," few citizens or peasants 
 fell, unless in the chaude meUe to which they followed their 
 favorites or their lords ; no military executions swept away the 
 captives by thousands, after the more merciful shock of arms 
 was past ; no warrant of high treason followed the peasant to 
 
 * Benjamin d'Israeli's " Coningsby." 
 
MARGARET OF ANJOU. 133 
 
 his cottage, or the artizan to his booth. The " after carnage" 
 fell on the nobles only. 
 
 " Society, therefore," to quote the words of the most recent, 
 as he is assuredly the most eloquent, of English historians,* 
 " recovered from the shock as soon as the actual conflict was 
 over. The calamities of civil war were confined to the slaugh- 
 ter on the field of battle, and to a few subsequent executions 
 and confiscations. In a week the peasant was driving his 
 team, and the esquire flying his hawks over the field of Towton 
 or of Bosworth, as if no extraordinary event had interrupted 
 the regular course of human life." 
 
 " Even while the Wars of the Roses were raging," he re- 
 sumes, a few paragraphs later — " our country appears to have 
 been in a happier condition than the neighboring realms during 
 years of most profound peace. Comine* was one of the most 
 enlightened statesmen of his time. He had seen all the richest 
 and most civilized parts of the continent. He had lived in the 
 opulent towns of Flanders, the Manchesters and Liverpools of 
 the fifteenth century. He had visited Florence, recently adorned 
 by the magnificence of Lorenzo; and Venice, not yet humbled 
 by the confederates of Cambray. This eminent man delibe- 
 rately pronounced England to be the best governed country of 
 which he had any knowledge. Her constitution he emphati- 
 cally designated as a just and holy thing, which, while it pro- 
 tected the people, really strengthened the hands of the king 
 who respected it. In no other country, he said, were men so 
 effectually secured from wrong. The calamities produced by 
 our intestine wars seemed to him to be confined to the nobles 
 and the fighting men, and to bear no such traces as he had been 
 
 * Macaulay, vol. i., p. 27. 
 
 f Philip de Comine, minister of Charles the Bold, of Burgundy — 
 the great historian of the age of Louis XL 
 
134 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 wont to see elsewhere, of ruined dwellings and depopulated 
 cities." 
 
 Yet, of this singular and almost anomalous period, the admi- 
 ration of contemporaneous statesmen, the wonder of succeeding 
 philosophers, it is not too much to say that ninety-nine hun- 
 dredths of all English readers form their opinions in accordance 
 to the rules in which it has pleased the genius, or perhaps — 
 alas ! that it should be said of the greatest as well as the basest 
 of men — the interest of Will Shakspeare to paint them. 
 
 In his great historical plays, by which he led captive the 
 fancies of the great of his own day, and has led astray the 
 judgments even of wise men ever since; Richard the Second, 
 the parts of Henry the Fourth, Henry the Fifth, the parts of 
 Henry the Sixth, and Richard the 'Third, lie almost all the 
 opinions of almost all readers of the present day concerning the 
 rights and wrongs, the virtues and vices, the sins and sorrows 
 of the personages of that distracted period. So true is this, 
 that I well remember being myself asked by a lady of very 
 superior talents and various reading, " How it was to be ex- 
 plained that some historian, whom she mentioned, and I have 
 forgotten, could describe Richard the Third as a wise, able, 
 and politic king, when it was well known that he was not king 
 more than a few days?" She had, of course, formed her idea 
 of the time from Shakspeare's play, or rather from Col ley 
 Gibber's version of it — for Will himself does not quite so much 
 hurry the action — in which Richard is Duke of Gloucester in 
 the first act, King in the second, and slain by the young and 
 gallant Harry of Richmond in the fifth act ; the latter person- 
 age, by the way, whom it suited the poet to magnify, being 
 one of the coldest-blooded, meanest, and most cruel tyrants — 
 one of the most arbitrary and deliberate enemies of the English 
 constitution, and one of the most odious men, both in public 
 
MARGARET OF ANJOU. 135 
 
 and private life, that ever disgraced a throne. The bloated and 
 bloodthirsty monster, the wife-murderer, who succeeded him, 
 was less detestable than he, for his vices were those of a bad 
 man — the other's those of a villanous machine ; the crimes of 
 the second tyrant were the effects of hot-blood and boiling pas- 
 sion, while those of his father were the offspring of cold malice 
 and deliberate calculation. * 
 
 In no case, it is clear from the very nature of his vocation, 
 can the dramatist or the romancer be a safe exponent, or be 
 received as a true authority of historic questions. Effect is his 
 object, not truth — contrast the points at which he aims, not 
 congruities. If he find contrasts and effects, it is the privilege 
 of his caste, perhaps it is his duty as a craftsman, to strengthen 
 the latter by exaggerating the former. If the true tale of the 
 courts which he has chosen whereon to build the lofty rhyme, as 
 otherwise well adapted to his purpose, lack these effects and 
 contrast, why then, at the expense of historical truth, he must 
 create them — and why not ? He offers to amuse you as a poet, 
 never probably dreaming that you are so mad as to quote him 
 into an historical authority. His object is to stir your feelings 
 to the pitch of action, to make you burn with anger, melt with 
 tears, tremble with visionary terrors ; he cares not whether his 
 portrait is to the life or no, so that your sympathies declare it 
 to be life-like ; it matters not to him whether his censure 
 blacken the ermine's purity or his praise purify the murderer's 
 crimson ; and wherefore should it? or " what is Hecuba to him, 
 or he to Hecuba," that he should lose your approbation for her 
 honor ? 
 
 This is good cause why any avowed writer of entertaining 
 fiction should be regarded as an insecure base whereon to found 
 an opinion of true character. Historians, whose privilege ex- 
 empts them not from the closest adherence to the literal fact, 
 
136 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 misled by personal partiality and factious partisanship, err oft 
 enough, heaven knows, in this particular, and become guides 
 so blind, that we have no occasion to seek for pilots through 
 the Cimmerian darkness of darkest historic regions among those, 
 who as being human are equally liable to go astray through 
 faction or favor, and who have never bound themselves to 
 accuracy or adherence to the letter of the truth. But why the 
 authority of the great, the immortal poet of England, who 
 most of all his tuneful brethren was Saxon English to the core, 
 is to be viewed with suspicion and distrust as concerns facts of 
 history, during the Wars of the Roses more especially^ is that 
 all his personal prejudices leaned to the Lancastrian side ; that 
 all his principal patrons, most of all the man-minded Elizabeth, 
 was a genuine Tudor, and though in the female line descended 
 from the house of York, held and claimed her crown always as 
 the heiress of her grandfather — Henry VIL, of Lancaster. 
 
 By vastly the greater proportion of all English readers, who 
 have not troubled themselves to* look into dry genealogical 
 details, and who perchance regard heraldry as a mere jargon, 
 it is supposed to this day, through the enormous influence of 
 Shakspeare's wondrous dramas — of which influence the preva- 
 lence of this error is not perhaps the'least evident proof — that the 
 house of Lancaster was in the true line of the Royal succession, 
 and that the house of York were daring and intrusive usurpers. 
 
 I do not intend to charge the great poet with intentionally 
 originating this falsehood ; for it is more than probable that 
 historians and chroniclers — such as they were at that day — 
 began, so soon as Henry VIL had secured the crown upon his 
 head, and Henry VIII. all but added to it the Papal tiara, to 
 conciliate the favor of the arbitrary and grasping Tudors, by 
 strengthening the claims of the usurping house of Lancaster 
 and depreciating those of the rightful heir of York. 
 
MARGARET OF ANJOU. 137 
 
 How easy a thing it is to falsify history by personal favor 
 and factious partisanship ; and how difficult a thing it is, when 
 it has once been falsified, to unravel the tangled yarns of truth 
 and falsehood, how almost hopeless to arrive at the right, we 
 need not go far to discover — not farther than to the history of 
 these United States, and that of the last half century, within 
 the personal memory of many men now living — for it is yet a 
 mooted question, and probably never now can be satisfactorily 
 answered, whether or no a general of high command was a 
 traitor, a commodore in a celebrated naval victory a coward ; 
 and if it be so easy a thing for partisan pens to cloud the truth 
 of actions so recent, as to make it undiscoverable — how arduous 
 must it not be to follow the clue of history through the devious 
 winding of ignorance, of sophistry, of prejudice, of intentional 
 falsehood to the right end, when that end is centuries distant ! 
 
 In this case, happily, the truth- lies in a nutshell, and de- 
 pends on facts of genealogical descent, so plain and potent, that 
 we need not dive deep into the mysteries of heraldic science to 
 develop it. 
 
 Richard II., who succeeded to the throne of England in 1377, 
 was the only son and heir of Edward the Black Prince, the 
 eldest son of Edward III. ; he survived his father, and ascended 
 the throne at the decease of his grandfather, being then only 
 eleven years of age ; and though in his early youth, while yet a 
 minor, he displayed both energy and courage, as he advanced in 
 years, he proved himself the weakest, most imbecile, and favorite- 
 led of English princes, with scarcely the exceptions of his hapless 
 great-grandfather, Edward II., and yet more hapless successor, 
 the sixth Henry 3 with whose reign we have to do. 
 
 It is very usual to hear much pity wasted upon weak princes, 
 and it is a favorite subject of declamation with historians, to 
 lament over the private virtues of the victim of his own imbe- 
 
 7* 
 
138 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 cility, and to wonder at nations rebelling against good-natured 
 idiots, which had remained tranquilly loyal under the rule of 
 capable despots. The truth is, that, for the most part, nations 
 suffer more under weak princes — themselves subservient to a 
 host of insolent, voracious, and ambitious favorites, each and all of 
 whom oppress the masses — tr?an under one despot who oppresses 
 them himself, but who allows none to oppress them but himself 
 — on the principle that one bad master is better than a thousand ; 
 and so it was proved with Richard. For, during his incapable 
 and unfortunate reign, he so completely lost all hold on any 
 party that, when he disappeared, no one cared to inquire whe- 
 ther it was by actual violence, or by the natural termination of 
 imprisoned misery. The Duke of Lancaster, better known to the 
 general reader as Harry of Bolingbroke, usurped the throne, with 
 the consent, indeed, of Parliament, and amid the rejoicings of all 
 parties ; and the unhappy Richard was committed to close custody 
 in Pomfret Castle, where he soon died, not without suspicion of 
 being murdered by Sir Piers Exton, who had him in charge. This 
 Harry Bolingbroke, Duke of Lancaster, was son to the last Duke 
 of Lancaster, third brother of Edward III., by Catherine Swine- 
 ford, the daughter of a private knight of Hainault. He assumed 
 the crown, in 1399, under the title of Henry IV., and held it 
 successfully and firmly, though with the strong hand always — 
 a manifest and double usurper ; since, even supposing the forced 
 resignation of Richard to be valid, the true title to the throne, 
 vacant by his demise, was in the house of Mortimer, represented 
 by the Earl of March, son of the daughter of Lionel, Duke of 
 Clarence, second son of Edward III., and Edward Mortimer, the 
 Earl, preceding him. This is the point on which the whole case 
 turns, as in this the primogeniture of the house of Lancaster 
 breaks down, and ultimately, as I shall presently show, the true 
 title was vested in the house of York. 
 
MARGARET OF ANJOU. 139 
 
 Although tliis may seem a little dry and tedious, I will pro- 
 mise that it shall be brief, and I would beg even the most im- 
 patient of my readers to bear # with me yet a little further, as a 
 few more words will put them au fait to the solution of a 
 very knotty question, at which to get, through the regular 
 channels of legitimate history, they would have to wade through 
 many a weary chapter, and then among the multiplicity of 
 Philippas, Isabellas, and Margarets — they had very pretty names 
 it must be admitted — and of ever recurring Dukes of Clarence, 
 York, Lancaster, and Gloucester, reign after reign ; and genera- 
 tion after generation, will, ten to one, overlook the gist of the 
 question when they come at it. 
 
 This usurping Henry IV., as I have said, held his crown so 
 long as he lived, and transmitted his title, disputed during his 
 life, to be yet more fiercely disputed after his death, to his son, 
 Henry V., one of the brightest supporters of the English crown, 
 dying a natural death in 1413, as unpopular at his demise as 
 he had been popular at his accession. In that year Henry V. 
 succeeded, and though disputes were raised in behalf of the 
 Earl of March, by an admixture of mercy tempering the severity 
 of law, he suppressed all conspiracies, spread the glories of 
 English arms far beyond the seas, and died the last great 
 foreign conqueror, and perhaps the most popular of English 
 kings, in 1422. 
 
 To him succeeded, at the age of nine months, his only son, by 
 Catherine of France, under the title of Henry YL, and, with his 
 crown, inherited the false and disputed title, without the strong 
 heart or the strong hand which can out of might make right. 
 
 During his long minority, and the * protectorate of the able 
 and upright Dukes of Bedford and Gloucester, his uncles, no 
 claims were laid to his crown. Yet even his minority was un- 
 fortunate ; for the loss of all the French provinces, one by one 
 
140 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 — nearly all of which, including the capital, were held by the 
 English at his accession heated the mind of the public against 
 him, and tended in some degree* to his subsequent disasters. 
 A short time before he attained to his majority, the great and 
 good Duke of Bedford died at Eouen ; and the unfortunate dis- 
 sensions which existed between the Cardinal Winchester and 
 the Duke of Gloucester excluded that honorable prince from the 
 councils of the young king, who, as he arrived at years of man- 
 hood, showed an imbecility of character, a want of parts, a silly, 
 weak good-nature, and a willingness to be guided, not inferior 
 to that which had. discrowned Richard II., and set his own 
 house on the throne, though his character was not disgraced by 
 the love of low society and vulgar debauchery, which belonged 
 to that most unprincely of princes. 
 
 On the death of the Duke of Bedford, a man, with whom, 
 henceforth, we shall have much to do, was appointed Regent of 
 France in his stead — Richard, Duke of York, namely — destined 
 thereafter to be his rival for the crown. This Richard was son 
 of the Earl of Cambridge, who was second son of the old Duke 
 of York, fourth son of Edward III. His mother was sister to 
 the last Earl of March, who died without issue during the late 
 reign, and therefore great grand-daughter of Lionel, Duke of 
 Clarence, second son of Edward III. The death of the Earl of 
 Cambridge's elder brother without issue, left Richard Duke of 
 York. He was therefore, on his father's side, heir to the fourth, 
 and on his mother's, to the second son of Edward the Third. 
 The house of the eldest son, the Black Prince, was extinct with 
 Richard II., and that of the third, the usurping house of Lancas- 
 ter, held the throne to the prejudice of the true heirs. 
 
 This Duke of York, however, though a man of parts, charac- 
 ter, integrity, and courage, was mild, kind-tempered, and cau- 
 tious ; and it is little likely that he would ever have disturbed 
 
MARGARET OF ANJOU. 141 
 
 the succession by any claims, had he not been unwisely forced 
 from inaction into arms. 
 
 Shortly after Henry's accession, his ministers — or governors, 
 as they might be called more justly — the Dukes of Somerset, 
 Suffolk, and Buckingham, negotiated his marriage with Mar- 
 garet of Anjou, the daughter of Rene, King of Provence, and 
 titular king of Sicily, Naples, and Jerusalem, and Count of An- 
 jou, of all which splendid titles he possessed the barren honor 
 only, with scarce the land or revenue of an English baron. The 
 lady herself, however, was the loveliest of her day, and, both in 
 mind and body, the most accomplished in all Christendom. She 
 had a high, courageous spirit, an enterprising temper, a solid 
 understanding, and vivacious talents. In all respects, she was 
 one of whom, says Hume, who does not on the whole write 
 favorably of her — " it was reasonable to expect that, when she 
 should mount the throne, these" — her great talents — " would 
 break out with still superior lustre." In all respects, she was 
 one fitted to be the wife of a husband lacking the energies 
 alike and the capacities of a man, without the wit to conciliate 
 and the will to control his people. In circumstances, as in 
 character, she was not unlike the unhappy wife of the sixteenth 
 Louis of France, although she lacked her more feminine virtues 
 and her gentler graces. In devotion to a drivelling, dotard 
 husband ; in maternal affection, maternal courage, she was sur- 
 passed by no one. Both foreigners in the countries they were 
 destined to rule, both hated by their people for being foreigners, 
 both linked unequally to drivelling dastards, both strove, ac- 
 cording to their natures and the ages in which they lived, for 
 the rights of their lords, and the inheritance of their children. 
 It were no mean praise to say of Margaret of Anjou, as I should 
 not hesitate to say, and as I hope to establish, that she was a 
 
142 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 ruder Marie Antoinette of a ruder age, though not of a more 
 sanguinary epoch or a more cruel country. 
 
 It happened, unfortunately for* Margaret, that by the treaties 
 of her marriage, negotiated, as I have said, by the Dukes of 
 Suffolk and Somerset, the remote province of Maine, lately 
 conquered by the English arms from the French crown, had 
 been ceded to her uncle Charles of Anjou, though she brought 
 herself no dowry to the king, her husband. Still more un- 
 happily it fell out that in carrying out this cession a fresh strife 
 arose ; a war broke out between the two countries, in the course 
 of which all the French provinces, having been attached to the 
 English crown since the reign of Henry II., were lost to Eng- 
 land for ever, and attached to the French crown. There can 
 be no doubt that the loss of these provinces was a real gain to 
 England ; but at that day politics was a science not sufficiently 
 advanced to permit even the wisest statesman to discern this 
 truth, and the popular pride in England was attached, in those 
 days, to the maintenance of the French conquests, just as it is 
 nowadays to that of Malta and Gibraltar ; and as the popular 
 fury would fall hot and heavy on the administration which 
 should surrender or lose those costly fortalices of the national 
 vanity, so fell it then on the surrenderee of Maine, the losers 
 of Guienne and Normandy, and all foothold on the soil of 
 France. It was an unhappy thing again for Margaret, that the 
 good Duke of Gloucester should have been opposed to her 
 marriage with the king, and that he should thus have been 
 brought into more active enmity with the Dukes of Suffolk 
 and Somerset, since as a woman, owing her elevation in some 
 sort to Suffolk, whom she had personally kept abroad before her 
 accession, and as a woman piqued by the Duke of Gloucester's 
 preference for another woman to be his cousin's bride, she was 
 naturally more deeply engaged on the side of the bad, ambi- 
 
MARGARET OF ANJOU. 143 
 
 tious men whom she found her weak husband's ministers, or 
 rulers rather, and friends, whom she found in some sort the 
 masters of her own destiny ; and whom, by every motive of gra- 
 titude, judgment, and interest, she was bound to regard her 
 friends until she should find them otherwise. For the same 
 causes it is natural that she should have regarded the good Duke 
 of Gloucester as her enemy ; and that she should have been 
 easily led to believe, what was of course daily dinned into her 
 ears by the ministers in power, that he was a traitor, secretly 
 conspiring the death of the king, and aiming at the succession 
 of the crown. 
 
 On this point I have been somewhat diffuse, because on it 
 have been founded the only serious charges that ever have been 
 brought against this high-spirited and unhappy princess, whom 
 the Yorkish writers naturally calumniated, as an enemy danger- 
 ous even when conquered, and whom in after days the Lan- 
 castrians cared not to defend, because she was loaded with po- 
 pular odium, as a detested foreigner — it seems characteristic, by 
 the way, of the Anglo-Saxon blood in all times and places, the 
 fifteenth and the nineteenth centuries, England and the United 
 States, to detest and calumniate all foreigners, unless they are 
 patriot men or singing women — considering it well enough to 
 have a French scapegoat for the crimes of their party, when 
 they had criminals enough of their own to defend. 
 
 Gloucester was committed to the Tower on false charges of 
 treason, and a few days afterwards was found murdered in his 
 bed, while under the ward of his uncle the Cardinal, and the 
 Duke of Suffolk. The fine lines of Shakspeare will here 
 readily occur to all — 
 
 Who finds the partridge in the puttock's nest 
 But may imagine how the bird was dead, 
 Although the hawk soar with unblooded beak ; 
 
144 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 and doubtless the popular voice rightly affixed the guilt to 
 these two noblemen, neither of whom long survived him, and 
 one of whom, his uncle, is said to have died in the agonies 
 of a guilty conscience. But I must protest against such reason- 
 ing, or sophistry rather, as the following of Hume's, for which 
 I am bold to assert, as he indeed almost admits, there is not a 
 shadow of ground for suspicion, except the scene in Shak- 
 speare, from which I have quoted above, and in which, to 
 heighten the effect, he has introduced Margaret assisting and 
 sustaining Suffolk. " What share the queen had in this guilt,'' 
 says this great, though most partial historian, " is uncertain ; 
 her usual activity and spirit made the public conclude, with 
 some reason, that the duke's enemies durst not have ventured 
 on such a deed without her privity. But there happened, soon 
 after, an event of which she and her favorite, the Duke of 
 Suffolk, bore incontestably the whole odium." The event 
 alluded to is the cession of Maine, and the loss of other pro- 
 vinces consequent on it. A few words in the above I have ita- 
 licised, wishing to show how easily a writer may convey truth 
 by the letter, and falsehood by the meaning, and show how 
 easy to destroy a reputation by calumny, maintaining a show 
 of candor. Is uncertain, says Hume ; and in one sense it is 
 uncertain, for there is not even an iota of pretended evidence, 
 or even suspicion against her. If it be uncertain whether a 
 person is guilty until he shall be proved innocent, few of us, it 
 is to be feared, shall go unwhipped of justice. With some 
 reason ; the reason seems to be that, because she was active and 
 spirited, she therefore was likely to have committed a cold- 
 blooded, cowardly murder. But the truth is, that to grant the 
 spirit and activity, at that date, is to beg the question ; at this 
 period she had displayed neither ; they grew with the growth 
 of subsequent events. Hitherto it appears that she, the king, 
 
MARGARET OF ANJOU. 145 
 
 and country, were equally under the absolute control of the 
 triumvirate — Somerset, Winchester, and Suffolk. By the words 
 her favorite, the historian basely insinuates what he dare not 
 assert, and he can show no possible suspicion of such a ground 
 for calumny, that Margaret was an untrue wife of Henry ; an 
 accusation, it needs not to say, which every action, every hour 
 of her life — full of devotion to himself while living, to his me- 
 mory when dead — brand with the living lie. The odium of the 
 loss of the French provinces she bore incontestably. True, grave 
 historian ! most incontestably she did bear it. But read as thou 
 didst mean it to be read while writing it, this passage means, 
 and is understood by ninety-nine out of a hundred who do read 
 it, as meaning deserved to bear it. She was a beautiful, young, 
 admired girl, living with an old doting father, who kept up a 
 court literally of mountebanks and fiddlers, held cours plenieres 
 des amours, and fancied himself a troubadour ; and there is no 
 more likelihood that she should have ever known the articles 
 of the secret treaty made between her uncle, Charles of Anjou, 
 and the ambassador plenipotentiary of a foreign prince, con- 
 cerning a matter which in no earthly way concerned her, than 
 that the daughter of an English nobleman of the present day 
 should know or care anything about the articles of her own 
 marriage settlement, beyond the amount of her pin money, and 
 the magnificence of her trousseau. 
 
 If it mean anything, this charge would go to imply — like the 
 mad howl raised by the brute terrorists and insane canaille of 
 Paris against the Austrian Marie Antoinette — that it was her 
 object to dismantle England for the benefit of her native coun- 
 try, and to stamp upon her, what was then in her adopted 
 country held a stigma, the name of Frenchwoman. But let it 
 go for what it is worth, I have noted it more to show how 
 history is written, and to let my readers judge how it ought to 
 
146 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 be written, than because I consider her character in this point 
 of view as requiring justification or defence. If Mr. Hume 
 meant to say that Margaret was privy to the murder of the 
 Duke of Gloucester, it was his duty as an historian to declare 
 her aloud a murderess ; if he meant to assert that she was Suf- 
 folk's paramour, it was his duty as a man to hold her up as an 
 object of abhorrence to all pure and virtuous women ; if he 
 was prepared to show that she merited the odium which fell on 
 her for traitorously surrendering the Anglo-Gallican provinces, 
 it was his duty as a patriot to pronounce her a traitress. But, 
 as he dared not say that there was a shadow of reasonable 
 suspicion against her on any of the three points, he had no 
 right to insinuate, and by fair words produce false impressions. 
 If it be an author's duty " naught to extenuate, ndr aught set 
 down in malice," it is certainly one of his blackest sins to set . 
 down the truth so as to make it convey a monstrous and mali- 
 cious lie. 
 
 Now it was barely two years after this, Winchester being 
 dead, and Richard, Duke of York, the last Regent of France, 
 now deprived of his occupation, was beginning to stir in Eng- 
 land, that at the time when Hume himself admits that " the 
 people considered Margaret as a Frenchwoman, and a latent 
 enemy of the kingdom," the House of Commons impeached 
 Suffolk, and accused him of high treason, on some score of false 
 and absurd charges, one of which was that " he had persuaded 
 the French king to invade England with an armed force, in 
 order to depose the king." Is is needless to say that no such 
 invasion was ever contemplated, and that even Margaret was 
 herself fighting for her husband's crown, and actually setting 
 squadrons in the field ; she either never attempted, or never 
 was able to effect, a French co-operation landing. It is also 
 curious that when the Commons abandoned their false charges 
 
MARGARET OF ANJOU. 147 
 
 of treason, and accused Suffolk of misdemeanors only, the king 
 himself, before the peers and commons, pronounced sentence of 
 banishment against Suffolk, a sentence which Margaret could 
 incontestable/ have prevented, had she chosen, and must have 
 chosen to prevent had she loved him, for whatever she could do 
 with the wily Beaufort, the able Somerset, and the shrewd Suf- 
 folk, she certainly could wind the weak Henry to her will, 
 though she did so only, so far as history shows, for his own 
 good. 
 
 Suffolk was banished, however, without the queen's moving 
 in his favor ; and as he went to France for refuge, u a captain 
 of a vessel was there employed to intercept him in his passage ; 
 he was seized near Dover, his head struck off on the side of a 
 long boat, and his body thrown into the sea. No inquiry was 
 made after the actors and accomplices in this atrocious deed of 
 violence.'" An admission which does not go far to inculpate 
 Margaret, as she incontestably had frequently thereafter the 
 power both to inquire after and to punish both actors and ac- 
 complices, had she cared to do so ; and the weakest point of 
 her character was that she was not one wont to let vengeance 
 sleep, when the power was in her hand to avenge. 
 
 At a later period than this, in 1551, further machinations 
 took place for the overthrow of the Duke of Somerset, and 
 after the rebellion of Cade, which all men judged to have been 
 instigated by Richard, Duke of York, he himself took up arms 
 and marched to London ; but finding the gates shut against him, 
 he fell back, disbanded his army, and retired to Wigmore, where 
 no attempt was made by the queen, or her friends, to avenge 
 the wrongs of Suffolk, or to punish her enemy York. It is 
 certain that the true hereditary right to the crown of England 
 was not in Henry VI., and that it was in Richard, Duke of 
 York. Still Henry was not himself an usurper ; he had inherit- 
 
14$ PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 ed his crown, after two continuous, prosperous, and uninter- 
 rupted reigns, from his grandfather, to whose accession the 
 parliament of England had assented. It is true, again, that not 
 only Richard of York, the true heir to the throne, but that 
 Henry was as incapable, weak, and as unfit to govern as the 
 unhappy Richard, whom his own ancestor, Harry of Boling- 
 broke, had dethroned and succeeded ; and that, of consequence, 
 the same right of revolution — if one may coin such a right — 
 which justified Harry of Bolingbroke in discrowning, and the 
 Parliament in superseding the imbecile Richard II., would 
 justify Richard of York in dethroning, and the Parliament in 
 deposing the no less imbecile Henry VI. 
 
 Still a king de facto can never be to blame for defending the 
 crown which he has in possession, especially if that possession 
 came to him in regular line of succession. This is a maxim 
 which in the worst times, save the Wars only of the Roses, is of 
 universal application ; nor can his adherents be held guilty of 
 treason for succoring or maintaining him. 
 
 Margaret was called to the English throne by competent 
 authorities, was acknowledged queen by the parliament, received 
 as queen by the people, and she had every right, nay, it was 
 her special duty, to defend in every way befitting her, the king- 
 dom of her husband, of herself, and their posterity. That age 
 deemed the direct appeal to arms, a course befitting woman. 
 And ill-mated as she was, to a womanish lord, she appealed to 
 them, and used them manfully, if in vain. The narrative of 
 her personal adventures is full of interest and excitement. 
 She was a great, high-hearted, brave, and noble woman ; if she 
 was something masculine and unsparing, it was an age that 
 needed manhood, and there was no man on the throne but she ; 
 it was an age of ruthlessness and vengeance, and she had great 
 wrongs to avenge. Her bravery in peril, her constancy in the 
 
MARGARET OF ANJOU. 149 
 
 midst of ruin were gorgeous. Let peace preachers say as they 
 may, Margaret of Anjou will be held, and in old Roman phrase 
 jure habeatur, one of the heroines of England. 
 
 Thus far we have considered the life and character of 
 this great-minded and heroical woman, rather in a general than 
 in a particular light, and with a view rather to elucidating the 
 questions of that disputed right of succession to the English 
 throne, on which the bloody struggle of the Roses was founded, 
 and of the accusations brought against her by her enemies, 
 than of entering at large into her great energies, wonderful 
 perseverance, and eminent manly virtues — the virtues, by the 
 way, which were most requisite to her in the stormy times 
 among which her lot was cast. We now come to the period at 
 which those virtues began to display themselves the most sig- 
 nally, the period namely, at which commenced the deadly civil 
 strife, which was not brought to an end until thirty years of 
 almost incessant warfare — and that of the bloodiest and most 
 pitiless nature — had deluged England, from her metropolis to 
 her remotest provinces, with knightly and patrician gore. 
 
 We showed, that in truth the House of York had the true 
 title to the throne as lineal descendants — through Anne, Countess 
 of Cambridge, an4 sister of the last Earl of March, who was 
 the mother of Richard Duke of York — of Philippa, only daugh- 
 ter of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, second son of Edward III. of 
 England. The line of Edward the Black Prince, eldest son of 
 that warlike king, became extinct with Richard II.,- who was 
 murdered in Pontefract castle, leaving no issue legitimate or 
 illegitimate, in 1399. Henry, Duke of Lancaster, who deposed 
 and succeeded Richard, under the title of Henry IV., was de- 
 scended directly from the Duke of Lancaster, third son of Ed- 
 ward III., and therefore could of course lay no claim, founded 
 on birthright, to the throne, so long as any heirs of the second 
 
150 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 son of Edward should be in existence, which it has been shown 
 there were in the persons of Richard of York and his family of 
 sons, which was numerous. 
 
 In reply to this it was stated that Richard II., son of the 
 Black Prince, of the eldest house, had been dethroned by an 
 unanimous vote of the Parliament, on account of his total 
 incapacity to govern ; and that the vacant throne had been con- 
 ferred by the same power, in whom it was competent to confer 
 it, on Henry of Lancaster, surnamed Bolingbroke, of the third 
 son ; which house, though confessedly second of the family, 
 were by that act of Parliament, and by quiet possession of the 
 throne during two reigns, and the peaceful transmission of it to 
 a third prince, in direct succession, thus rendered first of the 
 realm ; and if not right heirs, at least right owners of the 
 throne. 
 
 It is easy to see that the question is an intricate one, and diffi- 
 cult to be solved ; and, though it is evident that the hereditary 
 right was in the house of York, that there was no valid reason 
 why the wearer of the crown, administrator of the govern- 
 ment, and king de facto, should not defend the realm to the 
 possession of which he had come by direct succession from 
 father and grandfather ; the right of the former being assured 
 by no less an authority than that of the two houses in Parlia- 
 ment assembled. All jurists hold that the adherents of a king 
 de facto, such as was Henry VI., Charles II., and the First and 
 Second Georges of England, cannot be held liable to charges of 
 treason for the maintenance of existing royalties ; and, though 
 the bloody character of the age and the fierce partisan spirit, 
 which succeeded to the extinction of chivalry, and not yet miti- 
 gated by the regular systematic principles of modern warfare, 
 led to. the perpetration of savage slaughters and sanguinary 
 reprisals during the reign of the unhappy Henry, the officers of 
 
MARGARET OF ANJOTJ. 151 
 
 the Long Parliament never pretended to punish the cavaliers of 
 Charles I. for treason, until after the deposition and decapitation 
 of Charles, when the Republic and the Protectorate had in their 
 turn become the governments de facto. In the two lamentable 
 affairs of the '15 aud the '45, it is needless to say that neither of 
 the pretenders ever attempted to hold an adherent of the house 
 of Hanover, the actual kingly house, as traitors ; though they 
 had never suffered their own claim to fall into abeyance, as it 
 appears the house of York had done, through the reigns of 
 Henry IV. and Henry V., but had continually adhered to the 
 title of kings of England, and ever kept up the semblance of a 
 court at St. Germains, under the protection of Louis XIV. 
 
 If, therefore, the adherents to the possessor of such a title to 
 the throne as Henry VI. held, cannot be held amenable on the 
 charge of supporting, much less can the possessor himself be 
 held amenable or culpable for defending, his title. Such a pos- 
 sessor was Henry VI. of Lancaster beyond all question — and 
 taking into consideration his imbecility of character, amounting 
 almost to pious idiotcy, not far removed from that of the six- 
 teenth French Louis, it was not only justifiable, but right and 
 glorious in Margaret, to defend the inheritance of her father 
 and her children, against those whom she had ever been taught 
 to believe, and probably did believe, in all sincerity, to be the 
 traitors and usurpers of her husband's and his house's power. 
 
 The case of the deposition of Richard II. and the accession 
 of Henry IV. in his place, is in every way precisely analogous 
 to that of James II. and William III. of England, except that 
 the former revolution was performed in a more cruel, and mar- 
 tial, and less deliberative age than the latter. It may be added 
 that Henry IV. rather received the confirmation of the popular 
 voice to a crown which he had grasped, while William was 
 called to the defence of religion and liberty, and was rewarded 
 
152 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 by the crown which he had so defended. The difference is, 
 however, rather nominal than real, and it cannot be disputed 
 that although the claim of the Yorkists was the truer by 
 descent, that of the Lancastrians was at this period true enough 
 by possession, and they had been both fools and cowards had 
 they not striven to the last in defence of an inheritance so 
 splendid, even then, as the diadem of England. It is not the 
 least strange thing concerning this strange succession of strug- 
 gles, during which men of the highest birth and eminence 
 changed their opinions as they did their coats — almost daily, 
 with as little reason asked, or reproach incurred — that in the 
 final conflict the Lancastrian claimant, Henry of Richmond, 
 Duke of Brittany, was a double usurper, possessing no title de 
 jure, and none of course de facto, to the seat from which he 
 ejected Richard III., the last heir male of the house of York 
 — though, thanks to Shakspeare, he has come down to us as the 
 gallant asserter of good rights, and righteous avenger of foul 
 wrongs done to the lawful line of English majesty. 
 
 We have dwelt on this so long, in order that, after having 
 previously shown that the claim of the Lancastrians to the 
 throne as right owners is entirely worthless, we may not be 
 charged with inconsistency for defending Margaret of Anjou in 
 her maintenance of her husband's and son's title to the crown 
 in dispute ; and having, we trust, made this apparent to the 
 understanding of every intelligent reader, proceed at once to 
 the narration of stirring events and striking scenes, throughout 
 which she conducted herself through all adversities and spites 
 of fortune, if not as a very amiable or very gentle, at least as a 
 true-hearted, masculine-minded, great, and glorious woman, 
 wife, and mother. 
 
 Richard, Duke of York, the first claimant in the order of 
 time to the crown of England, had served under the Govern- 
 
MARGARET OF ANJOU. 153 
 
 ment of Henry VI. as regent of France, in which high office he 
 succeeded the great Duke of Bedford ; and subsequently as 
 commander of Ireland — which unhappy country was, as it has 
 ever been within the memory of recorded history, distracted, tur- 
 bulent, and ready for rebellion — and by holding such offices un- 
 der the crown had virtually admitted its authority. While he 
 was still in Ireland, Cade's well known Kentish rebellion had 
 occurred ? and had in the end been defeated, and to this it was 
 believed that Richard was at the least privy, if he were not 
 actually instigator of it ; the court were, however, too weak to 
 punish or impeach him openly, and perhaps lacked evidence 
 whereby to show his connexion with the rebels. From this 
 time, however, it is certain that his friends and partisans began 
 to lay claim for him to the throne by right of descent ; and 
 soon after, in 1452, he actually levied an army, and advanced to 
 the gates of London, demanding a reformation and the dismis- 
 sal of the Duke of Somerset — then the minister — from all au- 
 thority and power. He found, however, to his great surprise 
 the gates shut against him, and on his retreat into Kent was 
 pursued by Henry with very superior force, and compelled to 
 go into retirement ; his own popularity, no less than the weak- 
 ness of the court, and it may be, the imbecile good nature of 
 the king, rendered it unwise or impossible to attaint or punish 
 him. It is to be observed, however, that at this period he laid 
 no claim to the kingly title, professing merely to be the redress- 
 er of the wrongs of the people, and the champion of a popular 
 reformation. During this period he lived in retirement at his 
 seat of Wigmore, on the borders of Wales, awaiting the advent 
 of times more propitious to the undertaking, which kept him 
 till he was too weary of tarrying for their coming. 
 
 The following year, after a gleam of transient success (during 
 which Bordeaux and a portion of Gascony were recovered for 
 
154 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 the moment), the English were severely defeated in France, 
 their leader Shrewsbury slain, and all hopes of the recovery of 
 the French provinces totally extinguished and for ever. At 
 about the same time a son, Edward, was born to Henry by 
 Margaret, the Frenchwoman, who was already accused by the 
 people in general of the treacherous surrender of the English 
 conquests. Again, the birth of an heir male to the crown, by 
 excluding the house of York from all chance of a peaceful suc- 
 cession, rendered its partisans more zealous and urgent for 
 instant action. Within a brief space Henry, always incapable 
 and imbecile, fell into such a fit of melancholy moodiness that 
 he became unable even to go through the pageantry, a*hd sup- 
 port the semblance of royalty. The Queen and Council were 
 unable to resist the voice of the peers and great barons, yielded 
 perforce, and saw Somerset sent to the tower, and Richard 
 Duke of York appointed Lieutenant of the kingdom, with 
 almost all the authority of royalty, which his friends, and per- 
 haps the Parliament itself, would not have been unwilling to 
 see him assume in style and title, as for the moment he had it 
 in reality. But Richard, though he was not " without ambi- 
 tion," was, as it seems, " without the illness should attend it ;" 
 and by his moderate and amiable conduct during his possession 
 of the regency discouraged his own party, without gaining any 
 gratitude from the court ; and perhaps, in spite of his good in- 
 tentions, in the end caused rather evil than good to England 
 by his very virtue, since he allowed his enemies to draw to a 
 head, and gather both force and animosity for a struggle which 
 even then the most far-sighted men perceived to be inevitable. 
 It was but a short time before, emboldened by the partial re- 
 covery of Henry, and by the timidity or conscientiousness of 
 the Duke of York, the Queen's party recovered the ascendency, 
 
MARGARET OF ANJOU. 155 
 
 released Somerset from the tower, and annulled the authority 
 of the Duke. 
 
 Then indeed Richard felt his danger, and saw that it was 
 time to act ; or that he must fall, and his house perish with him. 
 He took arms, though still without claiming the title of king, 
 advanced on London, and the Lancastrians advancing to meet 
 him, gave them battle near St. Albans — the first in which blood 
 was shed in this disastrous struggle — and, with small loss to 
 himself, beat them decidedly, five thousand persons being slain 
 on the field ; among whom were the Duke of Somerset, the 
 Earls of Northumberland and Stafford, and the gallant Lord Clif- 
 ford, by whose son so fierce and revengeful a part was played in 
 these wars theretofor. The king fell into the hands of the 
 duke, who treated him with the utmost courtesy and respect, 
 and the question now seemed at rest for ever. But the duke 
 again hesitated, and was contented with the restoration of his 
 protectorates, and indemnity to all the Yorkists, and the revo- 
 cation of all the grants which had been made by the crown 
 since the death of Henry V. 
 
 Margaret, however, perceiving doubtless that the termination 
 of these measures must inevitably be the ultimate exclusion of 
 her son from the throne, should the House of York hold the 
 authority, influence, and resources of the crown, during the life 
 of Henry— whether the latter nominally held the throne or no — 
 resolved on a bold and instant stroke for supremacy, and early 
 in the following year produced the king, again somewhat im- 
 proved in health, before the houses, and caused him once more 
 to resume the government, which the Duke of York did not 
 oppose, and all things once again seemed settled on a sure and 
 amicable foundation, terms being assented to by both parties, 
 and an outward reconciliation patched up for the time, which, 
 however, no one endowed even with common understanding 
 
156 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 could expect to endure beyond the moment. After a brief 
 breathing-pause of doubt, hesitation, and deception, a paltry- 
 chance affray, as it is termed in history — though in all proba- 
 bility got up on purpose by the Lancastrians, who at the time 
 were in the ascendency — between an attendant of the king 
 and one of Warwick's followers, kindled a flame, which was 
 quenched only in the best blood of England. 
 
 Both parties flew to arms : and after one fruitless effort at 
 a rising, rendered abortive by the treachery of Sir Andrew 
 Wallop, which compelled Warwick again to retreat beyond the 
 sea, that great soldier landed in Kent with the Earl of Salis- 
 bury and the Earl of March, the eldest son of Richard, after- 
 wards Edward Duke of York, and thereafter Edward IV. of 
 England ; received by the Archbishop of Canterbury he entered 
 London in triumph, and shortly afterwards once again utterly 
 defeated the royalists at Northampton, partially owing to the 
 treason of Lord Grey de Ruthin, who commanded the king's 
 van, and deserted to the enemy in the very heat of action. In 
 this action fell, as usual, many of the flower of the nobility, to 
 whom throughout these wars little quarter was given by their 
 fellow nobles, in the shock of battle, in the pursuit, or in cold 
 blood after capture ; and in it likewise was first shown the lau- 
 dable example of sparing the common people, which was set 
 here by Warwick and the Earl of March, but which continued 
 as much to be the rule of conduct during the struggle of the 
 rival Roses, as did the merciless and wanton butchery of 
 knights and nobles. 
 
 Nor is it easy to explain this, contrary as it has been at every 
 other period of English history to the habits and character of 
 that people ; for it cannot be accounted for by any system of 
 reprisals or vengeance for kindred blood ; for, with a habit and 
 versatility unprecedented among Englishmen, and since equally 
 
MARGARET OF ANJOU. 15 7 
 
 abhorred and unpractised, there was scarce a noble on either 
 side, even to the princes of the blood themselves, who did not 
 change his party several times, and fight shoulder to shoulder 
 with those whose hands were yet reeking with the gore of their 
 children, their brethren, or their parents. We can only seek 
 for. a solution of these two strange peculiarities of this indivi- 
 dual civil war, -in the fact not only that it was a rude, but that 
 it was a transition age ; that ancient landmarks were all 
 broken down, and no new ones' erected in their places ; that the 
 principles, the amenities, the courtesies, of the chivalric era had 
 fallen into disuse, while the rules of a strict social morality, 
 of obedience to the laws as paramount to all private passions, 
 and a legitimate and civilized warfare, had not yet been invented. 
 Add to this the disturbance of men's minds by the constant 
 recurrence of revolutions and the love of innovation, riot, and 
 rebellion for the mere sake of rebellion, which it seems to be 
 their inevitable tendency to produce. The king once more fell 
 into the hands of his opponents, who as usual treated him with 
 gentleness and respect, perhaps themselves affected by the sim- 
 plicity and innocence of his life ; perhaps fearing to deal with 
 him summarily, owing to the repute for sanctity which these 
 qualities had procured for him with the people who seem to 
 have adored him. 
 
 In this instance, however, the respect shown to him was 
 limited to his person, not extended to his power ; for Richard 
 of York, though he sought not even now violently or perforce to 
 dethrone him, laid claim to the regal title and authority before 
 the house of Peers, who debated the question tranquilly and 
 gravely for several successive days, and at length decided that 
 the title of the house of York was good, but that in virtue of 
 Henry's peaceful succession to the throne and quiet tenure of it 
 during thirty-eight years, he should be allowed to retain the title 
 
158 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 and dignity of king during his life, the present administration 
 and future inheritance of the crown being in Richard and his 
 heirs. A more temperate and equitable, or, at the same time, 
 a more inexpedient or temporizing decision could not have been 
 come at — as if it could be even imagined that a princess of the 
 genius, energy, resources, spirit, and perseverance — added to an 
 almost more than masculine courage — of Margaret, would have 
 submitted to so weak a compromise, leaving an empty symbol 
 of command " to be," as Scott has written of a greater exile, 
 
 " A dagger in the hand, 
 From which our strength has wrenched the brand." 
 
 Even before the act was passed, or the authority fixed in his 
 hand, she had levied a royal army in Durham, after the defeat 
 of Northampton, having fled thither with her infant son, and 
 was already at the head of twenty thousand men, when the 
 Duke of York, fancying himself about to crush the incipient 
 rebellion, marched at the head of five thousand to meet her, 
 and madly disdaining to take shelter behind walls from a 
 woman's war, came out into the open field and delivered battle. 
 But Margaret was not the woman, nor Clifford who commanded 
 under her the leader, to be treated with so foolish a punctilio. 
 The army of the Yorkists was totally defeated, the duke him- 
 self slain in action ; his son, the Earl of Rutland, an amiable 
 youth of seventeen, taken prisoner and savagely slaughtered by 
 Warwick, and the Earl of Salisbury with many other captive 
 nobles beheaded at Pomfret castle. The dead body of the duke 
 was decapitated and his head set on the gates of York, covered 
 with a paper diadem in derision of his title, by Margaret's express 
 command ; and on this has been founded a prevalent charge 
 against her — amounting well nigh to a total condemnation — of 
 savage and unusual ferocity. It was a bad deed, in truth ; and 
 
MARGARET OF ANJOU. 159 
 
 far would we be from defending or even palliating it. Still it 
 must not be unduly magnified or set down in malice. The age 
 was rude and cruel, the war unusually savage, and this deed has 
 been too much mixed up with the murder of Rutland, in which 
 there is no evidence whatever that Margaret bore any part. 
 Moreover, it does not appear that Margaret was ever guilty of 
 any special act of cruelty, apart from the relentless and cold- 
 blooded policy common to both parties, which had become, as 
 I have stated, the rule of the war, and for which she must not 
 be blamed. To persons engaged in the desperate game of war, 
 involving the liberties, the lives, the happiness of thousands, 
 perhaps millions, and through countless generations, single and 
 ridiculous acts become trifles — perhaps may be the result of a 
 pardonable and even merciful policy. The senseless clay of 
 York could not feel the blow which decapitated it — the disem- 
 bodied spirit must be far above, or far below, the degradation 
 of an insult offered to the shell — and if Margaret fairly believed, 
 as she well might do at that period, that such derision, not of 
 the dead York, but of what she deemed the dead York's usurped 
 title, could favorably affect her son's claim, there was in truth 
 much less cruelty in mutilating one dead body, than in slaying 
 or causing the slaughter of many hundred thousand living men. 
 But the former case offends our delicacy, shocks our nerves, 
 awakens our individual sympathies, and therefore we shriek — 
 as Carlisle would say — horror over it ; the latter is sensual, 
 legitimate, and performed to the sound of martial music and the 
 applauding cries of admiring nations, and therefore we throw up 
 our caps, and instead of shrieking over the corpses of the 
 slaughtered millions, cry, glory ! glory ! We are no great 
 admirers of either ; but we do think that Margaret, as the world 
 goes now, would be held justified in fighting for her own and 
 her son's royalty — much more was she in the then opinion of 
 
160 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 mankind, the adverse question never having been mooted ; and 
 if she had a right to risk the lives of tens of thousands to win or 
 retain that which philosophy calls a bauble, but which no phi- 
 losopher we ever heard of refused to wear, it matters very little 
 whether she stuck a paper crown on York's cold head or not 
 It was not a very womanly deed, it is true ; but Margaret takes 
 no claim for being a very womanly woman. On the whole, a 
 great deal too much has been made of the matter, as there has 
 of many individual acts of the great Napoleon. Individual 
 leaders, sporting with the destiny of nations, and squandering 
 human blood like rain-water, must be judged by wholesale, by 
 the righteousness of their causes, the sincerity of their convic- 
 tions, the truth of their principles, and the inward meaning of 
 their character — not by single deeds, which, if the whole be good, 
 were necessary to the producing of that good ; if evil, are but as 
 raindrops in the ocean of iniquity. 
 
 This terrible defeat of the Yorkists effected no permanent 
 good, however, to the Lancastrians, for after several other 
 fierce actions, in which victories, defeats, and cruelties were 
 pretty equally balanced between the parties, Margaret fell back 
 into the north, while Edward, by his father's death Duke of 
 York, entered London, and was at once proclaimed King of Eng- 
 land, under the title of Edward IV., in the year 1461. Still 
 the fierce energy of Margaret failed not, and in the north she 
 speedily collected an army of sixty thousand men, which en- 
 countering Edward and the Earl of "Warwick on Towton field 
 near Tadcaster, met with a rout and slaughter, in which thirty- 
 six thousand men fell in the action or in the pursuit, and among 
 them half the remaining nobility of the Lancastrians. 
 
 The ex-king and Margaret again escaped ; the latter into 
 Scotland and thence into France, from both which kingdoms 
 she obtained succors, and only three years later than the rout 
 
MARGARET OF ANJOU. 161 
 
 of Towton, again invaded England, again gave battle to 
 Edward at Hexham, in Northumberland, and again suffered a 
 defeat so disastrous, that her army was utterly scattered and 
 herself separated from all her attendants, and forced to seek 
 asylum in the depths of Hexham forest. 
 
 Here she gave as singular an example of personal intrepidity 
 and of the effect produced by high-born magnanimity in adverse 
 times over low and even malignant nature, as she had before 
 given of royal perseverance and indefatigable energy. Having 
 fallen into the hands of robbers, she was despoiled of her orna- 
 ments, and treated with the utmost indignity ; but while they 
 were quarrelling or carousing over the booty, she made her 
 escape from them at the dead hour of midnight, and concealing 
 herself and the young prince in a brake, awaited the coming 
 morn. With the first light she was surprised by a single pur- 
 suer, and taking desperate counsel in desperate affairs, she threw 
 herself on his generosity, which argues in herself the possession 
 of a generous mind. 
 
 " This is the son of your king," she cried ; " to your charge I 
 commit him, be his guardian and his savior." 
 
 Nor was her generosity deceived, for he did protect and save 
 her, and by his means she escaped to Flanders, and thence to 
 the small provincial court of her poor powerless father, King 
 Kene of Provence, where she dwelt many years in deep seclusion, 
 but without ever resigning the hope^ or rather the determina- 
 tion, of returning and striking another blow for England's royal 
 crown. Less fortunate, Henry was taken, and though treated 
 with some show of courtesy, was immured in the tower. Less 
 fortunate, all her noble friends who survived the rout of Hex- 
 ham, suffered forthwith upon the scaffold ; and surely the 
 sceptre seemed to have departed from the house of Lancaster. 
 
 But still solitary and secluded, in poverty, obscurity, and 
 8* 
 
162 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 sorrow, that stern and resolute woman hoped on, and conspired 
 and determined. At length the time arrived, and the man. 
 Warwick, the king-maker, unjustly and ungratefully treated by 
 Edward, came over to Margaret's side, and after many a year 
 of negotiation and intrigue with France and Burgundy, obtained 
 succors, which enabled him to invade England, and in eleven 
 days after his landing, he who had made had unmade, and 
 Edward, himself dethroned, was in turn a fugitive from his 
 crown and country. 
 
 Edward, however, with energy equal to the emergency, him- 
 self obtained succor in Burgundy and Zealand, landed in York- 
 shire, outmanoeuvred Warwick who had advanced to meet 
 him at Leicester, entered London, and again became master of 
 Henry's person and his briefly born authority. A few days 
 later a fearful action was fought at Barnet, in which Warwick 
 would have won but for one of those blind chances which often 
 decide the fate of battles. The cognizance on Edward's banner 
 was the Sun of York, that of De Yere, Earl of Oxford, a 
 merlet, or five-rayed star, and in the confusion and dust of the 
 melee the latter nobleman, who commanded the Lancastrian 
 reserve, was in the act of bringing them up to a decisive 
 charge, when he was charged by mistake and driven off the 
 field by his own friends, and while all were in disorder, Edward 
 restored the fight and won the day. Warwick fell with his 
 brother Montacute. No quarter was given by £he victors, and, 
 with small loss to the Yorkists, the Lancastrian cause was anni- 
 hilated. 
 
 On that very day Margaret with her son, now a youth 
 of eighteen years and of singular promise, landed at Weymouth, 
 and learned but too soon the fatal news of Warwick's death 
 and her husband's renewed captivity. For a moment she was 
 paralysed, but her indomitable spirit could not even now be 
 
MARGARET OF ANJOU. 163 
 
 daunted. Once more she gathered forces, only once more to be 
 defeafed on her last field at Tewksbury. All her adherents who 
 survived the rout and had taken sanctuary in a neighboring 
 church, were dragged out and instantly beheaded- — meet pre- 
 lude for what was to follow. 
 
 Margaret and her son were brought captives before Edward, 
 who addressed the brave boy insultingly. "How dare you," 
 he cried, " enter my realm with lifted lance and banner flying ?" 
 "To recover my father's kingdom," replied the youth, un- 
 dauntedly, " and his heritage from his grandfather and father 
 to him, and from him to me lineally descended." 
 
 Edward, pitiless and conscious of no generous feeling, smote 
 him in the face with his gauntlet; his brothers George and 
 Eichard, Clarence and Gloucester, aided by Hastings and Sir 
 Thomas Gray, stabbed him to death with their daggers almost 
 before the face of his devoted mother. That mother was 
 thrown into the tower, in which her husband died but a few 
 days afterwards, not without strong suspicion of having been 
 murdered — even by the hand, as it has been stated, though pro- 
 bably without foundation, of the Duke of Gloucester. Here 
 she languished for four years, until ransomed by Lewis XL of 
 France, the most politic, the most despotic, the least generous 
 and most avaricious prince in Europe — of such strange compo- 
 sition are men made — for 50,000 crowns. He gave her an 
 asylum in his realms, and she died, but not until 1482, " the 
 most unhappy queen, wife, and mother in Europe," says Vol- 
 taire ; and perhaps, had it not been for that very Voltaire, 
 there had never died one more unhappy in the person of Marie 
 Antoinette of France, who possessed much of the spirit though 
 none of the genius of Margaret ; while their husbands were dis- 
 tinguished by so total a lack of both, that it is necessary to keep 
 constantly in mind their passive domestic virtues, before we 
 
164 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 can decide whether it is pity or contempt we feel as we read of 
 their fortunes and most cruel fate. 
 
 To conclude with a few short words. In her after reputation, 
 Margaret of Anjou seems to us to have been even more unhappy 
 than in her life. Less fortunate even than "those brave men 
 who lived before Agamemnon," as Horace sings, " but who 
 all fell unwept and lie entombed in endless night, because they 
 found no bard divine," Margaret of Anjou lives for ever 
 branded with black reproach, because she found the divinest 
 bard of all, immortal and inimitable Shakspeare. 
 
 Faultless she was not — who is, or has been ? — womanly she 
 was not, according to our ideas of womanhood in these days 
 when our young men are not ashamed to be ladylike — but for 
 her own day, she was every inch a woman, every inch a queen, 
 and every inch an English queen. Though she feared death as 
 little as the boldest of her barons, she never unsexed herself by 
 wearing arms or doing actual battle — she was neither traitoress, 
 adulteress, nor murderess, as it has pleased Shakspeare to por- 
 tray her, and the world to believe on his portraiture — but a 
 true wife ; a devoted mother ; a great, brave, gallant woman. 
 Her faults were those of her age ; her virtues were her own. 
 "Whither she is gone we know not ; but of this we may rest 
 well assured, that wheresoever she now is tire tongue of detrac- 
 tion can pierce or rend her heart no longer. 
 
Jtatnj lire digjijj , 
 
 AND HIS WIVES 
 
 1521. 
 
HENRY THE EIGHTH, 
 
 AND HIS WIYES. 
 
 In no character, perhaps, within the whole range of human 
 history, are the fatal and destructive influences of unlimited 
 power, a subservient ministry, and the opportunity of unbridled 
 gratification, on a mind naturally selfish and addicted to plea- 
 sure, more clearly demonstrated than in that of the eighth 
 Henry of England. 
 
 When he ascended the throne of England, on the decease of 
 his father, Henry VII., the conqueror of Bosworth field — one of 
 the coldest, cruellest, and most avaricious princes who ever sate 
 on a throne — his accession was greeted with universal joy and 
 gratulation by all ranks and classes of society. Young, and of 
 singularly vigorous and handsome frame, with a fine countenance 
 and fresh complexion, a lively and spirited air, a perfect skill in 
 every manly and athletic exercise, a very considerable profi- 
 ciency in literature and the arts, Henry, at this time in his 
 eighteenth year, was as unlike as possible to the bloated, un- 
 wieldy, peevish, and furious tyrant — with a face and a roar liker 
 to those of an old lion than to the features and voice of a man — 
 as we find him in later days, and as he is better known to most 
 
168 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 readers, than as the gay and gallant prince, the beloved of his 
 people, and the admired and courted of all Europe. Yet such 
 he was in the earlier years of his reign ; vehement, indeed, im- 
 petuous and impulsive, addicted to pleasure and magnificence, 
 but graceful and gracious to his courtiers, and so popular 
 among the lower orders — to whom his bold, blunt, jovial man- 
 hood, and his own manly skill in the lists, at tilt or tournament, 
 in the chase, and in the battle-field, had greatly endeared him — 
 that the memory of his after tyranny has been almost forgotten, 
 and he is, even to this day, rather a favorite of the lower orders, 
 especially in London, who still talk of the good old times of 
 Bluff King Harry, although those good old times were stained 
 with more blood, and blackened with more atrocity than any 
 previous or succeeding era. 
 
 The cause of this may, perhaps, in some degree be traced to 
 the fact that in the reign of Henry, as likewise in that of his 
 manly hearted daughter, Elizabeth, who is, like her father, to 
 this day a historic favorite, the executions on the scaffold and 
 at the stake, and the oppressions and exactions of all kinds fell 
 mainly on the upper orders — that it was noble, princely, and 
 royal blood, which flowed like water through the latter portion 
 of his reign ; and that the humble and the lowly born were 
 treated, even when guilty of open rebellion, with unusual Jeni- 
 ency and tenderness. But still more, I believe it to be attribu- 
 table to the splendor and pomp of his court, to the comeliness 
 and magnificence of his person, which always influence the 
 minds of the vulgar, his jovial and hearty good humor — for^ 
 when not thwarted and enraged by opposition, he was of a 
 joyous and even generous temper — and his success in all his 
 foreign enterprises, which could be enjoyed and appreciated by 
 all his subjects, while his severities and oppressions were un- 
 cared for except by the few who suffered them. 
 
HENRY THE EIGHTH, AND HIS WIVES. 169 
 
 His reign must ever be memorable for the great work of re- 
 formation which was performed therein, owing in the first in- 
 stance to the passions entirely, and in no sort to the principles 
 of the king ; and prosecuted to the end through his capricious 
 humors, and fury at all opposition to his will, not from any po- 
 litical object or religious conviction. So closely, however, was 
 this suppression of the old monastic establishments, and this 
 secession of the church of England from that of Eome, con- 
 nected with the strange story of his conjugal relations, that I 
 shall touch on the facts incidentally in the order of their occur- 
 rence, not treat them under a particular head. 
 
 And as the first step which led, through the passions of one 
 man, to the emancipation of millions from servitude to priest- 
 craft, and which, so far as we can judge, is the primary cause 
 of England's subsequent and present greatness, I come to the 
 first marriage of the youthful prince with the widow of his 
 elder brother Arthur, the Prince of Wales — Catharine the In- 
 fanta of Arragon, fourth daughter of those famous sovereigns 
 Ferdinand and Isabella. Arthur having died within a few 
 months of the wedding without issue, Henry the Vllth, de- 
 sirous of maintaining his alliance with Spain, and unwilling to 
 restore the Infanta's dowry of 200,000 ducats, compelled Henry, 
 whom he created Prince of Wales on the occasion, to be con- 
 tracted to the Infanta. Henry, who was but twelve years of 
 age, while the princess was nineteen, made all the resistance of 
 which such a boy is capable ; but the king persisting, and a dis- 
 pensation being obtained from the Pope, the espousals were 
 contracted between the parties in the year of our Lord 1502. 
 
 Seven years afterwards, when the prince w 7 as in his nineteenth 
 year, he succeeded to the throne, and by the advice of his 
 grandmother, the Countess of Richmond and Derby, he retained 
 as his cabinet the most eminent and least popular of his 
 
170 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 father's ministers, by whose advice, and that of the countess, 
 he at length determined, though contrary as it would seem to 
 the opinion of the primate of England, and also to the dying- 
 desire of Henry VIL, who appears to have repented of the 
 measure, and urged his son to remonstrate against it ; he at 
 length, I say, determined in spite of the great disparity of years 
 between, and her previous connexion with his own brother, to 
 marry the princess Catharine ; and accordingly the marriage 
 was performed and consummated. Her well known virtues, 
 the modesty and sweetness of her temper and disposition, her 
 beauty, and the great affection which she bore to the king ; 
 the greatness of her dowry ; the advantages of the Spanish 
 alliance ; the necessity of counterbalancing the power of 
 France ; and the propriety of fulfilling the late king's con- 
 tracts, were the principal arguments adduced whereby to con- 
 vince the king. That they succeeded was probably from the 
 weight of the political, rather than the personal considerations ; 
 for although Catharine was of fine person, engaging manner, 
 and rare excellence of character, both as a woman and a queen, 
 it is difficult to believe that passion or predilection could have 
 influenced a youth of Henry's sensual and sanguine tempera- 
 ment towards one so much his senior, and otherwise so seriously 
 disqualified for his bed. Still, however, it must be admitted 
 that Henry lived with her, so far as can be ascertained, with 
 perfect tenderness and satisfaction for many years ; that he 
 appointed her queen-regent of England during his absence in 
 France at the head of his army ; that he carried her with him 
 into that kingdom, when he subsequently visited it in peace, to 
 hold with his superb and splendid rival, Francis the First, that 
 famous conference known as the Field of the Cloth of Gold ; 
 that he created her only daughter Mary, Princess of Wales ; 
 and that it was not until nearly eighteen years after their 
 
HENRY THE EIGHTH, AND HIS WIVES. 1*71 
 
 union, when he was hopeless of having any male heir by 
 Catharine, when he began to be alarmed by doubts of his 
 daughter's legitimacy, and fears of the Scottish succession after 
 his own demise — when last he was, as he asserted, tormented 
 by religious scruples on that head, that he resolved to abrogate 
 the marriage with the Infanta. 
 
 Even after he had resolved on this step, to which he was 
 urged by the advice of his confessor, the Bishop of Lincoln, by 
 the unanimous opinion of all the English prelates with the one 
 exception of Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, by the counsel of 
 "Wolsey, and his own doctrinal studies of Thomas Aquinas — and 
 which was perhaps really expedient as a political measure for 
 securing the succession of the English throne — he still visited 
 her constantly, conducted himself towards her with all tender- 
 ness and respect, and never hinted the slightest dissatisfaction 
 with her conduct and demeanor. 
 
 On the whole, I am disposed to regard the conduct of Henry 
 in regard to Catharine of Arragon with less decided reproba- 
 tion than almost any other action of his life ; I think it justi- 
 fiable to believe, judging from Henry's known addiction to po- 
 lemical and theological studies, and his generally superstitious — 
 for in a man so cruel and immoral, they cannot be termed re- 
 ligious — tendencies, that he was for once seriously sincere in his 
 scruples ; and, moreover, though it were a late period at which 
 to discern the validity of such scruples, and a cold and hard 
 measure to repudiate a blameless wife after eighteen years of 
 undisturbed connexion, and to illegitimatize her innocent off- 
 spring, those scruples were certainly valid, and the great proba- 
 bility is that the marriage would have been declared invalid, 
 the princess Mary illegitimate, and that a civil war would have 
 ensued, after the death of Henry, at the cost of much blood 
 and treasure to England. 
 
172 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 How far lie was sincerely actuated by these views, it is now 
 of course impossible to decide ; but it appears to be suscepti- 
 ble of clear proof, that he had mooted the question of divorce 
 with Catharine of Arragon, before he had ever seen Anne Bo- 
 leyn, to his sudden passion for whom his conduct at this crisis 
 is often ascribed, and though that passion doubtless inflamed 
 his scruples, and spurred him to more vehement action, it is 
 certainly not fair to ascribe to it the origin of his intentions. 
 
 The truth seems to be, that he married Catharine in the first 
 instance, from what were supposed to be at the time sufficient 
 and satisfactory political reasons, but were afterwards discovered 
 to be the very reverse ; that he had never any feelings towards 
 her stronger than calm and moderate regard ; that the disco- 
 very of the probable ill consequences of the marriage, com- 
 bined with the decay of her beauty, the increase of her years, 
 and certain diseases to which she was liable, awoke his scruples, 
 and perhaps excited some aversion to her person ; and that to 
 these was added the last grain needed to turn the balance 
 against the queen, the violent and sudden passion created on 
 first sight of the beautiful Anne Boleyn. 
 
 The marriage of Henry with the queen had been consum- 
 mated, only in consequence of dispensation from the Pope ; and, 
 in order to abrogate it, on the ground that it was incestuous 
 and therefore null and void, a papal bull was necessary ; and 
 to this end, Clement, the ruling pontiff, was piled with seduc- 
 tions and cajoleries by Henry through his minister, the famous 
 Wolsey, while Charles the First, King of Spain and Emperor^of 
 Germany, menaced him no less violently, in order to prevent a 
 divorce against his aunt, on grounds so disgraceful. 
 
 For a time, Clement appears to have wavered, and been in 
 truth inclined to the cause of Henry, and accordingly Car- 
 dinal Campeggio was sent legate to England, and a commission 
 
HENRY THE EIGHTH, AND HIS WIVES. 1*73 
 
 was issued to him and Wolsey, in order to examine into the 
 question in all its particulars. 
 
 They accordingly commenced their proceedings, by citing 
 the king and queen, both of whom presented themselves in 
 court, the former answering to his name ; Catharine, however, 
 instead of answering, cast herself at the feet of the king, and 
 uttered a harangue of the most pathetic and affecting, and at 
 the same time of the most dignified and impressive character, 
 which should have moved to the strongest sympathy and even 
 doubt, if not to conviction, any hearts less obdurate than those 
 of Henry and the cardinals ; after this, denying the jurisdiction 
 of the court, with a low reverence to the king, she departed 
 from the hall, and never would return to it. She was declared, 
 therefore, contumacious, and the legate proceeded to try the 
 case; Henry declaring on her withdrawal, that he had never 
 found cause to doubt her probity and honor, but that, on the 
 contrary, she had ever been a dutiful, affectionate, and virtuous 
 wife ; and that his only scruples were those concerning the 
 legality of his espousals ; from the charge of encouraging these 
 scruples, he, moreover, acquitted Cardinal Wolsey. 
 
 For some time, all things appeared to progress in the man- 
 ner most consonant to the King's wishes; but at the moment 
 when Henry was confidently looking for a sentence in his 
 favor, "Campeggio prorogued the court on pretences wholly 
 frivolous, until the first of October, and returned to Rome, 
 when it was understood that he had burned the decretal bull 
 which had been intrusted to him. 
 
 At this time, or a little earlier, Anne Boleyn makes her 
 appearance on the court stage, having recently returned from 
 the court of France, a young lady of high birth — being de- 
 scended in the female line from the great houses of Norfolk, 
 Ormond, andjiasting — of excellent accomplishments, and most 
 
174 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 extraordinary beauty ; as is rendered unquestionable by the 
 fine picture of Holbein, which was recently in the collection at 
 Hampton Court, the palace of the great cardinal with whose 
 downfall Anne's rise was consentaneous. This was the period, 
 to use the beautiful words of an English poet, 
 
 "When passion taught a monarch to be wise, 
 
 And gospel-light first dawned from Boleyn's eyes ; 
 
 though, in truth, it must be admitted that wisdom was little 
 concerned, however might have been passion, in this question. 
 His passion for Anne, therefore, hourly increasing, and her 
 virtues and modesty depriving him of all hopes otherwise than 
 through an honorable marriage, added to this, the discovery of 
 Clement's tergiversation and politic evasions being enforced upon 
 him by the evocation from Rome, he resolved to have recourse 
 to other methods than the papal court for the procurement of 
 a divorce ; and, as a preliminary to these, he resolved on the 
 destruction of his former prized and most trusted minister 
 Wolsey. For above three years, the struggles of Henry to 
 obtain a divorce had now endured, and with their close he 
 regarded Wolsey in the most unfavorable light, though it was 
 probable that the cardinal had in truth served him to the best 
 of his ability. Anne, too, was hostile to him from a conviction 
 that he would oppose her marriage, and his ruin was decreed, 
 and no sooner decreed than consummated. He was dismissed 
 from all his offices. York Place, afterwards the royal palace 
 at Whitehall, his town residence, was confiscated to the royal 
 use, and all his rich furniture, plate, and personal property. 
 At times, indeed, half capriciously, the king would appear to 
 relent towards his ancient favorite, but in the end he was aban- 
 doned to the hatred of his enemies, was arrested on a charge 
 of high treason, and it is probable escaped a death on the scaf- 
 
HENRY THE EIGHTH, AND HIS WIVES. l7o 
 
 fold only by dying of a broken heart, at Leicester Abbey, on 
 his way from the North to stand his trial. His last words 
 were these — a memorable lesson to all those who put their trust 
 in princes — " Had I but served God as diligently as I served 
 the king, He would not have given me over in my grey hairs !" 
 
 He died, truly a great, but alas ! not a wise man, nor* good. 
 Best his ashes ! Ambition was the ignis fatuus which toled 
 him from his path, as since his time it has toled many a better 
 man, and will, it may be, on earth for ever. 
 
 In the meantime, having obtained opinions from all the French 
 and English, and several of the most distinguished of the Italian 
 universities, in his favor, as well as the advice of the English 
 bishops ; having strengthened himself by an alliance, offensive 
 and defensive, w 7 ith Francis the First of France ; and being assured 
 of the support of his parliament, which at that period was a 
 mere tool of oppression in the king's right hand, by which he 
 invariably executed his most odious crimes and cruelties, he re- 
 solved to withdraw his obedience from the court of Home, and 
 privately celebrated his marriage with Anne Boleyn, whom he 
 had previously created Marchioness of Pembroke. 
 
 It now became necessary that the marriage should be de- 
 clared, in order to. save the new queen's honor ; accordingly he 
 avowed it publicly, and proceeded — rather late in the course of 
 things, one would say — to have the invalidity of his marriage 
 with Catharine declared. 
 
 Up to this period, Henry had treated Catharine with all dis- 
 tinction and even regard, visiting her frequently and endeavor- 
 ing to persuade her to cease her opposition to his divorce ; now, 
 however, finding her inflexible, he ceased to visit her, and al- 
 lowed her to choose any of his palaces which she would for her 
 abode. Ampthill, near Dunstable, was her choice, and in Dun- 
 stable she was cited to show cause, before the court of Cran- 
 
176 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 mer, primate of England, and successor to Wolsey in the king's 
 favor, why a divorce should not be pronounced against her. 
 Refusing to appear or plead, she was again declared " contuma- 
 cious," and her marriage was annulled as invalid and unlawful. 
 A subsequent sentence ratified Henry's marriage with Anne 
 Boleyn ; and that princess being shortly after brought to bed 
 of a daughter, Elizabeth, that mighty and man-hearted woman, 
 who afterwards swayed the sceptre with such puissance and re- 
 nown, Mary, Princess of Wales, was declared illegitimate, as 
 the issue of an unlawful marriage, and the daughter of Anne 
 created Princess of Wales in her stead. 
 
 From this period, for some time, Anne Boleyn's felicity was 
 the theme of every tongue ; her ascendency over the king, 
 whose passion for her, it seems, increased rather than flagged 
 on possession, grew daily; and so anxious was Henry to efface 
 every trace of his former marriage, that he announced to the 
 unhappy Catharine that she was to be styled, thenceforth, only 
 the Princess Dowager of Wales, and endeavored by compul- 
 sory measures, and menaces against her servants, to make her 
 acquiesce in that determination. For once, however, his iron 
 will was vanquished, for so long as she lived she admitted no 
 one to her presence, but with the wonted ceremonial ; nor could 
 any threats deter her servants from waiting on her according to 
 her title and pretensions. 
 
 She died of a lingering illness, in her fiftieth year, at Kim- 
 bolton, in Huntingdonshire, having written a little while before 
 her death a most tender and touching epistle to the king, styl- 
 ing him her "most dear Lord and Husband ;" recommending 
 to him his daughter, Mary, the sole pledge of their loves ; and 
 craving his protection for her maids and servants, concluding 
 with the words, " I make this vow, that mine eyes desire you 
 above all things." Henry, it is said, was moved to tears, on 
 
HENRY THE EIGHTH, AND HIS WIVES. lYT 
 
 reading this last evidence of Catharine's unmerited affection ; 
 but it is also stated, though the narrator, Burnet, is a historian 
 of more prejudice and passion than veracity, that Queen Anne 
 rejoiced inhumanly and indecently at the demise of her rival. 
 I would fain disbelieve this ; for the general conduct of Anne 
 Boleyn was ever gracious, gentle, mirthful, and compassionate. 
 Sprightly and light-hearted, and leaning perhaps too much to 
 a levity of manners which French usages sanctioned, but of 
 unspotted character, of a forgiving, generous, and caressing dis- 
 position, loved in her life and regretted at her death, Anne Bo- 
 leyn had scarce the character that could exult over the cold 
 ashes of a rival — a rival whom she had vanquished in the ten- 
 derest points, and mediately deprived of happiness, of dignity, 
 and, at the last, of life. 
 
 Thus Catharine departed ; born to high fortunes and ad- 
 vanced to higher, which she supported with equanimity and 
 adorned with majesty and virtue ; doomed to calamity and 
 ruin, which she endured with magnanimity and patience; hap- 
 pier in her decease than most of her successors, as she was 
 certainly superior to them all in elevation of character, in dig- 
 nity of demeanor, in the decencies of public, and the virtues of 
 domestic, life. As a queen she was good, as a private woman 
 great. Happy they who can so support prosperity, and sur- 
 mount adversity — of a truth, she proved herself, and that right 
 royally, equal to either fortune. 
 
 From the moment of Henry's union with Anne Boleyn, the 
 date of which we have outstripped a little, in the desire of com- 
 pleting the sad tale of the fate of Catharine uninterrupted, his 
 whole character was strangely altered for the worse ; and from 
 a rash, impulsive, passionate, and headstrong prince, violent in 
 his will, impatient of opposition, and selfish in the extreme, he 
 now became a barbaroiiSj bloodthirsty tyrant ; second, if second, 
 
 9 
 
178 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 only to Tiberius and Nero, whose cruelties upon the Christians 
 he imitated almost to the letter — upon romanists and protest- 
 ants alike, whosoever the first opposed his will. 
 
 This king had no religious principle in view in alienating 
 England from the dominion — temporal first, and then spiritual — 
 of the Bishop of Rome ; but as his lust of beauty first tempted 
 him to resist Clement, so his lust of power and avarice of gold 
 led him to the suppression of the monasteries, the confiscation 
 of the church lands, and the appropriation to himself of all the 
 privileges and puissance of the Pope. 
 
 During six years, the king's struggles with the Council of 
 Rome had continued ; and during these, above three of which 
 had been spent in a married state with Anne, his affections for 
 her constantly increased ; nor is it wonderful that it should 
 have done so, for she was a creature of the rarest beauty — tall, 
 slender, and of perfect symmetry, with a skin of snow ; large, 
 soft blue eyes, and dark auburn tresses ; nor were her accom- 
 plishments less remarkable than her personal charms. 
 
 Yet he had now triumphed over Rome ; had violently grasped 
 all that he coveted of church property ; had been disappointed 
 by the birth of a dead son ; and last, not least, had seen and 
 loved Jane, daughter of Sir John Seymour — a young lady, lovely 
 as the day, and possessing, in addition to her charms, in which 
 she at least rivalled Queen Anne, the advantages of youth and 
 novelty. From that moment, Henry seems not only to have 
 ceased to love, but actually to have hated, Anne Boleyn ; for, 
 in this odious and inhuman voluptuary, there were two singular 
 characteristics — first, that licentious as he was, furious in his 
 passion, and unrestrained in his will by any considerations 
 human or divine, he appears rarely or never to have had re- 
 course to gallantry or intrigue, or to have contemplated the possi- 
 bility of gratifying his passions except by marriage — and second, 
 
HENRY THE EIGHTH, AND HIS WIVES. 179 
 
 that his passion, so soon as it was satiated, was converted into 
 a furious hatred, which could be satisfied only by the blood of 
 the once loved object. 
 
 Those only of his victim wives whom he had never loved, he 
 never hated ; and therefore suffered to live on in sorrowful, dis- 
 honored widowhood. 
 
 In his new passion for Jane Seymour, he was now set 
 on the death of Anne; and with him a resolution, once 
 adopted, tarried not long time short of its fulfilment. Whom 
 tyrants thirst to destroy, courtiers are soon found to accuse ; 
 and the king having affected violent jealousy on the casual 
 dropping of the queen's handkerchief during a tournament 
 at Greenwich, charges of infidelity were preferred against 
 her ; and she was cast into the tower, protesting her inno- 
 cence with tears and invocations on the Supreme witness of 
 all human hearts. 
 
 For her, in her utnrost need, who had ever interceded for all 
 sufferers, consoled all sorrowers, gratified all petitions during 
 her prosperous hours, there was found no intercessor, no con- 
 soler, no petitioner. Her own uncle, Norfolk, preferring the 
 ties of religious partisanship to those of blood, became her most 
 embittered enemy ; and Cranmer alone, vainly for her, and in 
 the end fatally for himself, strove to divert Henry from his brutal 
 purpose. She was brought to trial before a jury of peers ; and, 
 with her own brother, Lord Rochford — whose wife, a woman of 
 infamous character of whom we shall hear more anon, was con- 
 victed of adultery and high treason — without one shadow of 
 evidence, all spectators present pronouncing her wholly inno- 
 cent, was sentenced, to be burned alive or beheaded at the king's 
 pleasure. Thereupon, turning her hands and eyes to heaven, 
 " Father !" she cried ; " O Creator ! who art the way, the 
 truth, and the life, thou knowest that I have not deserved this 
 
180 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 fate ;" and addressing her judges pathetically, she declared her 
 innocence. 
 
 But innocence itself was powerless ; and, Henry being de- 
 termined not only to destroy this lovely and virtuous being, 
 who had slept so softly in his bosom, but al*o to i legitimatize 
 her issue, she was induced, by terrors of the extreme sentence 
 of the stake, to admit that, in consequence of her prior attach- 
 ment to the Lord Piercy, a lawful impediment existed to her 
 marriage with the king; whereupon, most reluctantly, the 
 primate who presided, was compelled to declare the marriage 
 null, and Elizabeth illegitimate — a compliance with the tyrant's 
 will, which availed not in after days to save his own body from 
 the flames of persecution. 
 
 Reconducted to the Tower, she sent her last message to the 
 king, commending her daughter to his care, and again pro- 
 testing her innocence ; to the directors of the Tower she al- 
 most jested on her approaching fate ; -continued to the end 
 serene and tranquil ; and, submitting herself resignedly to the 
 hands of the executioner of Calais, who had been imported as 
 more skilful than any in England, died at a single blow, which', 
 in her own words, sent her — it can scarce be doubted — " to be 
 a saint in heaven." 
 
 On the morrow of her execution, Henry espoused Jane Sey- 
 mour, unable in the rage of his passion to give so much of de- 
 lay as even decency required, to the memory of one whom 
 his cruel and remorseless heart had once doubtless loved as well 
 as it was capable of loving anything. 
 
 Hoping, on the death of Anne Boleyn, to regain perhaps 
 her legitimacy, the Lady Mary now sought to be reconciled 
 with Henry ; and, at length, after renouncing the hope, and 
 owning her own mother's marriage unlawful, she was in some 
 sort received into favor ; but not for that would the old, incon- 
 
HENRY THE EIGHTH, AND HIS WIVES. 181 
 
 sistent tyrant reject Elizabeth, who was so fortunate as to find 
 grace with the new queen — a lady of sweet disposition and ex- 
 cellent virtue — who sorrowed for the fate of the rival she had 
 unwillingly supplanted, and treated her orphan child with ten- 
 derness almost maternal. 
 
 During the short ascendency of sweet Jane Seymour, the 
 king's temper was either softened by her charms, and gentle, 
 loving disposition, or diverted from his wonted cruelties by two 
 dangerous insurrections in the North, for no burnings or behead- 
 ings sully the brief space of her pre-eminence over his affec- 
 tions. 
 
 But she died — as the ancients were wont to say " whom the 
 gods love, die" — young ; nor survived Henry's short-lived love, 
 to endure his indifference or incur the doom which ever fol- 
 lowed his hatred. Within a year of her marriage, and two 
 days after the birth of her son Edward — created, when not yet 
 six days old, Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, and Earl of 
 Chester — Jane Seymour passed into a better world ; the best 
 perhaps, the most beautiful, and certainly the happiest, not least 
 so in the hour of her death, of Henry's queens. Yet though 
 he loved her, his joy for the birth of an heir wiped away his 
 grief for the death of a wife, almost before a tear was shed ; 
 and it does not appear that her memory dwelt so much as an 
 hour in his cruel and callous heart. 
 
 As hitherto the king's marriages had been dictated by pas- 
 sion and the preference for beauty, which he called affection, 
 his next was to be founded on political motives ; and, after de- 
 liberating long between the niece of the emperor, and the re- 
 latives of Francis, he at length decided on marrying Ann of 
 Cleves, whose picture he had seen and admired, and by whose 
 hand he hoped to secure the support of the German princes, 
 in case of war arising with the catholic powers, who threat- 
 
182 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 ened hostilities in consequence of his secession from the 
 Pope. 
 
 In this union he was disappointed, and, at first sight of the 
 princess, who was in truth a coarse, overgrown, ill-natured wo- 
 man, without grace or accomplishments, and speaking no lan- 
 guage but Dutch, he conceived the most violent aversion to her, 
 swore that she was a " Great Flanders mare," and that he 
 could never bear her the least affection. 
 
 He continued, however, for some time to treat her with civili- 
 ty ; and even affected still to place confidence in Cromwell, 
 who had advised the match ; although he had probably already 
 determined on his ruin, as he had previously on that of Wolsey, 
 when he suspected him of opposing his divorce from Catharine. 
 
 A new flame, however, soon possessed him ; for he saw, and 
 determined on raising to his throne, the exquisitely beautiful 
 Catharine Howard, niece of the Duke of Norfolk, Cromwell's 
 most deadly enemy, who used the influence of the lovely but 
 profligate girl to ruin the good minister, even as Anne Boleyn 
 had been used for the destruction of his great predecessor. 
 
 A bill of attainder was immediately issued against Cromwell, 
 and one of divorce against the queen. The former resulted in 
 the speedy execution of the minister ; the latter in the no less 
 speedy abrogation of Anne's marriage, on the plea of her pre- 
 vious contract with the Duke of Lorraine, added to Henry's 
 assertion that he had not given his inward consent to the union. 
 Anne, who was of an indifferent temper, exhibited no displea- 
 sure ; accepted of the king's adoption as his sister, of prece- 
 dence next to the king and his own daughters, with an annuity 
 of three thousand pounds ; and having on these terms assented 
 to the divorce, lived and died in England, without manifesting 
 any signs of pride, except in refusing to return to her own 
 country after that affront. 
 
HENRY THE EIGHTH, AND HIS WIVES. 183 
 
 Immediately thereafter, his marriage was consummated with 
 Catharine Howard ; and so delighted was he with the charms 
 of her person, her voluptuous temperament, and her consum- 
 mate conversational powers and address, that he actually caused 
 thanks to be returned to heaven in his private chapel for the 
 felicity the conjugal state afforded him. 
 
 Hourly, however, did his cruelty and rage increase. Smith - 
 field continually glowed with the funereal pyre of victims, sen- 
 tenced to the flames without trial. To deny any articles of the 
 catholic faith was even more fatal to the protestants than to 
 assert the pope's supremacy to catholics. The stake and the 
 faggot for the former ; for the latter the scaffold and the axe. 
 So that a foreigner, then in London, writing to a friend, asserted, 
 that " those in England who were against the Pope were burned, 
 and those who were for him were hanged." Nor were the po- 
 litical sufferers less numerous, though more noble than they 
 who fell for their faith ; among the former was the venerable 
 Countess of Salisbury, the last of the great line of Plantage- 
 net, who refused to lay her head on the block, or submit, un- 
 tried of her peers, to an unjust sentence. She ran, to the last, 
 frantically about the scaffold, tossing her grey, dishevelled locks, 
 pursued by the executioner with his gory axe, slashing at hei 
 neck with ineffective blows, till at length she was hewn down, 
 and decapitated. The last of a great royal line, she died bravely 
 and royally. 
 
 This marriage of Henry's — great as had been his gratifica- 
 tion in the early period of his intimacy with the youthful, 
 beautiful, and artful Kate, and vast as had been her influence 
 upon his mind, almost even tending towards a counter-revolu- 
 tion in religious matters — was to produce to him, almost ere 
 its first year was ended, some of those evils and exactions which 
 his alliance had invariably worked on others. 
 
184 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 Tidings were brought to Cranmer of anti-connubial dissolute- 
 ness so enormous, of girlish infamy so hideous and disgusting 
 on the part of the queen — with almost undoubted proofs of in- 
 fidelity to the king — that he knew not what to do, seeing that 
 to conceal, or reveal it, seemed almost dangerous. On advising, 
 however, with the Chancellor and the Earl of Hertford, he dis- 
 closed his information to the king, who, though he at first ut- 
 terly disbelieved it, and loudly expressed his disbelief, was soon 
 forced to give full credit to the proofs which poured in upon 
 him from every side. Her infamy, almost from her cradle up- 
 wards, was incredible and unconcealed. The king, the old, 
 bloodthirsty, brutal tyrant, so deeply was his pride affected, re- 
 mained a long time speechless, and then — was it for the first 
 time since boyhood ? — burst into tears of agony and fury un- 
 controllable. She died, as she deserved to die, on the scaffold ; 
 and her death, like her life, was bold, impudent, and shameless. 
 With her, perished under the axe the assistant and companion of 
 her crimes, the bad Lady Rochford, whose polluted evidence 
 had been held good against Anne Boleyn and her own husband, 
 the brother of her regal victim. And it is recorded, that men 
 were now more convinced than ever of Anne's innocence, by 
 this shameful catastrophe of the chief witness against her. 
 With her died, also, Manhoe, Derham, and Colepepper, mani- 
 festly convicts of the crime ; but many persons of high birth, 
 unjustly attainted for misprision of treason in concealing the 
 criminality of their kinswoman, among whom was the old 
 Duchess of Norfolk, her grandmother, Lord William Howard, 
 her uncle, and his wife, the Countess of Bridgewater, and nine 
 others, were pardoned by the king, most unapt for pardon ; 
 which may be held full evidence that their sentence was not 
 unjust only, but too flagrant for enforcement. 
 
 Henceforth, as if this injury to his pride had acted as the 
 
HENRY THE EIGHTH, AND HIS WIVES. 185 
 
 sting of an arrow upon a gaunt, old, famished lion, goading 
 him to fresh fury and carnage, he literally battened on the blood 
 of the good, the noble, and the great. Neither church could 
 now shield its professors from the stake, the scaffold, or the gal- 
 lows ; no age or reverence of virtue, no tenderness of sex or 
 years, no gallantry or service of manhood could excite pity. 
 The realm was a-blaze with man-consuming hecatombs, afloat 
 with noble blood. Never before, never since, were there such 
 times in England. Never again may there be such. 
 
 Yet not even this affront could restrain Henry's amorous pro- 
 pensities ; and, in the year 1542, within two years ( long space 
 for him to tarry) after that infamous discovery, he married 
 Catharine Parr, widow of the Earl of Neville, a woman no 
 longer in the flower of youth, nor beauteous ; but virtuous, and 
 winning in her ways, and gifted with a shrewd tact to divine 
 and anticipate the humors, and thence to anticipate the wishes, 
 and avoid the anger of her tyrant. 
 
 Twice, in despite of all her caution, she was all but entangled 
 in the toils which had been destructive to her. Once, when 
 beautiful, brave Anne Ascue suffered herself to be dislocated on 
 the rack, so that she could not stand at the stake, but was burn- 
 ed sitting in a chair, rather than implicate her queen in opi- 
 nions which both held in common, touching the real presence ; 
 and again when, betrayed by the ardor and excitement of con- 
 versation, she contended too eagerly in argument in behalf of 
 the reformed doctrines, against Henry himself, who, it must be 
 remembered, was no reformer, nor protestant, but as strong a 
 catholic as any ; save that he wished himself to be both pope 
 and king, and to concentrate under one office and one title the 
 emoluments and powers of the two dignities. 
 
 The cleverness and womanly tact with which she extricated 
 herself from that dilemma, by flattering Henry's love of power 
 
 9* 
 
186 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 and pride of argument, and by playing upon his foibles, must 
 give us a high opinion of her talent and self-conduct, whatever 
 it may do of her sincerity. In such a case, however, sincerity 
 had been suicidal ; and under such circumstances, if under any, 
 to be insincere may be palliated, if not pardoned. 
 
 Suffice it, that she regained the confidence of the old, bloated, 
 peevish tyrant's mind ; heard him reproach the chancellor, who 
 came with forty pursuivants to arrest her, as a " knave, fool, 
 and beast;" and retained her hold upon his regard to the last, 
 in spite of the ill offices of Gardiner, and others of her enemies 
 and his sycophants. 
 
 But the end was now near at hand ; for after within a few 
 days' time having executed the Earl of Surrey, the most ac- 
 complished nobleman of the day, the patron of letters, the lover 
 of the fair Geraldine — at once, like the prince of Denmark, the 
 courtier, scholar, soldier — and condemned the father of his last 
 victim, Norfolk, to the axe, he died in the fifty-sixth year of his 
 age, and the thirty-eighth of his reign, the worst man and 
 worst king that ever sat upon an English, perhaps upon an 
 European throne, since the establishment of modern Europe. 
 
 He left a will, bequeathing the crown, first to Prince Edward, 
 then to the two princesses, in the line of seniority ; thereafter, 
 failing issue, to the Marchioness of Dorset, the elder, and the 
 Countess of Cumberland, the younger daughter of his second 
 sister, the French queen ; overlooking the posterity of his eld- 
 est sister, the Queen of Scots, on account, it is probable, of her 
 religion — a will which bequeathed two reigns of bloodshed, and 
 anarchy or tyranny to England ; the evil effects of which were 
 counteracted only by the iron will and manly wisdom of the 
 greatest, if not the best, of English queens — his own lion- 
 hearted daughter, by his first and most innocent victim — Eliza- 
 beth, who to the energy, the courage, the spirit, and same touch 
 
HENRY THE EIGHTH, AND HIS WIVES. 187 
 
 of the self-will of her father, added all the protestant feeling, 
 and all the truthfulness, though none of the sweetness, of her 
 mother, Anne Boieyn. 
 
 Verily ! to look on these things, and others that occurred 
 then, and thereafter, even the Christian might be apt to say, 
 " Even on this earth there is retribution ;" and to believe, with 
 j^Eschylus of old, that bloodshed begetteth bloodshed, and that, 
 of ancestral crime, crime is the offspring, unto the latest gene- 
 ration. 
 
intt isrtu: 
 
 1556. 
 
ANNE ASCUE. 
 
 The fierce old tyrant, Henry VIII., was drawing towards his 
 end ; bloated, diseased, unwieldy, he had lost every vestige of 
 those good looks which in his younger days had delighted the 
 eyes — of that gallant and bold activity which had awakened the 
 admiration — and of that bluff and jovial good humor which 
 had won the affections — of his people. Like a gaunt old lion he 
 became but the more fierce and cruel as his physical and mental 
 powers decayed ; arose despotically barbarous in the mainte- 
 nance of his sovereign power, in proportion as he felt himself 
 the less capable of maintaining it. 
 
 During his long and bloody reign, on one pretence or an- 
 other, he had put to death by the block many of the brightest 
 ornaments of his nobility ; he had half decimated his people by 
 the stake and the faggot, burning protestants alive for denying 
 the " real presence," and hanging papists for maintaining the 
 supremacy of the Pope ; he had sacrificed two wives to his jea- 
 lousy or his satiety by a bloody death ; he had, throughout his 
 protracted sovereignty of seven and thirty years, showed himself 
 the most vicious and inhuman monster that ever sat upon a 
 throne : and yet — strange to say ! owing to some personal qua- 
 lities, such as daring bravery, profuse expenditure, a sort of wild 
 
192 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 and capricious generosity, and his rough and ready accessibility 
 to all his subjects, he had preserved to the last the regard and 
 even the admiration of his subjects ; and is even now regarded 
 traditionally by the lower orders of EDgland, as a sort of roi 
 bonhomme, under the sobriquet of Bluff King Hal — much as 
 in the neighboring kingdom of France, the Fourth Henry of 
 that realm has been with much more justice esteemed by his 
 people. 
 
 In the latter years of his reign, his violent dogmatism on 
 religious points and niceties of creed increased in a greater de- 
 gree than any other of his strange and fearful inconsistencies. 
 Since he had taken to holding public controversies in his own 
 person against the wretches, who, in case of his failing to per- 
 suade and convert them, were doomed to the horrors of a fiery 
 death, he had come to regard the acceptance of any creed 
 different from his own as a personal insult to his understanding, 
 and an overt act of treason against his sovereignty. 
 
 Since his mania for arguing on the subject of the real pre- 
 sence, and punishing those who disputed or denied it, increased 
 hourly, it became actually a position of peril to be admitted to 
 a few minutes' conversation with the polemical king, who was 
 almost certain to entrap any person, whom he desired to con- 
 found, between the horns of a dilemma from which he could 
 scarce hope to escape without incurring the perils of heresy or 
 high treason. 
 
 The mental energy and physical activity of the king had 
 now both failed ; he was not able to take any part in the ath- 
 letic exercises which still continued down to his day — the last 
 expiring sparks of feudalism and chivalry, or in those bold and 
 stirring sports of the field, the stag hunt, cheered by the deep 
 chorus of the full-mouthed Southron hounds, and the blast 
 of the merry bugles — or the fierce brief gallop after the 
 
ANNE ASCUE. 193 
 
 long-winged falcon, striving with all its wings to outsoar the 
 towering ascent of the grey heron hawk ; in both of which 
 pursuits he had taken so much delight, until the increasing cor- 
 pulence of his huge bloated frame, and the growing infirmities 
 of an advanced age, rendered it impossible for him to bestride 
 a horse, much less to follow the hawk or the greyhound by mere 
 fleetness of foot, as it had been his wont to do at a time when 
 it was not the mere flattery of cringing courtiers which pro- 
 claimed him the best and boldest rider, the swiftest runner, and 
 the strongest man, of all within the limits of his kingdom. 
 
 A stroll in the beautiful gardens of Hampton Court, or on 
 the lordly terraces of Windsor, was now the longest excursions 
 of which the king, once so energetical and restlessly active, was 
 now capable ; and in these, when he was not at the council 
 table, fulminating the terrors of his deathful decrees on all who 
 questioned his authority in sacred matters, or arguing in 
 person with protestants who dared question the doctrines of 
 the church of Rome, and with catholics who ventured to main- 
 tain the supremacy of the head of that church, he spent many 
 hours daily, attended by his wife, the queen Catherine Parr, 
 her bevy of fair ladies in waiting, and a body of his greater 
 and more influential courtiers. 
 
 There has been much error in the estimate usually formed 
 of the religious feelings or principles — for opinions or convic- 
 tions I cannot bring myself to call them — of the eighth Henry, 
 and of the extent and nature of the reformation which he set 
 on foot in England. In the end, it is true that the changes 
 which he set on foot did lead to the almost total extinction in 
 England proper of the catholic faith, and to the establishment 
 of what Henry would himself have called the Lutheran heresy. 
 But nothing is more certain than that no end was farther than 
 that from his desire or his contemplation. Infuriated in the 
 
194 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 first instance by the steady and persevering opposition of Cle- 
 ment, who then occupied the papal chair, to his divorce from 
 Catharine of Arragon, and contemplated marriage with the 
 beautiful Anne Boleyn ; and encouraged in his rebellious senti- 
 ments, by the unwillingness which had ever existed in the 
 church as well as the laity in England — fostered, probably, in 
 some degree, by its insular position — to submit implicitly to the 
 absolute authority of a foreign head, Henry had absolutely 
 rejected all obedience and allegiance, on his own part and on 
 that of his subjects, to the head of the church at Rome, 
 and had not only declared himself to be, but had obtained the 
 acknowledgment of the church of England, that he indeed 
 was the supreme and sole head of that church. But that 
 church was, it must be remembered, not what we now under- 
 stand as the church of England, but a purely and thoroughly 
 Romish church, differing in no respect from the continental 
 churches which professed the same faith, except in referring to 
 the English monarch, instead of to an Italian priest, the su- 
 preme direction of its religion and care of its consciences. 
 
 It had its cardinals, its censorials, its altars and its incense, 
 its confessionals and its sacraments, its canons and its creed, 
 precisely as they existed in the Vatican : and it was no less 
 jealous of its authority, and severe in the punishment of its here- 
 tics, than was the original foundation of St. Peter. 
 
 Henry, in fact, did not for an instant desire the abolition of 
 Catholicism, for he was probably as sincere in his own profes- 
 sion of that faith, as a man of his fierce, impulsive, uncontrolla- 
 ble, and sensual nature could be sincere in any religion. Nor 
 did he desire to destroy papacy itself — so far from it, that he 
 desired ardently and strove earnestly to perpetuate it, in a 
 divided form, making himself the Pope of England. 
 
 At an after period, he was compelled by the resistance of 
 
ANNE ASCUE. 195 
 
 the monastic bodies to secularize the possessions of the abbeys 
 and monasteries throughout the land, and to drive out the monks 
 and nuns from their time-honored residences, bestowing their 
 broad acres and rich tithes on lay proprietors, or on the colle- 
 giate institutions of which he was a munificent founder and 
 benefactor. Stiil, for the most part, the dispossessed church- 
 men were in some degree provided for by pensions and the 
 like, while all the incumbents of church preferment, all the 
 priests officiating at all churches, whether urban or rural, were, 
 of course, of the old religion. 
 
 The reformers were everywhere regarded by kings and 
 governments with more or less of political suspicion and dis- 
 trust, as well as of religious abhorrence ; and in fact it was not 
 wonderful that such should be the case, for many of their 
 earliest and wildest sects — such as the fanatical followers of 
 Huss and John Zisca, and many of the Albigenses, Lollards, 
 and Waldenses — held to opinions utterly subversive of all 
 government both civil and social, affecting a levelling of all 
 classes and conditions, and some of them were insisting on the 
 abominable and disgusting tenets of Fourier and the modern 
 socialists in regard to sexual relations. This reason would 
 have been enough in itself to have steeled the heart and armed 
 the hand of Henry against all the true and thorough-going 
 reformers ; as it was unquestionably in other days the cause of 
 his great and manly-minded daughter's unrelenting persecution 
 of the puritans and dissenters, whom she in truth punished as 
 assailants of the prerogatives of her crown, not as schismatics 
 beyond the pale of her church. 
 
 And indeed it is remarkable to this day, that the followers 
 of the Romish church are invariably the most subordinate to 
 discipline, and obedient to authority no less political than reli- 
 gious, and that in direct proportion as sects withdraw them- 
 
196 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 «* 
 
 selves farther and farther from that church so do they recede 
 from the sentiment of loyalty, and from submission to political 
 government. So that in almost every case the extreme dissen- 
 ter will be found the extremest dissenter. 
 
 How far this may have weighed with Henry and prompted 
 him to the cruel rigor with which he repressed the advance of 
 protestant reform, is not so directly apparent as it is in the 
 case of his daughter Elizabeth ; but as Henry in no respect 
 lacked political shrewdness or foresight, though he at times 
 suffered his violent passions to prevail against the maxims of 
 sound statesmanship, and as no king ever lived who was more 
 jealous of his authority, there is no reason to doubt that he 
 clearly foresaw the parallel and contemporaneous spread of 
 liberal feelings in matters of church and state, of religious and 
 political reform. But apart from this, he had the stern and 
 obstinate veneration of the bigot for his own creed — a venera- 
 tion enhanced in his proud and despotical mind by the consi- 
 deration that it was his own — a consideration which led him to 
 regard all dissent from it as an affront in some degree personal 
 to himself. 
 
 Besides this, he prided himself on his learning and orthodoxy 
 as a theologian, on his subtilty as a polemical casuist, and 
 on his eloquence as a religious disputant; so that vanity, self- 
 ishness, bigotry, and interest all urged him to the infliction of 
 the cruellest punishments on the wretches who differed from 
 the tenets of the catholic church, and held opinions at va- 
 riance to his own, especially on the question of the " real 
 presence." 
 
 So far, therefore, was Henry from being a religious reformer, 
 or a favorer of protestantism, that the condition of the Lollard, 
 the protestant reformer, or the heretical disbeliever in any of 
 the peculiar doctrines of the Eomish church, was infinitely 
 
ANNE ASCUE. 197 
 
 more perilous than that of the most violent and steadfast 
 catholic who held out to extremity for the supremacy of the 
 Pope. The latter might indeed be, and very probably was, 
 arraigned for high treason, brought to trial, and beheaded for 
 political criminality. 
 
 The former was very certain, in case of suspicion falling on 
 him, to be incarcerated, interrogated before the council ; to be 
 preached at and disputed with by the king in person, to be 
 racked with unmerciful severity in order to extort from him 
 confession concerning his own belief, and the persons of his co- 
 religionists ; and lastly, if resolute in his belief and steadfast in 
 refusing to abjure it, or, as it was the mode then to term it, obsti- 
 nate in his contumacy, to be burned alive at the stake, as had 
 been, and still were to be, so many martyrs to what they equally 
 believed on both sides to be the cause of conscience and truth. 
 
 Henry indeed was scarcely second in his persecution of here- 
 tics, and his predilection for autos-da-fe, to the barbarous 
 and bigoted Philip of Spain, though his butcherings and 
 burnings were on a more limited and less general scale. 
 Terrible, however, they were, and atrocious, and of them no 
 worse or more sad example is recorded than in the instance 
 of the beautiful and good Anne Ascue. 
 
 There was not at that day in all England, it was said, a 
 lovelier being than Anne Ascue ; and being highly born and 
 bred, closely connected with many of the chief ladies of the 
 court, and among others with the queen Catherine herself, she 
 became herself one of the brightest ornaments of that gay 
 circle, so that the charms, which, had she been less prominently 
 elevated before the eyes of men, would have only perhaps ob- 
 tained for her the honor of being the " toast of a county," were 
 now talked of far and wide, and herself followed and flattered 
 by all the gallants of the capital, nay ; but by royalty itself. 
 
198 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 Of the very highest stature to which a woman can attain 
 without forfeiting one feminine attraction, Anne Ascue was at 
 once slenderly and voluptuously formed, her perfectly symme- 
 trical and rounded figure was full of every grace, whether in 
 repose or in motion, and its soft and undulating outlines 
 impressed the spectator with an idea of a perfect harmony 
 between the proportions of the delicate and balanced figure, and 
 the composed and happy soul which informed it. Her com- 
 plexion was as fair as can be imagined, and her face so pale, 
 that it was only at moments of the strongest emotion that even 
 a transient flush was seen to color it ; still there was nothing of 
 unhealthy or livid pallor in the clear, life-like, and transparent 
 huelessness of those pure cheeks, while the rich sentient lips, 
 colored with the rose tints of the deep clove carnation, vouched 
 for the ruddy hue of the warm current which flowed through 
 her large blue veins. Her foreheac* was almost too high, 
 too solid and intellectual for that of a woman, giving at first 
 sight the idea of a character too grave and thoughtful, 
 perhaps; too self-composed and tranquilly great to condescend 
 to be moved by any of the small sublunary emotions, the 
 passing pleasures, transient sorrows, the gentle affections, the 
 daily cares, which make up the sun of this mortal life. 
 And this character was even enhanced by the long straight 
 dark brown eyebrows, curved into no regular symmetric 
 curve of beauty, but crossing the broad marble forehead with 
 a delicate yet decided line, full of pureness and character. 
 One glance, however, of the deep black fringed azure eyes, 
 when they were lifted to your face flashing with limpid 
 merry lustre, and laughing in their own clear light — one 
 smile from those red lips wreathing her cheeks and chin into 
 a score of radiant dimples — you could not doubt that you saw 
 in Anne Ascue, 
 
ANNE ASCUE. 199 
 
 A spirit, yet a woman too ; 
 
 Her household motions light and free, 
 
 And steps of virgin liberty ; 
 
 A countenance in which did meet 
 
 Sweet records, promises as sweet ; 
 
 A creature not too bright or good 
 
 For human nature's daily food ; 
 
 For transient sorrows, simple wiles, 
 
 Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles. 
 
 A being breathing thoughtful breath, 
 
 A traveller between life and death ;] 
 
 The reason jirm, the temperate will, 
 
 Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill ; 
 
 A perfect woman nobly planned 
 
 To warn, to comfort, and command, 
 
 And yet a spirit still, and bright, 
 
 With something of an angel light. 
 
 Such indeed she was in disposition, and neither care nor 
 education had been spared in order to render her acquired 
 gifts equal to and worthy of her natural endowments. She was 
 not only accomplished — as we use the word of our ladies in this 
 latter day — in the knowledge and familiar use of modern 
 tongues, a beautiful and almost inspired musician, a chaste and. 
 graceful dancer, a fearless and elegant equestrian, but she was 
 learned in the sense in which we speak of men, and of but few 
 men, too, of this age and country — though in the sixteenth cen- 
 tury it was by far less rare than it is in the nineteenth, to find 
 the blithest and most radiant ladies reading the immortal bards 
 of old in their original classic tongues — and Anna could read 
 not only Plato and the tragedians in their own dialect, redolent 
 of all the attic honey of Hymettus, but could follow the sages 
 and prophets of the Old Testament through the grand metaphors 
 and magnificent hyperboles, which, a part and parcel of all 
 
200 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 oriental languages, belong to none more thoroughly than to the 
 noble and sonorous Hebrew. 
 
 Better for her, however, had it been, in this world at least, 
 had her studies been confined to the light melodies of Southern 
 bards ; had the smooth and effeminate Italian, the gay and 
 gentle Provencal, or the statelier Spanish tongues been her 
 highest acquisition. Better had it been for her, had her com- 
 panions with whom she loved to converse, now mirthfully, now 
 gravely and on deeper lore, been the gay gallants of the court, 
 rather than the deep designing churchmen, the wily Romish 
 priests and cardinals, who, ever fearful of seeing yet more of 
 their power escaping from their clutch, were making the most 
 desperate efforts to establish Catholicism on the broadest base ; 
 and for that end to detect, discover, or, if needs must be, to make 
 heretics in the highest places, for the purpose of publicly 
 degrading, and as publicly destroying them. At this moment, 
 the catholics were extremely powerful at court, Wriothesley, 
 the chancellor, who had succeeded Audley, and was deeply 
 attached to the Romish party, never ceasing to inflame the 
 king, on all occasions, in season and out of season, against all 
 heretics and reformers, and constantly exacerbating his rancor 
 against them, by representing the dangers which he was incur- 
 ring, not only to the safety of his realm, but to the salvation of 
 his immortal soul, by overlooking in the least degree the obsti- 
 nate contumacy of these levellers of all social right, and subvert- 
 ed of all authority, human or divine. 
 
 Nor did the jealousy of the cruel, old, suspicious tyrant, whose 
 habitual peevishness was now increased by illness, need any 
 farther stimulus. As he became aware that his own latter day 
 was approaching, it really seemed as if he feared that he should 
 be deprived of the privilege of shedding a due quantity of blood 
 . before his own demise ; as if he dreaded that any victim should 
 
ANNE ASCUE. 201 
 
 escape his rancor. His own queen Catharine, whose sweet, 
 gentle temper, moderate and circumspect life, united to an extra- 
 ordinary degree of tact, talent, and insight into her husband's 
 character, had enabled her to retain his esteem and affections 
 for so many years, now fell under his suspicions. It was his 
 favorite habit to converse on points of theology ; and Catharine, 
 whose good sense enabled her to converse well on all subjects, 
 fell in some degree into the snare, and being secretly inclined 
 to the doctrines of the reformers, suffered him to discover too 
 much of her mind on the subject. Henry consulted Gardiner 
 and Wriothesly, and both of them encouraging, nay, urging 
 him to extreme measures, he ordered articles of impeachment to. 
 be drawn against her. Her fate was quivering in the balance ; 
 a hair would have turned the scales. For though she, with 
 rare tact and ingenuity, represented that in her conversations 
 with the king she had only feigned to differ from him, in order 
 to have the pleasure of being conquered by his eloquence, and 
 instructed by his superior erudition, the old savage still doubted ; 
 and on one occasion is said to have exclaimed, in reply to her 
 defence — " Not so ! by St. Mary ! Not so ! you are now become 
 a doctor, Kate, and better fitted to give than receive instruc- 
 tion." Had he continued in that mood many hours, the head 
 of Catharine Parr had rolled on the same scaffold with that of 
 the gentle Anna Boleyn, that of the shameless Catharine How- 
 ard ; she was saved, but saved only by vicarious blood — by 
 the agonies and death of a most pure and spotless victim. 
 
 For at this time charges were brought against Anne Ascue, 
 the friend and maid^f honor of the queen, that she dogmatized 
 in secret on the most delicate questions of doctrine, and more 
 especially that she denied the " real presence." 
 
 At first she openly avowed her opinions, which scarcely, it 
 
 would seem, amounted to such a degree of dissent as the Inqui- 
 
 10 
 
202 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 sition itself would pronounce heresy. Henry, however, was fu- 
 rious that a woman's weakness should dare to dispute on points 
 of reason with his manly understanding, and resolved that no 
 indulgence should be shown to her ; and Henry's ministers, 
 hopeful that if put to the rack she would accuse other great 
 ladies, and perhaps the queen herself, whose friend and confi- 
 dante she was known to be, determined that whatever was to be 
 the end, she should not escape the horrors of the question. 
 
 She was prevailed upon indeed by Bonner to make a seeming 
 recantation, but it was either in reality insufficient, or it was 
 determined to consider none that she could make as satisfac- 
 tory. She was cast into prison, where she spent her time in 
 fortifying her mind by prayers and religious exercises to endure 
 the horrible extremities which, as she now perceived, too cer- 
 tainly awaited her. She even wrote to the king, and told him 
 " that as to the Lord's supper, she believed as much as Christ 
 himself had said of it, and as much of his divine doctrine as the 
 church itself required." Still, as she refused her assent to 
 Henry's polemical explanations and interpositions of authority, 
 she was sentenced, as she had expected, to be burned alive at 
 the stake as an heretic. 
 
 But even this extremity failed to shake her ; she prayed fer- 
 vently for power from heaven to endure her agonies with equa- 
 nimity, and for pardon upon those who for no cause had con- 
 signed her to a fate so barbarous. 
 
 But even the little remnant of her life was not to be per- 
 mitted to elapse without an aggravation of cruelty and horrors. 
 Wriotheslyj the chancellor, was sent to interrogate her, as to 
 the religious tenets of the great ladies in correspondence with 
 her, and above all of the queen herself — but Anne, although 
 she knew all, and was promised a free pardon if she would 
 make disclosures, endured the extremity of the rack even 
 
ANNE ASCUE. 203 
 
 until all the joints of her body were entirely dislocated, in pro- 
 found and resolute silence. Then, horror of horrors ! when she 
 would make no confession, the chancellor commanded and 
 reiterated his commands, to increase the tension of the rack yet 
 further, and when the lieutenant of the Tower still refused, that 
 truculent minister put his own hand to the wheel, and almost 
 tore her body in twain. Still no confession followed ; and reluc- 
 tantly they left her for execution on the morrow. 
 
 And now the last day had arrived; the fatal morn had 
 broken in the east, and Anne p awoke from the disturbed and 
 fitful slumbers which had not sufficed to render her unconscious 
 of the tortures which she endured throughout every portion of 
 her rent and dislocated frame — awoke only to the knowledge 
 that these tortures were to be ended, within a few short hours, 
 by a death the most agonizing that the human imagination can 
 conceive, or human fortitude endure. 
 
 Serene and quiet to the last, she baffled all the malice of her 
 enemies by her gentle and uncomplaining fortitude, and by the 
 unexampled constancy with which she had borne all agonies of 
 the rack without a word of confession, by the saint-like tran- 
 quillity with which she looked forward to her release through 
 the medium of the last anguish. 
 
 The fatal moment arrived, and, unable to stand erect, even 
 when chained to the stake, so thoroughly wrenched asunder 
 were all her joints, she was carried in a chair to the stake, and 
 so endured her appalling doom. 
 
 Three others perished with her for the same crime, and by 
 the same awful death — Nicholas Bellerian, a priest, and two 
 others of humbler station, but all with the same constancy, all 
 with the same confidence of receiving the reward of martyrdom 
 in a crown of everlasting and immortal glory. 
 
 One trial more awaited them — for when they were already 
 
204 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 bound to the stake ; with the torches already kindled around 
 them, a free pardon was offered to them on condition of their 
 recantation. But not one of the number faltered, or flinched 
 from the horrid ordeal. Silent and serene they looked on as 
 the executioners kindled the pile which was to consume them, 
 and without a groan or shriek they endured that last worst tor- 
 ment. The flames soared up to the abhorrent and indignant 
 heavens, and bore upwards on their raging volumes four souls, 
 acceptable to their Creator. 
 
 Never was there a more unjust or pitiable doom, never a 
 nobler or more constant example of courage in a holy cause of 
 fidelity in the last extremity, than was seen in the fate, and 
 shown in the conduct of young, beautiful, and true Anne 
 Ascue. 
 
 She died for her religion and her queen ; but the memory of 
 her shall be green and fresh for ever in the hearts of men, when 
 that of the mistress to save whom she perished shall be forgot- 
 ten, and that of the cruel bigot who condemned her shall be 
 detested in all lands, and through all ages. Honor eternal to 
 Anne Ascue ! 
 
Sntn> #rnj w& (MM Mkj. 
 
 1554. 
 
JANE GREY AND GUILFORD DUDLEY. 
 
 There was a pleasant summer parlor in an old Elizabethan 
 mansion, as we are wont nowadays to call the buildings of the 
 era of the Tudors, although many were built long before the 
 time of that great princess, and this of which I speak among 
 the rest — overlooking from its oriel windows a wide stretch of 
 park and chase, varied by dells and dingly hollows, and inter- 
 spersed with clumps and groves of magnificent timber trees, all 
 falling away in a long, gentle descent to the southwestward, so 
 that the eye could range for miles over the open country, until 
 it rested, far on the horizon's verge, on one of the stateliest of 
 English rivers, and, yet beyond that, on an extensive mass of 
 forest, empurpled now by the haze of distance and near ap- 
 proaching sunset. 
 
 It was a pleasant parlor, hung with rich tapestries of green, 
 inwrought with scenes of the chase, deer in full cry, and hounds 
 in hot pursuit, foresters winding their bugles with puffed cheeks 
 or spearing mighty boars, nobles with falcons on their fists, and 
 gentle demoiselles reining their jennets of Castile or Andalusia, 
 and all the pride and pomp of the mimicry of warfare. The 
 level sunbeams, streaming in through the latticed casements, 
 filled the whole apartment with misty golden lustre, played lov- 
 ingly on the books and ornaments which crowded the great 
 
208 PERSONS AND PICTURES. ^ 
 
 central table, and kindled into warmer hues the dark wainscot- 
 ing of the carved ceiling, the huge sculptured mantel-piece, and 
 the embossed doorways ; but it fell upon nothing — where all 
 was beautiful and rare — so rare or beauteous as the young girl, 
 for she was scarcely woman yet, who sat on the cushioned win- 
 dow-seat of that oriel window, with the sunset rays playing 
 about her light brown hair, her delicate and pensive features, 
 and her slender though symmetrical form, like a lambent glory. 
 She was reading in a huge velvet-covered, brass-clasped folio, 
 which lay on a desk before her, and that so intently that she 
 appeared to take no note of the gay sights and* exciting sounds 
 which, all that livelong day, had been sweeping past the win- 
 dows, within reach of her abstracted eyes, and ringing in her 
 ears unheeded. For the chase was sport without, gayer and 
 more enlivening than it was depicted within ; bloodhounds were 
 baying until the deep woods rebellowed their harmonious dis- 
 cords ; bugles were winded far and near ; coursers were pranc- 
 ing and plumes waving, and ladies cantering across the lily leas, 
 eager to mark the towering goshawk swoop on the soaring 
 heron. 
 
 Yet from noon till it was now nearly night had that fair girl 
 sat there engrossed in her studies, though friends and kinsmen 
 — and one more dear, alas ! than friend or kinsman — was chas- 
 ing down the sun in the gay sport ; and never once had she 
 upraised those deep blue eyes from those quaintly charactered 
 vellum pages, although his charger had curveted* within sight, 
 and his view-holloa swelled the breeze within hearing. 
 
 Suddenly the door opened, still unheard by the young stu- 
 dent, who read on, unconscious that she had a spectator pre- 
 sent at her studies. It was a tall, spare, dark-featured man, of 
 sixty years or over, with a thick grizzled beard falling down 
 square-cut on his breast, and wearing the trencher cap and flow- 
 
JANE GREY AND GUILFORD DUDLEY. 209 
 
 ing black robes which were then, as now, the distinctive garb of the 
 universities. His features, naturally grave, not stern, relaxed 
 into a placid and benevolent smile, and an unbidden tear-drop 
 sparkled, he knew not why, in his heavy lashes. 
 
 " Ha ! gentle lady," he said, advancing slowly towards her, 
 u indeed you are an earnest and right studious student for one 
 of such years as most men hold better befitted to gay and 
 mirthful pastime ; what be thy studies, my fair daughter, this 
 bright evening, when the hunt is up, and all the world, saving 
 you only, are afield and merry V 
 
 " Oh, Master Roger Ascham," exclaimed the girl, arising with 
 a bright smile to greet her friend, the preceptor of the Lady 
 Elizabeth of England — " Oh, Master Roger Ascham, you have 
 surprised me. But, indeed, Plato is my most choice favorite, 
 and his sweet eloquence and all persuading wisdom delight me 
 far beyond all pleasures they can reap from all their sport and 
 gaiety." 
 
 " Yet Dudley is among them, daughter," replied the old man 
 with a quiet smile. 
 
 * " Ah ! Master Ascham !" answered the girl, with a blush aris- 
 ing for a moment to her fair cheeks and brow, lifting her finger 
 in half playful reproof; and then she added with, a smile, " but 
 Guilford Dudley is not Plato, father ; and though his company 
 is very pleasant, I doubt if from his converse I should reap so 
 much good, excellent though it be and gentle, as from this 
 wondrous Phsedon." 
 
 "You are wise, daughter, excellent wise and good, for one 
 of your years, so gay of wont, and thoughtless," replied the old 
 man, with something of a sigh breathed from a smiling lip ; 
 for the aged wise are apt to associate, even the least superstitious 
 of them, something, I know not what, of premature decay with 
 
 10* 
 
210 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 early wisdom. " It is my fervent prayer that your maturity be 
 no less happy than your youth is promising." 
 
 " Why should it not be happy, father !" she replied. " I 
 am most happy now. All are so kind and affectionate to me ; 
 and then " 
 
 " And then what, fair daughter ?" 
 
 Again the faint blush rose to her cheek for an instant ; but 
 she answered in an unfaltering and clear tone of her silver voice 
 — " I was thinking of him, Master Ascham." She spoke of 
 her youthful lord, to whom she had been so lately wedded. 
 " My life, hitherto, has been but one long, long spring day of 
 unmixed sweetness, without one cloud to overshadow it, one 
 shower to drown its rosebuds." 
 
 " God grant, in his goodness," said the old man solemnly, 
 " that your life henceforth, my sweet daughter, may advance 
 into the blush and flower of perfect summer, and decline, peaceful 
 as an autumn sunset, dying away in a flood of heavenly glory." 
 
 u Amen ! good Master Ascham. But you seem sad to-night ; 
 it is not, I trust, that you have any cause for melancholy ?" 
 
 " It is not melancholy ; it is only thought, my daughter ; the 
 old are wont to grow more thoughtful, as they* have the less 
 hold on earth, and the more hope, we will trust, of heaven. 
 But of a truth — for why should I deceive you ? — I have heard 
 tidings that in some sort disquiet me ; that make me thought- 
 ful, yet glad withal at finding you so studious and so wise ; that 
 make me hope you will 'know how to hold fast of your philoso- 
 phy." 
 
 " What are your tidings, father ?" she inquired timidly, yet 
 eagerly withal — for there was something in his manner that 
 almost alarmed her, while at the same time it excited all her 
 woman's wonder. 
 
 " The King is dead, Jane." 
 
JANE GREY AND GUILFORD DUDLEY. 211 
 
 " Dead ! Gentle Ed ward dead ! My excellent good, cousin 
 dead ! So virtuous, so wise for his youth ; so young for his wis- 
 dom ! Oh, father, but this is very, very sad. Oh, father, I 
 have lost a friend." 
 
 " Pray God, you ne'er may feel the loss of one." 
 
 But she scarce heard his words, fpr, her short and broken 
 ejaculations ended, she had bowed her gentle head upon her 
 knees, and was weeping silently, with the big heavy tears trick- 
 ling through the slender fingers in which her face was buried ; 
 and while she wept, the kind grave tutor left the apartment, to 
 bear the sad news of her half brother's death to his own im- 
 mediate charge, the Princess Elizabeth, thereafter the great 
 woman-king of England ; and when she raised her eyes again, 
 the Lady Jane Grey was alone with her sorrow. 
 
 Yes, fair and gentle reader — if any of the fair and gentle deign 
 to lend an ear to a too sad and too true tale — she, whom you 
 have seen seeking amusement while her gay comrades were re- 
 joicing in their festive sports of old, not in the pages of the last 
 new novel, but in the grand original of the old Greek philoso- 
 pher, was not less fair than thou, and not less youthful ; of no- 
 bler birth than thine, for hers was royal ; like thee, the cyno- 
 sure of all eyes, the beloved of all beholders ; and yet she read 
 Plato in the original Greek, rose at six in the morning, and 
 went to rest not long after the birds flew to their roosts ; and 
 of a certainty would have blushed deeper than she ever did 
 blush, had she beheld revealed the modern mysteries of the 
 fashionable waltz, or the more fashionable Redowa polka. She 
 was Jane Grey, at that instant, by the letters- patent of King 
 Edward, granted on his death-bed, Queen of England. Alas ! 
 for her, the beautiful, the innocent, the young — forced by the 
 rude ambition of her husband's kinsmen from the sweet priva- 
 cies, to her sp lovely and delicious, into the thorny seat of Eng- 
 
212 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 land's royalty. Yes ! though she knew it not, nor surely 
 wished it, even at that hour, while she was weeping the un- 
 timely death of her young cousin, Jane Grey was England's 
 queen. 
 
 It must be remembered in this place that Henry VIII., short- 
 ly before his death, declared his only son his successor, under 
 the title of Edward VI., under the government of a council, one 
 of whom was Dudley, Viscount Lisle, the Admiral of England, 
 agreeably to the destination of Parliament. After Edward and 
 his heirs, the Lady Mary was named first, and the Lady Eliza- 
 beth second, in order of succession, with this proviso, that if 
 either should marry without the consent of the council, she 
 should forfeit the crown for herself and her posterity. Failing 
 the heirs of his own body, he passed over the heirs of his eld- 
 est sister, the Queen of Scots, in accordance with an act of par- 
 liament, and settled the succession on Frances Brandon, Mar- 
 chioness of Dorset, eldest daughter of his second sister the 
 French queen, and, after her, on Eleanor, Countess of Cumber- 
 land, her second danghter. But he subjoined that, after these, 
 the crown should descend to the lawful heirs, thus leaving it 
 open to a question, and thence to a contest, whether he meant 
 thereby entirely to exclude the Scottish line, who were actually 
 the next heirs before, not after, the house of Suffolk. 
 
 By a succession of events, intrigues, and acts of violence and 
 iniquity, which do not of right belong to this sketch, Dudley, 
 Viscount Lisle, the son of that Dudley who, with Sir Richard 
 Empson, was executed in the first year of Henry VIII. for ex- 
 tortion during the reign of his father, afterwards created Earl 
 of Warwick, gradually undermined and finally overthrew the 
 protector, Somerset, who ultimately perished on the scaffold, 
 himself succeeding to his dignity and office under the title of 
 Duke of Northumberland. That title he obtained, together 
 
JANE GREY AND GUILFORD DUDLEY. 213 
 
 with all the great estates of the Percy family in the north, 
 which was still the most warlike part of England, by grant 
 from the young king ; as the late Earl of Northumberland hav- 
 ing died without issue, and his brother, Sir Thomas Percy, hav- 
 ing been attainted for his share in the Yorkshire insurrection 
 during the reign of Henry, the title was now extinct, and the 
 lands were vested in the crown. This done he proceeded, be- 
 ing a man of extraordinary capacity and ability, both for peace 
 and war, and of ambition not inferior to his parts, on his course 
 of aggrandizement, by persuading the new Duke and Duchess 
 of Suffolk to give their daughter, the Lady Jane Grey, who 
 was the next of kin, and heiress to the Marchioness of Dorset, 
 in marriage to his fourth son, the Lord Dudley Guilford. 
 Thereafter he negotiated a marriage, whereby to strengthen him- 
 self by further great alliance, between Catharine m Grey, Jane's 
 younger sister, and Lord Herbert, eldest son of the Earl of Pem- 
 broke, giving at the same time his own daughter in marriage 
 to Lord Hastings, eldest son of the Earl of Huntingdon. These 
 marriages being celebrated with extraordinary pomp and splen- 
 dor, while the young king was languishing and like to die, 
 moved extreme indignation among the people at large, who 
 hated Northumberland in proportion as they had loved the re- 
 gent, Somerset, whom he had caused to be put to death, as well 
 as for his intolerable haughtiness and overbearing pride. 
 
 About this time Edward VI., a prince of the most amiable 
 disposition, and by no means without parts, whose only fault 
 was something of intolerance towards the Catholics, and an 
 overleaning to ultra Protestants or puritanic doctrines, fell ill, 
 being seized with a cough which, yielding to neither regimen 
 nor medicines, speedily degenerated into consumption. 
 
 So soon as this fact came to the knowledge of Northumber- 
 land, he applied himself forthwith to the execution of his plans 
 
214 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 with renewed vigor. He took care that none but his own 
 creatures should be about the person of the king, and, paying 
 him constant visits, under pretence of great solicitude for his 
 health, he found it easy to work upon his religious feelings, and 
 to create much alarm in his mind concerning the safety of the 
 Protestant Church, should so bigoted a Catholic as the Lady 
 Mary was known to be succeed to the throne of England. 
 
 Mary, he represented, was, moreover, illegitimate, her mother's 
 marriage having been pronounced incestuous and null. This 
 he was easily induced to believe in, and he readily acquiesced in 
 depriving her of. her rights in succession : but it was far more 
 difficult to bring him to pass over the Lady Elizabeth, to whom 
 he was tenderly and sincerely attached, and against whom no 
 such cause of exclusion existed, she being, no less than himself, 
 a sincere, though scarcely zealous, Protestant. 
 
 Means were at length found, however, by which to convince 
 him that both sisters having been alike pronounced by act of 
 Parliament illegitimate, it was not possible to exclude the one 
 to the preference of the other on that plea, since the act of ille- 
 gitimacy was a bar against both in the same degree, nor could 
 be valid in the one case and void in the other. On these 
 grounds letters patent were granted by the king, setting aside 
 both his sisters of the half blood as illegitimate, and settling 
 the succession on the Lady Jane and the heirs of her body after 
 his demise. 
 
 Although the council, who were all creatures of Northum- 
 berland, easily assented to this iniquitous proceeding, it was 
 not without great difficulty, nor until a special commission was 
 passed by the king and council commanding them to do so, 
 and a free pardon granted them in case they should incur of- 
 fence by their compliance, that the judges would draw a new 
 patent of settlement of the crown. When the patent was 
 
JANE GREY AND GUILFORD DUDLEY. 215 
 
 brought to the chancellor, the Bishop of Ely, he refused pe- 
 remptorily to affix the great seal thereunto, unless it should be 
 previously signed by all the judges ; and though the others finally 
 assented, after much violence and menace from Northumberland, 
 Sir James Hales, though a zealous protestant, could not be 
 brought to do so. In like manner, when the privy councillors 
 were called upon to sign, Cranmer resisted long, and at last 
 yielded only to the earnest and pathetic entreaties of the youth- 
 ful king. 
 
 Thus, in spite of the late king's will ; in spite of act of par- 
 liament ; in spite of the laws fundamental of the land ; against 
 the acknowledged order of hereditary succession ; against all 
 rule and precedent, the two daughters of the late king, Mary 
 and Elizabeth, were arbitrarily and illegally set aside, and the 
 crown settled on the heirs of the Duchess of Suffolk ; for she 
 herself, though living, waived the perilous dignity in favor of 
 her daughters, the ladies Jane and Catharine Grey, and their 
 posterity. 
 
 And thus, although neither of them knew it then, when 
 Roger Asci^m left her presence, the Lady Jane was de facto 
 queen of England. 
 
 What follows is sad history. On the following morning, after 
 a fruitless effort to entrap the princesses Mary and Elizabeth, in 
 which, had he succeeded, to judge of the unscrupulous nature 
 and proceedings of this bold bad man, their tenure even of the 
 barren right of succession would have been but of short dura- 
 tion, Northumberland waited on the Lady Jane, accompanied 
 by the Duke of Suffolk, the Earl of Pembroke, and others of 
 their partisans, and tendered to her their allegiance with all the 
 respect and honor due to a sovereign prince. 
 
 It was with equal grief and astonishment that the amiable 
 
216 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 and lovely girl learned, for the first time, the plots which had 
 been entered into, and that too successfully, in her behalf. 
 
 Of the same age with Edward, she had been his friend, his 
 companion, and his fellow student; had acquired with him, and 
 even more than he, a perfect and familiar acquaintance with the 
 Greek and Eoman classics, reading them fluently in the origi- 
 nal, and also with the modern languages, in several of which 
 she conversed as easily as in the vernacular. Her favorite 
 amusement was the pursuit of elegant and graceful letters ; her 
 preferred mode of life was retirement — with her lord, to whom 
 she had given not her hand only, but her whole heart, with all 
 its rich store of delicate and feminine attachments — in some se- 
 questered rural residence, where they might live alone with na- 
 ture and their books, 
 
 " The world forgetting, of the world forgot." 
 
 To such a mind, rarely endowed with talents and attainments, 
 and possessed wholly by such sentiments and tastes, it needs 
 not to say that the splendid glare of courts, the perilous ways 
 of ambition, and the thorns which to a proverb lujjk within the 
 circle of the diadem, offered no pleasure, no allurement. 
 
 Her affection, moreover, to the late king, and her regard for 
 the Princess Elizabeth, led her to consider even a lawful occu- 
 pation of the throne as an act of ingratitude, if not treason. 
 
 She wept, when the crown was offered to her, even more bit- 
 terly than she had wept on hearing of the death of Edward ; 
 for those were tears of sorrow and sisterly affection — these were 
 in some sort tears of remorse, in some sort of sad and dark fore- 
 boding. She argued earnestly, though gently — for all her cha- 
 racter was of gentleness — against her own elevation tp the pe- 
 rilous height of royalty. She pleaded the superior right of the 
 two princesses to the crown ; expressed her conviction of the 
 
JANE GREY AND GUILFORD DUDLEY. 21 7 
 
 danger of embarking on an enterprise so criminal and danger- 
 ous ; and at length, when urged to the point, decidedly refused 
 to accept the proffered honor. In vain Northumberland argued 
 and insisted ; nay, he almost threatened, yet could he not pre- 
 vail ; nor was it until the entreaties and caresses of her young 
 husband, whose ambition, it would seem, was dazzled by the 
 prospect of the crown matrimonial, that she, at length, reluc- 
 tantly and tearfully, and with many hesitations and forebodings, 
 consented to ascend that fatal eminence. 
 
 " It was then usual," says Hume, "for the kings of England, 
 after their accession, to pass the first days in the Tower ; and 
 Northumberland immediately conducted thither the new sove- 
 reign. All the councillors were obliged to attend her to that 
 fortress ; and by this means became, in reality, prisoners in the 
 hands of Northumberland, whose will they were necessitated to 
 obey. Orders were given by the council to proclaim Jane 
 throughout the kingdom ; but these orders were executed only 
 in London, and the neighborhood. No applause followed ; the 
 people heard the proclamation with silence and concern ; some 
 even expressed their scorn and contempt." 
 
 Of such a commencement it required no prophet's eye to 
 discern the disastrous conclusion. The fact appears to have 
 been, that as yet the mass of the people comparatively cared 
 but little about religious matters ; that the respect and singular 
 affection for Henry VIII., which had always dwelt in the popu- 
 lar breast, was by no means extinguished ; and that the hatred 
 against the Dudleys, on account of the execution of the Sey- 
 mours, was still paramount. Moreover, although the masses 
 were certainly disposed to regard the marriage between Henry 
 VIII. and Catharine of Aragon as unlawful, they were by no 
 means prepared to consider the issue of that marriage illegiti- 
 mate, seeing that it had been entered into under the authority 
 
218 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 of the church, and without suspicion of wrong by the parties. 
 Otk all sides, therefore, the gentry and nobility of Suffolk, 
 with their servants and retainers, flocked to the standard of 
 Mary in Suffolk, whither she had fled for refuge on the first in- 
 telligence of the conspiracy. Ere long, the Earl of Huntingdon, 
 who had been sent by the council to make levies for the Lady 
 Jane in Buckinghamshire, carried his forces over to Mary ; 
 while the very fleet which Northumberland dispatched to cruise 
 on the coast of Suffolk, deserting him, sailed into Yarmouth, 
 and declared for the queen dejure. 
 
 Northumberland himself, when, after in the first instance 
 sending out Suffolk to command the forces, doubting his capa- 
 city to lead them, he marched forth in person, observed the su- 
 pineness, if not the disaffection of the people, and commented 
 on it to the Lord Grey : " Many," he said, " come out to look 
 upon us ; but I find not one who cries ' God speed you I' " 
 
 His forebodings were right speedily proved true ; for, finding 
 himself unequal to cope with Mary in the field, and sending in 
 to the councillors for reinforcements, those gentlemen, with Pem- 
 broke at their head, obtaining egress from the Tower, as if to 
 obey their orders, at once 'shook off and denounced his usurped 
 power, unsheathed their swords for Mary Tudor, and proclaimed 
 her in the midst of great applause from the people. 
 
 Suffolk, who commanded in the Tower for the Lady Jane, at 
 once laid down his arms, and gave up the keys ; while the mes- 
 sengers who were sent off with orders to command Northumber- 
 land to forbear further resistance, which must perforce be fruit- 
 less, found that he had already disbanded his followers, and pro- 
 claimed Queen Mary, although too late to save his head. 
 Throughout the country, as Mary approached the metropolis, 
 she was greeted with general, almost unanimous loyalty ; and 
 before entering the gates was joined by her sister Elizabeth, at 
 
JANE GREY AND GUILFORD DUDLEY. 219 
 
 the head of a thousand horse, which she had raised to act 
 against the usurper ; thus giving evidence in her girlhood of 
 what she would do in after years for the protection of her throne, 
 and her own country's freedom, in a more desperate struggle 
 and against a far mightier foe. 
 
 All the conspirators and abettors in this desperate act of trea- 
 son were of course arrested, brought to trial, and sentenced ; 
 and among them, innocent and unhappy children — mere tools 
 and victims of ambitious traitors, Jane Grey and Guilford Dud- 
 ley. In the commencement of her reign, however, Mary affect- 
 ed, if she were not really inclined to, a clemency, which, it is 
 very certain, nothing in her latter career showed to be natural 
 or congenial to her hard, cold, cruel nature. 
 
 None suffered, at that time, save those whom no modern 
 casuistry or apologetic clemency could deny to be justly slain — 
 Northumberland, the arch mover and executor of the plot, and 
 his subordinates, Sir Thomas Palmer and Sir John Gates. No 
 more of slaughter, at this time, was the consequence of this ill- 
 timed and absurd,, yet at the same time most iniquitous and 
 desperate, conspiracy. 
 
 Dudley and the Lady Jane, being neither of them as yet 
 seventeen, and being evidently and before all eyes guiltless, so 
 far as intent of all complicity in the treason, it would not have 
 been politic in any case to have them brought to the scaffold. 
 Their youth, their innocence, their beauty, alike conciliated the 
 people in their favor, and to have brought them to judgment 
 then would probably have been to jeopard all the vantage-ground 
 won, and perhaps to risk a second outbreak in the name of 
 Jane Grey. 
 
 But Mary knew not how to pardon ; and, though they were 
 not put to death, they were committed to the Tower, that " den 
 of drunkards with the blood of princes" — that dungeon-keep, 
 
220 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 wherein so many good, so many wise, so many noble, and so 
 many, great of the sons of men, had been immured for years, 
 to glut the scaffold with their gore. 
 
 How they passed the weary months which ensued is covered 
 with a gloom impalpable, inscrutable, though there is too much 
 reason to believe that they were not allowed even the poor con- 
 solation of sharing the sorrows which would have been alle- 
 viated by participation. 
 
 But, like all other human things, those months came to an 
 end, and brought to an end likewise the sorrows of that bright 
 and fair young couple. 
 
 On the publication of the articles of marriage between Mary 
 of England and Philip of Spain, a violent insurrection broke 
 out in several parts of England, and had any foreign prince 
 supported the insurgents with his countenance, it is probable 
 that she would have lost her kingdom. As it was, although 
 fbr a short time Mary was all but overtaken and surprised by 
 her rebels, it was in the end suppressed with great ease, and 
 avenged by merciless and bloody executions. , For Mary, now for 
 the first time giving free scope to her natural disposition, re- 
 velled in blood and cruelty. Could she by any means have 
 effected it, she would have sent her sister Elizabeth to the scaf- 
 fold ; but, as she was expressly acquitted by the dying declara- 
 tion of Wyatt, the chief of the insurgents, she concentrated 
 her bloody rage on the heads of Jane and Dudley. No further 
 trial was needed, the old sentence being still on record and in 
 force. Warning was sent to the Lady Jane that she must now 
 prepare for death, a fate which she had long expected tacitly, 
 and which — in the consciousness of innocence and the weari- 
 ness of life — she perhaps desired as a boon, rather than dreaded 
 as a penalty. To the arguments of the Catholic divines with 
 which Mary's zeal assailed her last moments — and I believe this 
 
JANE GREY AND GUILFORD DUDLEY. 221 
 
 zeal may be regarded as sincere, not simulated — she replied 
 firmly and consistently in defence of her own religion ; and 
 after this she wrote a letter to her sister in the Greek tongue, 
 encouraging her to hold fast to her faith in every trial, and to 
 maintain, in every fortune, a like steady perseverance. 
 
 When the day of her execution arrived, her husband sent to 
 request a parting interview, which she declined, informing him 
 that the tenderness of their parting would overcome the fortitnde 
 of both ; while their separation would be but for a moment. 
 
 She even stood at. her window and watched to see him led 
 forth to execution, when she waved to him a parting token, and 
 then awaited calmly the return of the cart with Guilford's 
 headless body ; for, though it had been at first intended that 
 both should suffer together on one scaffold on Tower Hill, it 
 was deemed prudent to avoid the risk of stimulating the com- 
 passion of the people for their innocence, and youth, and beauty, 
 into fury for their unmerited judicial murder, and it was resol- 
 ved that they should suffer singly within the precincts of that 
 bloody building. 
 
 When his body was brought back, and her turn had come, 
 she expressed herself but the more strengthened by the reports 
 of the constancy with which he had met his doom, and de- 
 scended the dark stairway which led, not metaphorically, to the 
 grave, not bravely but cheerfully, as though she longed to join 
 him who had gone before on the dark path which leads to life 
 immortal, whether for weal or woe eternal. 
 
 To the constable of the Tower, who asked her for " some 
 small present which he might preserve as an everlasting remem- 
 brance," she gave her table-book, containing the last words she 
 should ever write — three sentences in Greek, Latin, and English, 
 which she had just inscribed therein on seeing the headless 
 corpse of her loved lord. 
 
222 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 When she reached the scaffold, she delivered a short speech, 
 taking the whole blame on herself, without one word of re- 
 proach or complaint against the needless cruelty of her doom '; 
 admitting that she had erred against the laws of her land, and 
 declaring that she was willing to make satisfaction to them, 
 but averring that she had sinned not in grasping too greedily 
 the crown, but in not refusing it more steadfastly. Filial obe- 
 dience and reverence to her parents, she said, acting on youth 
 and ignorance, and by no means ambition, had brought her to. 
 this pass. And she concluded by stating that she hoped the 
 story of her fate might prove useful to the world, by proving 
 that innocence itself is no excuse for misdeeds, if they be inju- 
 rious to the commonwealth. Then, causing herself to be dis- 
 robed by her women, she submitted herself with a serene coun- 
 tenance to the blow of the executioner. 
 
 She died, yet lives for ever — lives in the memories and affec- 
 tions of her countrymen — lives, doubtless, among the saints of 
 heaven in everlasting glory : for, if there was ever yet a woman 
 who was almost a saint, while on this earth, that woman was 
 Jane Grey. 
 
Clijototlj tfute k Jffiinj Stuart 
 
 1568. 
 
ELIZABETH TUDOR AND MART STUART. 
 
 The greatest and most fortunate of queens — the loveliest and 
 most hapless of women.. They might have been friends and 
 sisters, as they were sister queens of one fair island, then, for 
 the last time, divided ; fortune and fate, and that worst curse of 
 sovereigns as of nations, religious dissension, rendered them ene- 
 mies ; and, as in such case ever must be, the weaker of the two 
 was shipwrecked in the strife. They were, moreover, nearly 
 akin ; and this, which should have been a source of amity and 
 good will, was, on the contrary, the cause of rivalry, hostility, 
 suspicion, and finally of the death of one, and of a dark blot 
 on the escutcheon of the other. 
 
 Elizabeth, the second daughter of the most arbitrary and 
 absolute king who ever sat upon the throne of England, Henry 
 VIII., and of his favorite wife, who was the people's favorite 
 also, ascended the throne of England — after the successive deaths 
 of her brother Edward VI., a weak minor, and her elder sister 
 Mary, a hard-hearted bigot, whose memory is to this day a re- 
 proach to England and accursed of her people — amidst the 
 general acclamations and sincere delight of all classes. Her 
 accession had been long looked forward to as the oil that was to 
 assuage the troubled sea of contending factions, the sweet balm 
 that was to heal the wounds of persecution. She found a peo- 
 
 11 
 
226 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 pie nearly, if not absolutely, united; for the barbarities of 
 Mary, while they had but increased the zeal, and added the 
 prestige of martyrdom to the cause of the protestants, had 
 alienated the moderate catholics; and, indeed, disgusted all 
 classes of Englishmen, with whom religious toleration, and even 
 indifference, had been a more usual phase of the public senti- 
 ment than anything leaning towards cruelty or coercion. Thus, 
 both religious parties greeted her advent to the throne, and 
 that sincerely ; for the catholics apprehended, as a body, no 
 severe retaliation from the hands of a princess known to be mo- 
 derate and politic, rather than splenetic and rash ; and the pro- 
 testants were too happy at obtaining quiet, peace, and tolera- 
 tion, to desire in their turn to become persecutors. Compas- 
 sion, moreover, was a further sentiment in her favor ; for she 
 had conducted herself with rare prudence du ring her sister's 
 reign ; and the imminent and instant peril in which she lived 
 until Mary's death had rendered her an object of general sym- 
 pathy, even among the catholic party. 
 
 She came to the throne at the age of twenty-six years, the 
 whole of which time she had passed in a subordinate, always 
 humiliating, and often dangerous, position. No adulation of 
 courtiers, no loud lip-loyalty of shouting thousands, had foster- 
 ed her youthful mind's worst passions. Neglected, scorned as 
 illegitimate, imperilled as heretic, she had lived with her studies, 
 had communed with herself and the world of the mighty dead, 
 more than with modern men or manners. Her tutor had been 
 the famous Roger Ascham ; and, although the education which 
 he bestowed upon her was, of a surety, what we should now 
 deem better suited for the male than for the female sex, it can- 
 not be denied that it was such as befitted one who was to fill 
 the place of a king in England, and to contend against the 
 
ELIZABETH TUDOR AND MARY STUART. 227 
 
 greatest powers and and princes of Europe for her own crown 
 and her country's liberties. 
 
 Already, when she climbed the steps of that proud throne, 
 had she learned one mighty lesson, had proved herself capable 
 of one grand triumph : major adversis* she had shown herself 
 already ; the harder task lay yet behind, to exhibit herself, as 
 so few have done of mortals, par eecundis.-* 
 
 In person she was tall, well formed, and majestic rather than 
 graceful in carriage and demeanor; her features, which it 
 were impossible to call handsome, were still striking, from 
 the great intelligence and power of mind which they evinced ; 
 and although her hair was, in truth, of that hue which men 
 call red, there were not wanting poets — according to Homer, 
 they should have been gods — to celebrate it in immortal verse 
 as golden. To conclude, it may be said that Elizabeth, even as 
 a private woman, would probably, in any society, have attracted 
 attention by the graces of her person only ; although, assuredly, 
 no one in his senses would have dreamed of calling her beauti- 
 ful, or of choosing her as his wife for her personal or mental 
 loveliness. Her character is a strange one ; and one especially, 
 that cannot be summed up in a sentence. In order to attempt 
 to do so, I must be paradoxical, and assert that, in her virtues 
 she was purely masculine, and feminine only in her vices. Of 
 male virtues she lacked not one ; of female virtues she scarce 
 possessed any. She had courage, fortitude, patience, shrewd- 
 ness, sagacity ; was not without a sort of lion-like generosity, 
 and would not have deserted a friend, or betrayed her county, 
 to be the winner of eternal empire. Gentleness, softness, ten- 
 derness, compassion, mercy, sympathy — of these words she 
 scarce seems to have known the meaning. Dependence, trust, 
 reliance, save in herself and her own matchless powers, she 
 
 * Superior to adversity. f Equal to prosperity. 
 
228 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 knew not. Yet, of the smaller feminine vices, she had full 
 measure and overflowing. Vain as the silliest coquette that 
 flirts and languishes her hour in any modern ball-room ; capri- 
 cious as the moon, and yet more changeful ; irascible as the 
 Dead Sea; jealous, exacting, amorous at once and cold; fawning 
 with the cat's velvet touch, and anon scathing with the tiger's 
 unsheathed talons. 
 
 Her passions were her armory — fatal to others, powerless against 
 herself. Her love of power was her ruling masculine propen- 
 sity. To it, manlike, she sacrificed affection, the love of progeny, 
 the delights of home ; yet womanlike, she pined for them, even 
 while she sacrificed them ; and, doubly womanlike, she hated 
 all those who adopted and enjoyed them ; and avenged upon 
 more than one of her best servants his entering on the to her 
 forbidden pleasures of the married life, with a malignity and 
 spite that, on any other grounds, are inexplicable. As a man 
 she had been, perhaps, the greatest who ever trod the earth ; 
 for, as I have said, all her vices, all her crimes, arose from the 
 natural strugglings and eruptions of a feminine nature, smother- 
 ed beneath the iron will, and conquered by the indomitable 
 ambition, of a masculine mind. Yet that feminine nature was 
 ineradicable still, and was only the more distorted and depraved 
 as it was wrested the further from its true and legitimate direc- 
 tion. 
 
 As a woman, in private life, had she closely resembled what 
 she was in public, she had been simply hateful, odious, and con- 
 temptible ; but probably she had not been such. As it is, the 
 fairest way of judging her appears to be, as Hume has observed 
 with his usual shrewdness, to consider her simply as a person 
 of strong common sense, placed in authority over a great nation 
 in very dangerous times, and doing her duty to that nation 
 manfully always, and, in the main, honestly and truly ; but, by 
 
ELIZABETH TUDOR AND MARY STUART. 229 
 
 the very vis and vigor with which she devoted herself to pub- 
 lic, unfitting herself for private life ; and therefore, in her pri- 
 vate relations, unamiable, imperious, cruel, false, capricious, and 
 a tyrant unto death. 
 
 Nursed, from her cradle to her womanhood, in the rough 
 arms of adversity, she was thenceforth to her death the child 
 of authority and fortune. Yet did she live, did she die happy ? 
 
 Her rival, Mary, was in all respects nearly her opposite. Her 
 father, James V., of Scotland, was the son of that unhappy 
 James IV. who fell at Flodden, and Margaret, the eldest sister 
 of Henry VOL, and therefore was the first cousin of Elizabeth. 
 He espoused the Duchess of Longueville, the sister of the great 
 Due de Guise, and the others of that powerful and almost regal 
 house, which during so many reigns held the reins of the French 
 government ; and, after a disturbed and unhappy reign, being 
 defeated, through the disaffection of his nobles, at the battle of 
 Solway, by a mere handful of English spears, fell into a hope- 
 less languor and decline, so that his life was despaired of. At 
 this sad juncture, news was brought to him, he then having no 
 living issue, that his queen was safely delivered ; whereon he 
 asked, was it a male or a female child ? and, being informed 
 that it was the latter, he turned his face to the wall, exclaiming 
 as it is said, " The crown cam' wi' a lassie, and it will awa' wi' 
 a lassie ;" and in a few days expired, leaving those last pro- 
 phetic words as a sad legacy to his infant heiress. 
 
 No sooner was James dead than, precisely as he expected, 
 Henry determined on annexing Scotland to the English crown 
 as an appanage, by means of a marriage between his young son 
 Edward and the infant princess ; and, at first, fortune seemed 
 completely to favor his plans. By means of the Scottish nobles 
 many .of whom, and of high rank, had fallen into his hands at 
 the disastrous rout of Solway, he succeeded in negotiating this 
 
230 PERSONS AND PICTURES. * 
 
 marriage. The Cardinal Primate of Scotland, Beaton, who 
 had, it is said, forged a will in the name of the late king, ap. 
 pointing himself regent, with three other nobles, during Queen 
 Mary's minority, was overpowered and committed to the cus- 
 tody of Lord Seton ; while James Hamilton, Earl of Arran, 
 was declared governor. It was thereafter agreed that the queen 
 should remain in Scotland until she should reach the age of ten , 
 when she should be sent to England to be educated and be- 
 trothed to the Prince of Wales. Six hostages were to be 
 delivered to Henry for the faithful performance of this con- 
 tract, and it was stipulated that Scotland, notwithstanding its 
 union with England, should retain all its own laws and privileges. 
 
 Well had it been for the young princess, well for her native 
 land, well for the world at large, had that contract held good ! 
 Long years of intestine strife — the curse of religious factions 
 rabidly warring amid the feuds of hostile houses, the savage 
 bickerings of rival clans, the fierce and persecuting zeal of ig- 
 norant and intolerant preachers, had been spared to Scotland ; 
 nay, even to England, it may be, the miseries and civil wars, 
 induced by the accession of the hapless and imbecile house of 
 Stuart, in its most odious and imbecile member, might have 
 passed over ; and, assuredly, that infant queen had escaped a 
 life of misery, a death of horror. 
 
 Scotland was, however, at this time altogether catholic ; the 
 reformation, which soon afterwards outstripped with rampant 
 strides its progress in the neighboring kingdom, taking the hard 
 stern rule of Calvin, instead of the mild form of Lutheran dis- 
 sent, had scarcely drawn as yet to any head. Naturally, 
 therefore, the pope and the whole of catholic Europe, fearful 
 of the spread of Henry's recent heresy, were willing to go every 
 length te preserve Scotland to the discipline of the true church. 
 Beaton escaped from custody — the ecclesiastics lent him all their 
 
ELIZABETH TUDOR AND MARY STUART. 231 
 
 power ; the hereditary jealousy of England was revived among 
 the martial Scottish nobles ; the hostages were denied, although 
 the captive nobles had been suffered to go free on their parole 
 of honor, which they all broke, with one honorable exception, 
 Kennedy, Earl of Cassilis, who, true to his word, returned and 
 surrendered himself to Henry — an honorable action, honorably 
 rewarded by that monarch, who at once set him free without 
 condition. Enraged beyond all bonds of moderation by this 
 duplicity, Henry threw himself into the arms of the emperor, 
 declared war at once on Francis and on Scotland, and waged it 
 unremittingly, but with varied success, during the remainder of 
 his life. 
 
 After Henry's decease, and the accession of Edward, the Pro- 
 tector Somerset prosecuted the Scottish war with such ability 
 and success that, after the victory of Pinkie Cleugh, one of the 
 most disastrous to the Scottish ever fought on the soil of Scot- 
 land, it was perceived at once, by the queen dowager and the 
 French party, that the only safety for their cause lay in trans- 
 porting the young queen to France. Even the rival faction was 
 brought to accede to this plan, by the consideration that the 
 presence of the queen was the real cause of the English. war, 
 and by the natural animosity created among the warlike and 
 high-spirited nobles, by the devastating and cruel war which 
 raged incessantly on the frontiers. When little more than six 
 years old, then, the queen was conveyed by Villegaignon, with 
 four galleys under his command, to France, where she was at 
 once betrothed to the dauphin, son of Henry H., of France, and 
 Catharine de Medicis — afterwards, for a short space, Francis H. 
 
 This was the commencement — this, in truth, the cause, of 
 all her subsequent misfortunes, of all her crimes, of all her sor- 
 rows, of her long imprisonment, and of her miserable death. A 
 queen of Scotland, she was brought up from her earliest child- 
 
232 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 hood, to all intents and purposes, a French woman. Queen of 
 a country which, ere she returned to dwell in it, and nominally 
 to rule it, had become obstinately, bigotedly, zealously, I might 
 almost say fiercely, calvinistic, she was brought up, from her 
 e arliest childhood, an ultra catholic — a catholic of the school 
 and house most detested by the protestants throughout Europe, 
 " the bloody stock," as the covenanters termed it, " of the ac- 
 cursed Guises." Queen of a country whose inhabitants were, 
 by their physical nature, grave, stern, solemn, precise, and whom 
 the new tenets rendered surly and morose, she was brought up, 
 from her earliest childhood, a queen, as it were, of love and 
 beauty, a creature of levity and mirth, a being to whom music 
 and minstrelsy, the dance, the pageant, the carousal, and the 
 tournament — things abominable and rank in the nostrils of her 
 puritanic lieges — were as the breath of life. Last, and not least, 
 queen of a country the most rigidly moral in Europe, except in 
 the article of feudal homicide and vengeful bloodshedding, she 
 was brought up in a land where to love^ar amours was scarce- 
 ly held dishonorable to either sex ; where poisoning, in the most 
 artful and diabolical methods, was an everyday occurrence; 
 where, in a word, adultery and murder were the rules, and not 
 the exceptions of society. 
 
 On this period I have been compelled to dwell, to the detri- 
 ment, I am aware, of the picturesqueness of my narrative ; for 
 it is, if I mistake not, the clue and the key to all that follows. 
 
 On the accession of Elizabeth to the crown of England, Mary, 
 then but sixteen years of age, was already married to Francis, 
 the dauphin of France ; and, failing Elizabeth and her issue, 
 was next in true line of blood, as grand-daughter of Margaret, 
 Henry VIII.'s eldest sister ; although that wilful and capricious 
 monarch had passed their house in his testament, and settled 
 the succession on his second sister's posterity. And here it 
 
ELIZABETH TUDOR AND MARY STUART. 233 
 
 must be remembered that, in one of his wicked freaks, Henry 
 had caused Elizabeth to be declared, by act of parliament, ille- 
 gitimate — and in his unaccountable caprice, though he after- 
 wards caused the succession to be entailed on her after Edward 
 and Mary, he never would permit the repeal of the act of ille- 
 gitimacy. 
 
 Consequently, Elizabeth being illegitimate, Mary was, by the 
 strict letter, de jure queen of England. And on this pretext, 
 Henry II., at the instigation of the Guises, forced his son and 
 Mary, nothing loth, to assume both the arms and title of king 
 and queen of England. A woman so jealous, and a sovereign 
 so shrewd, as Elizabeth, was not to be misled or deluded as to 
 the object of such a measure. She knew that this pretension 
 was intended, on opportunity, to be converted into a challenge 
 of her legitimacy and title to her crown. 
 
 From that moment she was seized with the keenest jealousy 
 against Mary ; the jealousy of a queen, and of a woman, wronged 
 in the tenderest point, in either quality — her crown disputed, and 
 her honorable birth denied. To this were also added the true 
 small woman's jealousy and spite against a woman fairer, more 
 beloved, more graceful. For Mary was, indeed, lovely beyond 
 the poet's, painter's, sculptor's dream of loveliness ; the perfect 
 symmetry of form, and stature, the swanlike curve of the long 
 slender neck, the inimitable features — and yet by Hans Holbein 
 how admirably imitated — the smooth expanse of the bland fore- 
 head, the pencilled curve of the dark brows, the melting lustre of 
 the deep hazel eyes, the luxuriance of the rich auburn tresses, are 
 as familiar to us all, of this distant day, as though we had our- 
 selves beheld them — and, to this hour, at the mere name of 
 Mary Stuart, not a man's heart, who has a touch of romance 
 or chivalry within him, but beats something quicker, as if he 
 were in the very presence, and breathing the very atmosphere, 
 
 11* 
 
234 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 of superhuman beauty. And these glorious gifts ; these, too, 
 were Mary's enemies — in the end were, perhaps, her judges , 
 executioners. 
 
 But my limits warn me that I must not linger by the way. 
 Henry II. fell, in a tournament, by a chance thrust of the splin- 
 tered truncheon of a lance in the hand of Montgomery ; and 
 Francis II. was, for a little space, the King of France, and Mary 
 was his queen, and, for that little space, the happiest of the 
 happy. But still, alas ! for her, she quartered the three English 
 Lions with the Fleurs de Lis of France — still adhered to the 
 fatal style of Queen of France and England ! 
 
 In proportion as the Scottish character, when left in repose, is 
 calm, grave, resolute, and thoughtful, so is it, when agitated 
 by persecution, or lashed into anger, vehement, enthusiastic, 
 bigoted, savage in its mood. And such it had now become on 
 both sides. The rage was terrible, the hatred insatiable, the 
 strife incessant ; and, as is usual in equally balanced civil or 
 religious factions, each looked abroad for aid — the catholics to 
 France, the protestants to England. And, on the instant, 
 discerning her peril while it was yet far aloof, sagacious, 
 prompt, and possessing the advantage — immense in warfare — 
 of proximity, Elizabeth lent aid so prompt, so powerful, and so 
 effectual, that the French auxiliaries were compelled to evacuate 
 Scotland, never to return thither in force ; and the reform- 
 ers gained such an ascendency that they were never again, for 
 any considerable period, overawed by the catholic party, which 
 thenceforth waned in Scotland daily. 
 
 By these most wise and politic steps, Elizabeth not only 
 secured the safety of her own realm against the peril of a joint 
 French and Scottish war, brought to bear on her only assailable 
 point, the northern marches, and her own title against the 
 claims of Mary, but she created for herself a powerful party in 
 
ELIZABETH TUDOR AND MARY STUART. 235 
 
 the heart of the sister kingdom, by which she was regarded — as, 
 indeed, she was in Switzerland, Holland, Germany, nay, in the 
 Huguenot provinces of France itself — as the friend and pro- 
 tectress of the protestant religion. 
 
 Her conquering fleet and army compelled the treaty of Edin- 
 burgh, in which it was stipulated, among other provisions highly 
 favorable to England, " that the King and Queen of France 
 should thenceforth abstain from bearing the arms of England, 
 or assuming the title of that kingdom." 
 
 At this critical moment, Francis II. died of a sudden disorder, 
 and Mary was left a lovely, youthful widow of nineteen. She 
 desisted, it is true, after the death of Francis, from bearing the 
 arms of England ; yet, with inconceivable obstinacy and pride, 
 she refused to ratify the treaty of Edinburgh, thereby giving 
 mortal and personal offence to the most powerful and most 
 unforgiving of queens or women. 
 
 Shortly after this event, her residence in France being ren- 
 dered unpleasant by the demeanor of the queen-mother, who 
 hated her, she determined to return home, and asked, through 
 D'Oisel, the French ambassador, a safe conduct through Eng- 
 land to her own dominions. This Elizabeth very naturally 
 refused until she should ratify the treaty of Edinburgh, and so 
 demonstrate that she had relinquished her injurious pretensions 
 to the crown of England. 
 
 Stung to the quick, high-spirited, and full of youthful fire, 
 Mary delivered a reply to Throckmorton, the English ambassa- 
 dor, which, though mingled with courteous expressions, savored 
 too much of a defiance to have any effect but that of increasing 
 the animosity and indignation of Elizabeth, who at once 
 equipped a fleet, with the avowed intent of putting down piracy 
 in the Channel, but, doubtless, with the real purpose of inter- 
 cepting Mary on her homeward voyage. 
 
236 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 Phrase it as they might, the kinswomen were now rival 
 queens, rival beauties ; for Elizabeth, too, fancied herself a 
 beauty. The cousins were thenceforth — until death, that great 
 disseverer of friendships, that sole conciliator of feuds, should 
 separate them — mortal enemies. 
 
 A fog favored her evasion ; and the galley which bore her 
 sailed unchallenged through the centre of the English fleet. It 
 is said that she was affected with a strange melancholy, a dim 
 foreboding of future woe, as she sailed from Calais. She gazed 
 on the land which had, in truth, been her country, until its 
 outlines were lost in the haze of falling night ; and then, order- 
 ing her couch to be spread on the deck at fresco, commanded 
 the pilot to awaken her should the coast be in sight at daybreak. 
 The night was calm and breezeless, and the ship had made so 
 little way that the first sunbeams fell upon the sand-hills nigh 
 to Calais. Her parting words are yet remembered with which 
 she bade farewell to the land in which alone she knew one hour 
 of happiness : " Adieu, belle France ; adieu, France, bien cherie ! 
 Jamais, jamais, ne te je reverrai plus /" 
 
 Her sad forebodings were but too fatally confirmed; the 
 sullen, mutinous brutality of the calvinistic rabble, the fierce 
 and atrocious insolence of John Knox, the rude and unknightly 
 ferocity of the reforming nobles, rendered her court a very dun- 
 geon. Although she made no effort to restore the ancient reli- 
 gion or arrest the march of reformation, her own profession of 
 the Komish creed condemned her in the eyes of those stern reli- 
 gionists ; and her very graces and accomplishments, her youth- 
 ful gaiety and natural love of innocent pleasures, caused the 
 ranting preachers of the calvinistic church to denounce her to 
 her face, as a "painted Jezebel," a "dancing Herodias," a 
 " daughter of Belial ;" and it is, doubtless, to their unprovoked 
 insolence and unchristian fury that must be ascribed her after 
 
ELIZABETH TUDOR AND MARY STUART. 23*7 
 
 errors, indiscretions, vices, and — the word must be written, for 
 it is history, not fiction, that I am now writing — crimes. 
 
 Who knows not the dreadful provocations she received — the 
 cruel and ungrateful neglect of the stupid and unworthy Darn- 
 ley — the base and bloody butchery, before her eyes, of the 
 " Italian minion," Rizzio — when, to the woman's natural weak- 
 ness, was added the debility of one about to be a mother ? 
 
 Who knows not the horrible catastrophe of the Kirk of Field, 
 and Darnley's miserable murder, contrived, unquestionably, by 
 that black-hearted wretch, Both well, thereafter Duke of Orkney ? 
 Who knows not the sad and guilty tale, how the confederate 
 lords first called on her to punish, then recommended her, under 
 their written signatures — such of them, at least, as could write — 
 to marry, that same Both well ? How he abducted her by force, 
 and then set her free unscathed ? How she espoused him, and 
 was then dethroned, and imprisoned in the dreary fortress of 
 Lochlorn, by the very lords who had counselled her to wed 
 him ; by her own base-born brother, the wise, but wicked, 
 regent Murray ? How she escaped thence by the devotion of 
 George Douglas, fought the disastrous battle of Langside, only 
 to see her last friends fall around her, battling to the last in vain 
 for Mary and the church, for " God and the Queen," their chi- 
 valrous, their loyal, and their solemn war-cry % 
 
 She fled to England, to Elizabeth, who had shown sympathy 
 thus far, shown even generosity, in her behalf, and interposed 
 her offices to deliver her from imprisonment ; though she had 
 hesitated to declare war on the regent, fearing, as she avowed, 
 lest open war should drive him to extremity. In this I believe 
 she spoke truly. For it suited not her policy to allow the spec- 
 tacle of subjects dethroning a lawful sovereign to come before 
 the eyes of the world. 
 
 When once, however, she had the hapless Mary in her power, 
 
238 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 all generosity, all sympathy, all scruples vanished. Elizabeth 
 was no longer the sister queen, the cousin, and the ally. No ; 
 if not yet the embittered and jealous woman, the enemy deter- 
 mined on her victim's death, she was, at least, simply and 
 solely the Queen of England ; the resolute, hard-minded, poli- 
 tic, ambitious queen, with her country's interests pre-eminent, 
 above all things, at her heart ; the woman, who — to use her 
 own noble words delivered to her troops at Tilbury, when the 
 vast arms of the Invincible Armada were outstretched to encir- 
 cle her England, and the unconquered infantry of Castile were 
 revelling already, in anticipation, in the beauty and the wealth 
 of London — if she were a woman, " had yet the heart of a man 
 within her, and that man a King of England." 
 
 In the first instance, it is probable that, in persuading Mary 
 to undergo the degradation of standing trial for the assassina- 
 tion of her husband, against her own rebellious subjects, her 
 object was solely to gain the eminent position of being selected 
 arbitress between a sovereign realm and its dethroned and fugi- 
 tive princess ; and that she had, as yet, decided nothing of her 
 future movements. 
 
 Mary's grand error, or rather the grand error of her coun- 
 sellors, was the submitting to the trial, under any show or pre- 
 text. As to the trial itself, it seems to have been conducted' 
 fairly, so far as we can judge ; and, as it was broken off by Mary's 
 own action, we must admit that it was going unfavorably for 
 her. Yet it is difficult not to doubt, not almost to believe, that 
 the letters, produced so late in the day by the regent, were, as 
 they are always alleged, by Mary's defenders to have been, for- 
 geries. 
 
 In this state of the case, the trial being broken off by Mary's 
 own refusal to proceed, Elizabeth dismissed the regent, pro- 
 nouncing no judgment on the cause, refused to see Mary, or 
 
ELIZABETH TUDOR AND MARY STUART. 239 
 
 receive her as a queen ; and subsequently committed her, first, 
 to honorable free custody, then to close custody, and, lastly, to 
 strict and absolute imprisonment. 
 
 What could she do ? What should she have done ? 
 
 She could have received her in her court as a sister, an 
 honored and invited guest. Against this was the plea that she 
 could not extend the hand of friendship to one suspected, and 
 almost convicted, of petty treason in the assassination of a 
 husband. 
 
 She could, perhaps, have reinstated her vi et armis in her 
 own seat of power. Against this was the plea that she could 
 not, in common policy, beat down a protestant power for the 
 benefit of a catholic power, a friendly Scottish power for the 
 benefit of a hostile French power. 
 
 She could have dismissed her, as she claimed to be dismissed, 
 and suffered her to return to her loved, her almost native 
 France. Against this was the plea that she could not, in justice 
 to herself, to England, permit a princess almost French to return 
 to hostile France, in order to set forth anew — as undoubtedly 
 she would have set forth — her title to the English crown ; and 
 to enforce it, perhaps, by a united crusade of France and Spain, 
 now closely allied, against the liberties, against the religion of 
 England. 
 
 What should she have done ? 
 
 Alas ! what should she f Had they been both private per- 
 sons, the question is answered without a thought : she should 
 have been generous, and dismissed her. But have kings — they 
 to whom the charge of the life, the happiness, of millions is 
 intrusted — have kings the right to indulge in the luxury of 
 generosity, when that generosity must needs entail destruction 
 on thousands alive and happy? I answer confidently, they 
 have not the right. But Elizabeth was not generous. She 
 
240 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 imprisoned her fallen rival, cruelly, for long and weary years ; 
 unjustly, in accordance with right and law — justly, in accord- 
 ance with true policy, and the welfare of her own country and 
 the world at large. 
 
 The question of the execution is less doubtful. That Mary was 
 privy to Norfolk's, to Babington's plot is, I fear, proved beyond 
 a doubt. It was a question of life and death between the two, 
 and nothing but the axe or the knife could end it. The axe 
 ended it ; and we cannot, I think, regret the catastrophe, how- 
 ever much we may deplore the fate of the lovely, the miserable, 
 the deeply-injured Mary — however much we may condemn the 
 perfidiousness, the cold-blooded duplicity, the bitter malignity, 
 the hard-hearted policy of Elizabeth. 
 
 Yet she, too, was avenged. For who can doubt that the 
 death of Elizabeth — agonized by secret remorse, refusing sus- 
 tenance or aid of medicine, groaning her soul away in undisco- 
 vered sorrow for ten whole nights and days of unknown anguish, 
 perishing like a gaunt, old, famished lioness, in despair at the 
 deeds herself had done — was more tremendous fifty-fold, and 
 fifty-fold less pitied, than that of her discrowned rival ? 
 
k Wnlki %ak% mtfr Jiia Wlk 
 
 1618. 
 
SIR WALTER RALEIGH AND HIS WIFE. 
 
 It is commonly said, and appears generally to be believed, 
 by superficial students of history, that with the reigns of the 
 Plantagenets, with the Edwards and the Henries of the fifteenth 
 century, the age of chivalry was ended, the spirit t>f romance 
 became extinct. To those, however, who have looked carefully 
 into the annals of the long and glorious reign of the great 
 Elizabeth, it becomes evident that, so far from having passed 
 away with the tilt and tournament, with the complete suits of 
 knightly armor, and the perilous feats of knight-errantry, the 
 fire of chivalrous courtesy and chivalrous adventure never blazed 
 more brightly, than at the very moment when it was about to 
 expire amid the pedantry and cowardice, the low gluttony and 
 shameless drunkenness, which disgraced the accession of the first 
 James to the throne of England. Nor will the brightest and 
 most glorious names of fabulous or historic chivalry, the Tan- 
 creds and Godfreys of the crusades, the Olivers and Rolands of 
 the court of Charlemagne, the Cid Campeador of old Castile, or 
 the preux Bayard of France, that chevalier sans peur et sans re- 
 proche, exceed the lustre which encircles, to this day, the cha- 
 racters of Essex, Howard, Philip Sidney, Drake, Hawkins, Fro- 
 bisher, and Walter Raleigh. 
 
 It was full time that, at this period, maritime adventure had 
 
244 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 superseded the career of the barbed war-horse, and the brunt of 
 the levelled spear : and that to foray on the Spanish colonies 
 beyond the line, where, it was said, truce or peace never came ; 
 to tempt the perils of the tropical seas in search of the Eldorado, 
 or the Fountain of Health and Youth, in the fabled and magical 
 realms of central Florida ; and to colonize the forest shores of 
 the virgin wilderness of the west, was now paramount in the 
 ardent minds of England's martial youth, to the desire of obtain- 
 ing distinction in the bloody battle-fields of the Low Countries, 
 or in the fierce religious wars of Hungary and Bohemia. And 
 of these hot spirits, the most ardent, the most adventurous, the 
 foremost in everything that savored of romance or gallantry, 
 was the world-renowned Sir Walter Raleigh. 
 
 Born of an honorable and ancient family in Devonshire, he 
 early came to London in order to push his fortunes, as was the 
 custom in those days with the cadets of illustrious families 
 whose worldly wealth was unequal to their birth and station, by 
 the chances of court favor, or the readier advancement of the 
 sword. At this period, Elizabeth was desirous of lending assist- 
 ance to the French Huguenots, who had been recently defeated 
 in the bloody battle of Jarnac, and who seemed to be in con- 
 siderable peril of being utterly overpowered by their cruel and 
 relentless enemies the Guises ; while she was at the same time 
 wholly disinclined to involve England in actual strife, by regu- 
 lar and declared hostilities. 
 
 She gave permission, therefore, to Henry Champernon to raise 
 a regiment of gentlemen volunteers, and to transport them into 
 France. In the number of these, young Walter Raleigh en- 
 rolled, and thenceforth his career may be said to have com- 
 menced; for from that time scarce a desperate or glorious 
 adventure was essayed, either by sea or land, in which he was 
 not a participator. In this, his first great school of military 
 
SIR WALTER RALEIGH AND HIS WIFE. 245 
 
 valor and distinction, he served with so much spirit, and such 
 display of gallantry and aptitude for arms, that he immediately 
 attracted attention, and, on his return to England in 1570, after 
 the pacification, and renewal of the edicts for liberty of consci- 
 ence, found himself at once a marked man. 
 
 It seems that, about this time, in connexion with Nicholas 
 Blount and others, who afterwards attained to both rank and 
 eminence, Kaleigh attached himself to the Earl of Essex, who 
 at that time disputed with Leicester the favors, if not the affec- 
 tion, of Elizabeth ; and, while in his suite, had the fortune to 
 attract the notice of that princess by the handsomeness of his 
 figure, and the gallantry of his attire ; she, like her father Henry, 
 being quick to observe and apt to admire those who were emi- 
 nently gifted with the thews and sinews of a man. 
 
 A strangely romantic incident was connected with his first 
 rise in the favor of the virgin queen, which is so vigorously 
 and brilliantly described by another and even more renowned 
 Sir Walter in his splendid romance of Kenilworth, that it shames 
 us to attempt it with our far inferior pen ; but it is so charac- 
 teristic of the man and of the times that it may not be passed 
 over in silence. 
 
 Being sent once on a mission — so runs the tale — by his lord 
 to the queen, at Greenwich, he arrived just as she was issuing 
 in state from the palace to take her barge, which lay manned 
 and ready at the stairs. Eepulsed by the gentlemen pensioners, 
 and refused access to her majesty until after her return from 
 the excursion, the young esquire s&od aloof, to observe the 
 passing of the pageant ; and, seeing the queen pause and hesitate 
 on the brink of a pool of rain-water which intersected her path, 
 no convenience being at hand wherewith to bridge it, took off 
 his crimson cloak, handsomely laid down with gold lace, his 
 only courtlike garment, fell on one knee, and with doffed cap 
 
246 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 and downcast eyes threw i£ over the puddle, so that the 
 queen passed across dry-shod, and swore by God's life — her 
 favorite oath — that there was chivalry and manhood still in 
 England. 
 
 Immediately thereafter, he was summoned to be a member 
 of the royal household, and was retained about the person of the 
 queen, who condescended to acts of much familiarity, jesting, 
 capping verses, and playing at the court games of the day with 
 him — not a little, it is believed, to the chagrin of the haughty 
 and unworthy favorite, Dudley, Earl of Leicester. 
 
 It does not appear, however, that, although she might coquet 
 with Ealeigh to gratify her own love of admiration, and to 
 enjoy the charms of his rich and fiery eloquence and versatile 
 wit, though she might advance him in his career of arms, and 
 even stimulate his vaulting ambition to deeds of yet wilder 
 emprise, she ever esteemed Raleigh as he deserved to be es- 
 teemed, or penetrated the depths of his imaginative and creative 
 genius, much less beloved him personally, as she did the vain 
 and petty ambitious Leicester, or the high-spirited, the valorous, 
 the hapless Essex. 
 
 Another anecdote is related of this period, which will serve 
 in no small degree to illustrate this trait of Elizabeth's strangely- 
 mingled nature. Watching with the ladies of her court in the 
 gardens of one of her royal residences, as was her jealous and 
 suspicious usage, the movements of her young courtier, when 
 he either believed, or affected to believe himself unobserved, she 
 saw him write a line on a pane of glass in a garden pavilion 
 with a diamond ring, which, on inspecting it subsequently to 
 his departure, she found to read in this wise : — 
 
 " Fain would I climb, but that I fear to fall—" 
 the sentence, or the distich rather, being thus left unfinished, 
 
SIR WALTER RALEIGH AND HIS WIFE. 24*7 
 
 when, with her royal hand, she added the second line — no slight 
 encouragement to so keen and fiery a temperament as that of 
 him for whom she wrote, when given to him from such a source — 
 
 " If thy heart fail thee, do not climb at all." 
 
 But his heart never failed him — not in the desperate strife with 
 the Invincible Armada — not when he discovered and won for 
 the English crown the wild shores of the tropical Guiana — not 
 when he sailed the first far up the mighty Orinoco — not when, 
 in after days, he stormed Cadiz — not when the favor of Elizabeth 
 was forfeited — not in the long years of irksome, solitary, heart- 
 breaking imprisonment, endured at the hands of that base, soul- 
 less despot, the first James of England — not at his parting from 
 his beloved and lovely wife — not on the scaffold, where he died 
 as he had lived — a dauntless, chivalrous, fyigh-minded English 
 gentleman. 
 
 The greatest error of his life was his pertinacious hostility to 
 Essex, originating in the jealousy of that brave, but rash and 
 headstrong leader, who disgraced and suspended him after the 
 taking of Fayal, a circumstance which he never forgave or 
 forgot — an error which ultimately cost him his own life, since 
 it alienated from him the affections of the English people, and 
 rendered them pitiless to him in his own extremity. 
 
 But his greatest crime, in the eyes of Elizabeth, the crime 
 which lost him her good graces for ever and neutralized all his 
 services on the flood and in the field, rendering ineffective even 
 the strange letter which he addressed to his friend, Sir Robert 
 Cecil, and which was doubtless shown to the queen, although it 
 failed to move her implacable and iron heart, was his marriage, 
 early in life, to the beautiful and charming Elizabeth Throgmor- 
 ton. The letter to which I have alluded is so curious that I 
 cannot refrain from quoting it entire, as a most singular illus- 
 
248 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 tration of the habits of that age of chivalry, and of the character 
 of that strange compound, Elizabeth, who, to the "heart of a 
 man, and that man a king of England," to quote her own elo- 
 quent and noble diction, added the vanity and conceit of the 
 weakest and most frivolous of womankind ; and who, at the age 
 of sixty years, chose to be addressed as a Diana and a Venus, 
 a nymph, a goddess, and an angel. 
 
 " My heart," he wrote, " was never till this day, that I hear 
 the queen goes away so far off, whom I have followed so many 
 years, with so great love and desire, in so many journeys, and 
 am now left behind here, in a dark prison all alone. While 
 she was yet near at hand, that I might hear of her once in two 
 or three days, my sorrows were the less ; but even now my 
 heart is cast into the depth of all misery. I, that was wont to 
 behold her riding lite Alexander, hunting like Diana, walking 
 like Venus, the gentle wind blowing her hair about her pure 
 cheeks like a nymph, sometimes sitting in the shade like a 
 goddess, sometimes singing like an angel, sometimes play- 
 ing like Orpheus. Behold the sorrow of this world ! Once a 
 miss has bereaved me of all. Oh ! glory, that only shineth 
 in misfortune, what is become of thy assurance ? All wounds 
 have scars but that of fantasy : all affections their relentings 
 but that of womankind. Who is the judge of friendship 
 but adversity? or when is grace witnessed but in offences? 
 There was no divinity but by reason of compassion ; for re- 
 venges are brutish and mortal. All those times past, the loves, 
 the sighs, the sorrows, the desires, cannot they weigh down one 
 frail misfortune ? Cannot one drop of gall be his in so great 
 heaps of sweetness ? I may then conclude, * spes et fortuna 
 valete ;' she is gone in whom I trusted, and of me hath not one 
 thought of mercy, nor any respect of that which was. Do with 
 me now, therefore, what you list. I am more weary of life 
 
SIR WALTER RALEIGH AND HIS WIFE. 249 
 
 than they are desirous that I should perish ; which, if., it had 
 been for her, as it is by her, I had been too happily borii." 
 
 It is singular enough that such a letter should have been 
 written, under any circumstances, by a middle-aged courtier to 
 an aged queen ; but it becomes far more remarkable and extra- 
 ordinary when we know that the life of Raleigh was not so 
 much as threatened at the time when he wrote ; and, so far had 
 either of the parties ever been from entertaining any such affec- 
 tion the one for the other as could alone, according to modern 
 ideas, justify such fervor of language, that Elizabeth was at that 
 time pining with frustrated affection and vain remorse for the 
 death of her beloved Essex ; which, in the end, broke a heart 
 which had defied all machinations of murderous conspiracies, all 
 menaces, all overtures of the most powerful and martial princes 
 to sway it from its stately and impassive magnanimity ; while 
 Raleigh was possessed by the most ardent and enduring affection 
 to the almost perfect woman whom he held it his proudest trophy 
 to have wedded, and who justified his entire devotion by her love 
 unmoved through good or ill report, and proved to the utmost 
 in the dungeon and on the scaffold — the love of a pure, high- 
 minded, trusting woman, confident, and fearless, and faithful to 
 the end. 
 
 It does not appear that Raleigh suspected the true cause of 
 Elizabeth's alienation from so good and great a servant : per- 
 haps no one man of the many whom for the like cause she ne- 
 glected, disgraced, persecuted, knew that the cause existed in the 
 fact of their having taken to themselves partners of life and 
 happiness — a solace which she sacrificed to the sterile honors of 
 an undivided crown — of their enjoying the bliss and perfect 
 contentment of a happy wedded life, while she, who would fain 
 have enjoyed the like, could she have done so without the loss 
 of some portion of her independent and undivided authority, 
 
 12 
 
250 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 was compelled, by her own jealousy of power and obstinacy of 
 will, to pine in lonely and unloved virginity. 
 
 Yet such was doubtless the cause of his decline in the royal 
 favor, which he never, in after days, regained ; for, after Essex 
 was dead by her award and deed, Elizabeth, in her furious and 
 lion-like remorse, visited his death upon the heads of all those 
 who had been his enemies in life, or counselled her against him, 
 even when he was in arms against her crown : nor forgave them 
 any more than she forgave herself, who died literally broken- 
 hearted, the most lamentable and disastrous of women, if the 
 proudest and most fortunate of queens, in the heyday of her for- 
 tunes, when she had raised her England to that proud and pre- 
 eminent station above rather than among the states of Europe, 
 from which she never declined, save for a brief space under her 
 successors, those weakest and wickedest of English kings, the 
 ominous and ill-starred Stuarts, and which she still maintains 
 in her hale and superb old age, savoring, after nearly nine cen- 
 turies of increasing might and scarcely interrupted rule, in no 
 respect of decrepitude or decay. 
 
 Her greatest crime was the death of Mary Stuart; her great- 
 est misfortune, the death of Essex ; her greatest shame, the dis- 
 grace of Walter Raleigh. But with all her crimes, all her mis- 
 fortunes, all her shame, she was a great woman and a glorious 
 queen, and in both qualities peculiarly and distinctively English. 
 The stay and bulwark of her country's freedom and religion, 
 she lived and died possessed of that rarest and most divine gift 
 to princes, her people's unmixed Jove and veneration. 
 
 She died in an ill day, and was succeeded by one in all 
 respects her opposite : a coward, a pedant, a knave, a tyrant, a 
 mean, base, beastly sensualist — a bad man, devoid even of a bad 
 man's one redeeming virtue, physical courage — a bad, weak man, 
 with the heart of a worse and weaker woman — a man with all 
 
SIR WALTER RALEIGH AND HIS WIFE. 251 
 
 the vices of the brute creation, without one of their virtues. 
 His instincts and impulses were all vile and low, crafty and 
 cruel ; his principles — if his rules of action, which were all 
 founded on cheatery and subtle craft, can be called principles — 
 were yet baser than his instinctive impulses. 
 
 He is the only man I know, recorded in history, who is solely 
 odious, contemptible, and bestial, without one redeeming trait, 
 one feature of mind or body that can preserve him from utter 
 and absolute detestation and damnation of all honorable and 
 manly minds. 
 
 He is the only king of whom, from his cradle to his grave, 
 no one good deed, no generous, or bold, or holy, or ambitious, 
 much less patriotic or aspiring, thought or action is related. 
 
 His soul was akin to the mud, of which his body was framed 
 — to the slime of loathsome and beastly debauchery, in which\ 
 he wallowed habitually with his court and the ladies of his court, 
 and his queen at their head, and could no more have soared 
 heavenward than the garbage-battened vulture could have soared 
 to the noble falcon's pitch and pride of place. 
 . This beast, * for I cannot bring myself to write him man or 
 king, with the usual hatred and jealousy of low foul minds 
 towards everything noble and superior, early conceived a hatred 
 for the gallant and great Sir Walter Raleigh, whose enterprise 
 and adventure he had just intellect enough to comprehend so 
 far as to fear them, but of whose patriotism, chivalry, innate 
 nobility of soul, romantic daring, splendid imagination, and vast 
 literary conceptions — being utterly unconscious himself of such- 
 emotions — he was no more capable of forming a conception, 
 
 * I would here caution my readers from placing the slightest confi- 
 dence in anything stated in Hume's History {fable ?) of the Stuarts, 
 and especially of this, the worst of a bad breed. 
 
252 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 than is the burrowing mole of appreciating the flight of the 
 soaring eagle. 
 
 So early as the second year of his reign, he contrived to have 
 this great discoverer and gallant soldier — to whom Virginia is 
 indebted for the honor of being the first English colony, James- 
 town having been settled in 1(306, whereas the Puritans landed 
 on the rock of Plymouth no earlier than 1620, and to whom 
 North Carolina has done honor creditable to herself in naming 
 her capital after him, the first English colonist — arraigned on a 
 false charge of conspiracy in the case of Arabella Stuart, a young 
 lady as virtuous and more unfortunate than sweet Jane Grey, 
 whose treatment by James would alone have been enough to 
 stamp him with eternal infamy, and for whose-history we refer 
 our readers to the fine novel by Mr. James on this subject. 
 
 At this time, Raleigh was unpopular in England, on account 
 of his supposed complicity in the death of Essex ; and, on the 
 strength of this unpopularity, he was arraigned, on the single 
 written testimony of one Cobham, a pardoned convict of the 
 same conspiracy, which testimony he afterwards retracted, and 
 then again retracted the retractation, and — without one concur- 
 ring circumstance, without being confronted with the prisoner, 
 after shameless persecution from Sir Edward Coke, the great 
 lawyer, then attorney-general — was found guilty by the jury, and 
 sentenced, contrary to all equity and justice, to the capital 
 penalties of high treason. . 
 
 From this year, 1604, until 1618, a period of nearly fourteen 
 years, not daring to put him at that time to death, he caused 
 him to be confined strictly in the Tower, a cruel punishment for 
 so quick and active a spirit, which he probably expected would 
 speedily release him by a natural death from one whom he 
 regarded as a dangerous and resolute foe, whom he dared nei~ 
 
SIR WALTER RALEIGH AND HIS WIFE. 253 
 
 ther openly to dispatch nor honorably tp release from unmerited 
 and arbitrary confinement. 
 
 But his cruel anticipations were signally frustrated by the 
 noble constancy, and calm, self-sustained intrepidity of the noble 
 prisoner, who, to borrow the words of the detractor, Hume, 
 " being educated amid naval and military enterprises, had sur- 
 passed, in the pursuits of literature, even those of the most 
 recluse and sedentary lives." 
 
 Supported and consoled by his exemplary and excellent wife, 
 he was enabled to entertain the irksome days and nights of his 
 solitary imprisonment by the composition of a work, which, if 
 deficient in the points which are now, in the advanced state of 
 human sciences, considered essential to a great literary creation, 
 is, as regarded under the circumstances of its conception and 
 execution, one of the greatest exploits of human ingenuity and 
 human industry — " The History of the World, by Sir Walter 
 Raleigh." 
 
 It was during his imprisonment also that he projected the 
 colonization of Jamestown, which was carried out in 1606, at 
 his instigation, by the Bristol Company, of which he was a 
 member. This colony, though it was twica deserted, was in the 
 end successful, and in it was born the first child, Virginia Dare 
 by name, of that Anglo-Saxon race which has since conquered 
 a continent, and surpassed, in the nonage of its republican sway, 
 the maturity of mighty nations. 
 
 In 1618, induced by the promises of Raleigh to put the Eng- 
 lish crown in possession of a gold mine which he asserted, and 
 probably believed he had discovered in Guiana, James, whose 
 avidity always conquered his resentments, and who, like Faustus, 
 would have sold his soul — had he had one to sell — for gold, 
 released him, and granting him, as he asserted, an uncondi- 
 tional pardon — but, as James and his counsellors maintain, one 
 
254 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 conditional on fresh discoveries — sent him out at the head of 
 twelve armed vessels. 
 
 What follows is obscure ; but it appears that Raleigh, failing 
 to discover the mines, attacked and plundered the little town of 
 St. Thomas, which the Spaniards had built on the territories of 
 Guiana, which Raleigh had acquired three-and-twenty years 
 before for the English crown, and which James, with his wonted 
 pusillanimity, had allowed the Spaniards to occupy, without so 
 much as a remonstrance. 
 
 This conduct of Raleigh must be admitted unjustifiable, as 
 Spain and England were then in a state of profound peace ; 
 and the plea that truce or peace with Spain never crossed the 
 line, though popular in England in those days of Spanish 
 aggression and Romish intolerance, cannot for a moment stand 
 the test either of reason or of law. 
 
 Falling into suspicion with his comrades, Sir Walter was 
 brought home in irons, and delivered into the hands of the piti- 
 less and rancorous king, who resolved to destroy him— yet, 
 dreading to awaken popular indignation by delivering him up 
 to Spain, caused to revive the ancient sentence, which had never 
 been set aside by a formal pardon, and cruelly and unjustly 
 executed him on that spot, so consecrated by the blood of noble 
 patriots and holy martyrs, the dark and gory scaffold of Tower 
 Hill. 
 
 And here, in conclusion, I can do no better than to quote 
 from an anonymous writer in a recent English magazine, the 
 following brief tribute to his high qualities, and sad doom, 
 accompanied by his last exquisite letter to his wife. 
 
 "His mind was indeed of no common order. With him, the 
 wonders of earth and the dispensations of heaven were alike 
 welcome ; his discoveries at sea, his adventures abroad, his 
 attacks on the colonies of Spain, were all arenas of glory to him 
 
SIR WALTER RALEIGH AND HIS WIFE. 255 
 
 — but he was infinitely happier by his own fireside, in recalling 
 the spirits of the great in the history of his country — nay, was 
 even more contented in the gloom of his ill-deserved prison, 
 with the volume of genius or the book of life before him, than 
 in the most animating successes of the battle-field. 
 
 " The event which clouded his prosperity and destroyed his 
 influence with the queen — his marriage with Elizabeth Throg- 
 rnorton — was the one upon which he most prided himself; and 
 justly, too — for, if ever woman was created the companion, the 
 solace of man — if ever wife was deemed the dearest thing of 
 earth to which earth clings, that woman was his wife. Not 
 merely in the smiles of the court did her smiles make a w T orld 
 of sunshine to her Raleigh ; not merely when the destruction of 
 the Armada made her husband's name glorious ; not merely 
 when his successes and his discoveries on the ocean made his 
 presence longed for at the palace, did she interweave her best 
 affections with the lord of her heart. It was in the hour of 
 adversity she became his dearest companion, his 'ministering 
 angel ;' and when the gloomy walls of the accursed Tower held 
 all her empire of love, how proudly she owned her sovereignty ! 
 Not even before the feet of her haughty mistress, in her pray- 
 erful entreaties lor her dear Walter's life, did she so eminently 
 shine forth in all the majesty of feminine excellence as when she 
 guided his counsels in the dungeon, and nerved his mind to the 
 trials of the scaffold, where, in his manly fortitude, his noble 
 self-reliance, the people, who mingled their tears with his tri- 
 umph, saw how much the patriot was indebted to the woman. 
 
 " Were there no other language but that of simple, honest 
 affection, what a world of poetry would remain to us in the 
 universe of love ! You may be excited to sorrow for his fate by 
 recalling the varied incidents of his attractive life ; you may 
 mourn over the ruins of his chapel at his native village : you 
 
256 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 may weep over the fatal result of liis ill-starred patriotism — 
 you may glow over his successes in the field or on the wave; 
 your lip may curl with scorn at the miserable jealousy of Eliza- 
 beth — your eye may kindle with wrath at the pitiful tyranny 
 of James — but how will your sympathies be so awakened as by 
 reading his last, simple, touching letter to his wife ? 
 
 " 'You receive, ray dear wife, my last words, in these my last 
 lines. My love I send you that you may keep it when I am 
 dead — and my counsel, that you may remember it when I am 
 no more. I would not with my will present you with sorrows, 
 dear Bess — let them go to the grave with me and be buried in 
 the dust — and, seeing that it is not the will of God that I 
 should see you any more, bear my destruction patiently, and 
 with a -heart like yourself. 
 
 "'First — I send you all the thanks which my heart can con- 
 ceive, or my words express, for your many travails and cares for 
 me, which, though they have not taken effect as you wished, 
 yet my debt to you is not the less ; but pay it I never shall in 
 this world. 
 
 " 'Secondly — I beseech you, for the love you bear me living, 
 that you do not hide yourself many days, but by your travails 
 seek to help my miserable fortunes and the right of your poor 
 child — your mourning cannot avail me that am dust — for I am 
 no more yours, nor you mine — death hath cut us asunder, and 
 God hath divided me from the world, and you from me. 
 
 "'I cannot write much. God knows how hardly I steal this 
 time when all sleep. Beg my dead body, which, when living 
 was denied you, and lay it by our father and mother — lean say 
 no more — time and death call me away; the everlasting God — 
 the powerful, infinite, and inscrutable God, who is goodness 
 itself, the true light and life, keep you and yours, and have 
 
SIR WALTER RALEIGH AND HIS WIFE. 257 
 
 mercy upon me, and forgive my persecutors and false accusers, 
 and send us to meet in his glorious kingdom. 
 
 " My dear wife — farewell ! Bless my boy — pray for me, and 
 let the true God hold you both in his arms. 
 
 " ' Yours, that was ; but now, not mine own, 
 
 " 'Walter Ealeigh.' 
 
 " Thus a few fond words convey more poetry to the heart 
 than a whole world of verse. 
 
 " "We know not any man's history more romantic in its com- 
 mencement, or more touching in its close, than that of Raleigh — 
 from the first dawn of his fortunes, when he threw his cloak 
 before the foot of royalty, throughout his brilliant rise and long 
 imprisonment to the hour when royalty rejoiced in his merci- 
 less martyrdom. 
 
 " Whether the recital of his eloquent speeches, the perusal 
 of his vigorous and original poetry, or the narration of his 
 quaint yet profound ' History of the World,' engage our atten- 
 tion, all will equally impress us with admiration of his talent, 
 with wonder at his achievements, with sympathy in his misfor- 
 tunes, and with pity at his fall." 
 
 When he was brought upon the scaffold, he felt the edge of 
 the axe with which he was to be beheaded, and observed, u 'Tis 
 a sharp remedy, but a sure one for all ills," harangued the peo- 
 ple calmly, eloquently, and conclusively, in defence of his cha- 
 racter, laid his head on the block with indifference, and died as 
 he had lived — undaunted, one of the greatest benefactors of both 
 England and America, judicially murdered by the pitiful spite 
 of the basest and worst of England's monarchs. James could 
 slay his body, but his fame shall live for ever. 
 
 L2* 
 
dMtot Crotmnell atitt Cjiarte I 
 
 1048. 
 
CROMWELL AND CHARLES I. 
 
 In the first years of the seventeenth century, there stood a 
 small and dilapidated grange, or old-fashioned farm-house, on 
 the outskirts of the little borough town of St. Joes, in Hun- 
 tingdonshire, the seat of the last scion of a noble family, now 
 lapsed from its high estate and fallen into unmerited decay — 
 the family of Cromwell — which had been distinguished so long 
 before as the reign of Henry VIIL, and which even claimed 
 to share the royal blood of the unhappy race of Stuarts, whom 
 they were destined, in the end, to supplant by energy of will 
 and arbitration of the sword. 
 
 The present tenant of that desolate and dismal grange was 
 a young man, the heir and sole remaining stay of the old house, 
 a strong, thick-set, ungraceful person, with large, coarse fea- 
 tures, redeemed, however, in the eye at least of the physiogno- 
 mist, by the fine massive forehead, and the singular expression 
 of thought, combined with immutable resolve and indomitable 
 will, which pervaded all his features. 
 
 It was a dark and stormy night of November, and the wind 
 was wailing with a sad and hollow sound among the stunted 
 willows which surrounded the old farm-house, nurtured by the 
 stagnant waters of the broad cuts and dikes made for the drain- 
 age of the sour and sterile soil from which they sprang. But 
 
262 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 the night was not more gloomy than the countenance, perhaps 
 than the thoughts, of the ruined agriculturist, who sat alone 
 by the cheerless hearth, poring over the maps and plans of ex- 
 tensive fen improvements, in which he had sunk the remnant 
 of his impoverished fortunes, by the dim light of a single wan- 
 ing lamp. 
 
 There were no ornaments of any kind to be seen in the dis- 
 mal apartment, unless a few weapons and pieces of old armor 
 hanging on the walls, upon which the fitful light of the wood 
 fire played with varying flashes, might be called ornaments. 
 The floor was of brick, sanded ; the walls exhibited their bare 
 and paintless plaster ; the furniture was of the humblest — two 
 or three straight-backed oaken chairs, the ponderous table at 
 which he sat, strewn with papers of calculation, maps, and dia- 
 grams, and one large book clasped with brass and bound in 
 greasy calf-skin, which, by its shape, was evidently the volume 
 of Holy Writ. Another trevet table, in the chimney corner, 
 supported a coarse, brown loaf, a crust of old cheese, and a 
 black jack of small ale, the supper of the agricultural specula- 
 tor, of the visionary and enthusiastical religionist. 
 
 At length he arose from the table, before which he had been 
 so long seated, and traversed the room with heavy and resound- 
 ing steps, his hands clasped behind his back and his head bowed 
 forward on his chest, muttering half-heard words between his 
 close-set teeth, and occasionally heaving deep sighs. After a 
 while he paused, as he reached the trevet table, took a deep 
 draught of ale from the black jack, and then, opening the pon- 
 derous Bible, read a chapter of Isaiah, one of the most fiercely 
 denunciatory against Pharaoh and the princes of Egypt, after 
 which he cast himself on his knees and unburdened himself of 
 a long, rambling, vehement, extemporaneous prayer, which, ac- 
 
OLIVER CROMWELL AND CHARLES I. 263 
 
 cording to our notions, partook far more of the nature of curs- 
 ing than of praying, of blasphemy than of piety. 
 
 This duty performed, he took up the lamp from the table? 
 and leaving the room, ascended a great, creaking, half-dismantled 
 staircase, which led to a sort of corridor with many doors of 
 sleeping apartments opening upon it. Into one of these he en- 
 tered, locking the door behind him, and securing it with several 
 heavy bolts, and, setting down his light upon a rude oaken 
 bureau, placed his broadsword beneath his pillow, and disattired 
 himself with great haste and little ceremony. 
 
 Within five minutes the light was extinguished and the man 
 ensconced in the old-fashioned bed-clothes of a huge four-post 
 tester-bed, which had once, evidently, like its occupant, known 
 better days, surrounded with heavy curtains of faded and moth- 
 fretted damask drawn closely around it on all sides. For a 
 time, all was silent, except the heavy breathing — degenerating 
 at times into what seemed almost sighs — of the sleeper, and the 
 occasional howl of a mastiff without, baying the moon, when, 
 at fitful intervals, she waded out from among the giant clouds, 
 and cast her wavering and pallid gleams, fleeting like ghosts 
 along the bare walls of that great unfurnished chamber. 
 
 What followed would be too strange, too improbable for grave 
 recital, were it not that we find it recorded, beyond the possi- 
 bility of cavil, in contemporaneous history, long before the oc- 
 currence of the events which it would seem to foreshadow ; and 
 it was undoubtedly accredited as a fact by the early associates 
 and comrades of the great and extraordinary man, of whom it 
 is related, and whose actual life was as real, as practical, and as 
 stern, as his inner existence was visionary, morbidly fanciful, and 
 fanatically enthu-iastical. 
 
 His curtains, he avowed ever, were drawn asunder with a loud 
 jingling of the rings by which they were suspended, and he 
 
264 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 might see, in the opening of their folds, a misty shape, gigan- 
 tical, but undefined, while a voice thundered in his ears, might- 
 ier than any human utterance, " Arise, Oliver, arise ! thou that 
 shalt be, not king, but the first man in England !" 
 
 And this was thrice repeated ; and thenceforth a new spirit 
 was awakened in the soul of the strong, iron-minded, adamant- 
 willed visionary, whose very superstitions were to him, not as 
 to other men, weaknesses, but strength — an impenetrable armor 
 for his own defence ; an indomitable weapon against his ene- 
 mies ; and the name of that new spirit, though it may well be 
 he who felt it knew it not, was ambition. 
 
 The name of that man was Oliver Cromwell, and of a surety 
 in after times he was, " although not king, the first man in Eng- 
 land," the first not in his own days but perhaps in all days — 
 not only then, but now, and perhaps for ever. 
 
 Despite all his errors, all his crimes — for the ambitious rarely 
 fail of crime — this is his great redemption, that he was purely, 
 patriotically English; that, with him, his country, and his 
 country's greatness, were ever the leading objects, paramount 
 to self ; and that when, by his own energy and will, he had 
 made himself " the first man in England," he rested not from 
 his fierce struggle with the world till he had rendered " England 
 the first realm in Europe," and the name of Englishman as 
 much respected throughout Christendom as was that in the 
 ancient time of " civis Romanus." 
 
 Nearly at the same date with the occurrence above related, 
 the throne of England was ascended, among the general re- 
 joicings and almost universal satisfaction of his people, by a 
 young, graceful, and amiable prince, son of an old, debauched, 
 degraded, drunken despot, half pedant and half fool, addicted 
 to vices which are so hideous as to lack a name ; as a king, 
 and as a man, alike without one virtue, one redeeming phase 
 
OLIVER CROMWELL AND CHARLES I. 265 
 
 of character ; an animal, in one word, unworthy to be styled 
 a man, who lived detested, and died amid the secret joy and 
 scarcely simulated mourning of the subjects by whom he had 
 been scarcely tolerated while alive and powerful. 
 
 Popular himself, and wedded happily while young to a young 
 and beautiful princess — the daughter of one of the greatest 
 and the most popular of European princes, Henry IV. of 
 France ; singularly handsome ; learned enough for a gentle- 
 man and king — skilful in manly exercises — grave and decorous, 
 perhaps somewhat austere, but ever with a gracious and serene 
 austerity in his deportment ; really and genuinely pious, and 
 devoted heart and soul to .the doctrines of the church of Eng- 
 land ; singularly pure in his morals, and virtuous, without a 
 stain in his domestic relations — Charles I., of England, might 
 have been, had he but seen the right path and taken it, the 
 most popular, and one of the greatest of the kings of England ; 
 he was the weakest, though by no means the worst, and the 
 most unfortunate. 
 
 His first and greatest misfortune was the period of his birth, 
 an absolute, or nearly absolute monarch, when the limits of 
 royal prerogative and parliamentary privilege, of royal power 
 and popular rights, were altogether undefined, among a people 
 on whom were gradually dawning, through the medium of the 
 ^Reformation, and the perverted views of the ultra-reforming 
 and fanatical Puritans, the principles of constitutional liberty, 
 and the fixed determination to uphold it, as the inalienable 
 birthright of every Englishman. 
 
 His second was his false and detestable education under the 
 doctrines of that subtle Scottish sophist, his abominable father, 
 the first James, who instilled into him, from his earliest youth, 
 his own favorite doctrine, that the best, the wisest, and most 
 royal way of governing a people is by cheating them ; a way 
 
266 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 of governance which he exultingly termed kingcraft, not in 
 contempt as men now speak of priestcraft, but as a term of high 
 and honorable import. Added to this, he taught him, ever and 
 anon, that a people has no rights, nor an individual member of 
 the people ; and that a king has no duties except to govern, 
 well if it like him, if not, ill — only to govern de jure divino. 
 The last, and most fatal of all his lessons, which he inculcated 
 so steadily upon him that it seems to have taken ineradicable 
 root in his mind, was that no faith was required from a king to 
 his subjects. 
 
 His last was his own infirmity of character. Principles, to 
 use the term correctly, Charles appears to have had none — 
 unless we may call his attachment to the established church, 
 and his unquestionable religious character, by this title. Settled 
 opinions and rooted habits he had many, ,and these, with many 
 men, are apt to pass for principles ; and of these, strengthened 
 by his natural obstinacy, and confirmed yet further by oppo- 
 sition, we are inclined to regard his adherence to the church, 
 through good report and ill, through life and unto death, as one, 
 and undoubtedly the best and truest. 
 
 Sincere in his religion, in all things else he was habitually, 
 by education, and we think by hereditary temperament, the 
 most insincere of men. To friends and to enemies he was alike 
 untrue and faithless. The former could never rely on his pro- 
 tection, the latter could never put trust in his most solemn 
 asseverations. 
 
 Obstinate and unyielding to the last against the advice of 
 the best and wisest of his friends, where concession would have 
 been wisdom ; wherever resistance to the end became the right 
 and only course of conduct, he was invariably found vacillating, 
 weak, infirm of purpose. 
 
 Had he been obstinate in the right, when the head of the 
 
OLIVER CROMWELL AND CHARLES I. 267 
 
 noble Stafford was demanded at his hands, the only pilot who 
 could have steered the ship of royalty safe through the tempest 
 of Puritan democracy, he never had lost his crown, or bowed 
 his own head to that block on which he sacrificed the bravest 
 and most able of his counsellors. 
 
 Had he been timely wise, and listened to conditions, when 
 the last fight had been fought at Long Marston, " never," to use 
 the words of Sir John Berkeley, perhaps the wisest of his late 
 advisers — u never would crown so nearly lost have been regained 
 on terms so easy." But it was not so written ; and the eye 
 even of the most blinded follower of loyalty must perceive that 
 it was good, both for the peoples and the princes, yea, and for 
 the world, the human race at large, that King Charles I. should 
 perish on the block ; that his power, if not his crown, should 
 fall on the head of that most royal-minded of plebeians, who 
 swayed England's sceptre as none of her kings, save perhaps 
 Elizabeth, ever swayed it; and who did more than ever man 
 did for the development of that great race, then starting on its 
 vast, sublime career of war and commerce, liberty and tolera- 
 tian, science in peace and victory in arms, which we misname 
 the Anglo-Saxon ; and which, so surely as the great sun stands 
 still, and the earth travels round it, shall girdle the globe from 
 east again to east, and cover it from pole to pole, until no 
 prayer shall mount to God but in the accents of the English 
 tongue. 
 
 If there be one man of men whom England and America 
 should unite to venerate, it is that hard, morose, rude Oliver, 
 who secured for the Ocean Isle that position among European 
 nations which she still maintains, that pre-eminence upon the 
 seas which secured to virgin America the glorious privilege of 
 being Anglo-Saxon and progressive, rather than Dutch or Spa- 
 nish, and degenerating still into the last abyss of inanition. 
 
268 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 The limits of our narrative preclude, of course, the pos- 
 sibility of our sketching, with the briefest pen, the consecutive 
 events in council and in field which signalized the greatest and 
 most durable of revolutions; the watch-cry and trophy of which 
 were Privilege of Parliaments and the Bill of Rights ; and the 
 effects of which still endure in the civil freedom and religious 
 liberty, in the maintenance of governmental powers, and the 
 independence of individual rights peculiar to the genuine free 
 politics of England and the United States, as contrasted to the 
 spurious and bastard combination of despotic and anarchical 
 principles which signalize the sham republics of all other races. 
 
 In the first instance, perhaps, the Parliament, and the Com- 
 mons more especially, manifested a want of confidence, and, still 
 more, a want of liberality, in granting necessary supplies to the 
 king, which circumstances, up to that time, would scarcely 
 appear to have warranted. But, ere long, the king manifested 
 his true intentions, and came out under his genuine colors. To 
 levy taxes by his own arbitrary imposition, to govern England 
 of his own will, wholly dispensing with the use of Parliaments 
 altogether, was the scheme of Charles I., ably carried into effect 
 for a time by Thomas Wentworth, the able, haughty, and un- 
 happy Earl of Strafford, and, as united to the suppression of all 
 other churches save that of England only, comprehensively 
 embodied by him in the singular term, " thorough." 
 
 How Hampden, Pym, St. John, the elder Vane, Eliot, and 
 other noble spirits strove, suffered, and, in the end, triumphed, 
 for the liberties of England, history has told trumpet-tongued 
 with all her spirit-kindling echoes ; but few know the fact that, 
 in the House of Commons, even so early as the petition for the 
 bill of rights, and the subsequent remonstrance, Oliver Crom- 
 well was already a man of mark ; in council, it is probable, not 
 oratory; for he never became a fluent or powerful speaker, 
 
OLIVER CROMWELL AND CHARLES I. 269 
 
 even when his accents were heard from the protectoral chair ; 
 and he seems, like Talleyrand in after days, to have regarded 
 language as a special gift for the concealment of thought. 
 
 On the eventful evening of the carrying of the Remonstrance, 
 on which the debate was waged with such fury that many of 
 the elder and sager members presaged an armed conflict and 
 bloodshed — for gentlemen in those days habitually, as of their 
 right, wore swords — when the members were leaving the house, 
 . a gentleman asked John Hampden, pointing to Oliver, who, by 
 the way, was Hampden's cousin, "Who is that slovenly, ill- 
 dressed fellow?" To which the great, pure patriot replied, 
 " That sloven, should this controversy between the king and 
 commons be carried to the appeal of arms, which may God 
 forbid, I say to you, that sloven will "be the greatest man in 
 England." 
 
 And John Hampden was no indifferent judge in such matters ; 
 nor, though he did not live to see it, was he mistaken in the 
 issue. But he lived not to see it; and, had he lived, it is pro- 
 bable that he would have resisted, unto the death, the usurping 
 ambition of the Great Independent, even as he resisted the 
 usurped prerogative of the lawful king. 
 
 But John Hampden fell, shot to the death through the left 
 shoulder with three bullets, at the head of his own regiment of 
 Buckinghamshire volunteers, on the sad field of Chalgrove, the 
 purest and most moderate of patriots. 
 
 And, shortly afterwards, at Newbury, fell Lucius Cary, Vis- 
 count Falkland, of whom Clarendon has recorded that, although 
 conscience and patriotism compelled him to take up arms 
 and to do battle for the king, he was ever from that moment 
 wont, even in the company of his most intimate friends, to fall 
 into deep fits of melancholy musing, and to ingeminate, with 
 shrill and touching accents, the word, peace, peace. He fell, the 
 
270 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 purest and most moderate of royalists ; and, thenceforth, purity- 
 seemed dead, and moderation likewise, on both sides, and the 
 mortal sword, as ever, w T as the arbiter. 
 
 It was to the great insight of Oliver Cromwell into the minds 
 of men — for he early discerned that some new spirit must be 
 aroused in the minds of men to counterbalance the antique 
 chivalry and loyalty among the " decayed tapsters and pimple- 
 nosed serving-men," of whom, by his own allegation, the bulk 
 of the parliamentarian armies were composed — that the ultimate 
 victory of the parliament must be ascribed. 
 
 To meet this spirit of chivalry, he awakened the spirit of 
 militant religion ; and, as ever must be the case when the reli- 
 gion of the masses becomes militant, as in the crusades, as in 
 the Huguenot wars of France, and as in his own case especially, 
 with it, his own creation, he overrode the oldest monarchy, the 
 most sublime and stately hierarchy, the noblest and most puis- 
 sant aristocracy of Europe ; he overrode, secondly, the Parlia- 
 ment of England ; he overrode, in the last place, though in our 
 opinion wisely, justly, and for the preservation of his country 
 from the worse curse of fanatical intolerance and social anarchy, 
 the liberties of England herself, and made himself, all but in 
 name, the mightiest and wisest of her kings. 
 
 Charles died on the scaffold, by the connivance rather than 
 by the act of Cromwell. Prevented it, assuredly he might have 
 done ; but, preventing, must himself have perished ; for Charles 
 could not be trusted. Oliver would have spared him once, nay, 
 but reinstated him; but the fatal discovery of a genuine letter, 
 wherein the fated king assured his queen that " for those knaves," 
 meaning Essex and Cromwell, " to whom he had promised a 
 silken garter, he had in lieu of it a hempen halter^" sealed his 
 fate thenceforth for ever. 
 
 The scabbard was cast away between them, and in the strife 
 
OLIVER CROMWELL AND CHARLES I. 2Yl 
 
 of swords, as ever must be the case, the weaker went to the 
 wall. Charles the First died to be pitied as a private man, to 
 be deplored by the church of which he was a faithful son, but 
 certainly not regretted as a king, for he was clearly in intent 
 a traitor and tyrant ; yet can it not be said of him, as it was of 
 Julius Caesar, '-''Jure ccesus habeatur ! '" — Let him be held justly 
 slain ! — for, in the English constitution, from time immemorial, 
 there is no rule or precedent by which a king can be brought 
 to trial by his subjects. 
 
 Still, he had not much reason for complaint; during his 
 whole life he had sacrificed to expediency only, not to justice, or 
 to the rights of man, or to his oaths before God ; and himself 
 to expediency he fell a royal victim. He fell by the axe on the 
 scaffold at Whitehall, and Heaven had no thunders by which 
 to bruit aloud^ its indignation or its horror at his fall. 
 
 By his death, he aroused again the spirit of aggrieved loyalty 
 to arms, and fatal Dunbar, bloody Worcester, the great usurper's 
 " crowning mercy," proved how gallant and true Was the heart 
 of the English gentry, proved how ineffectual and vain is gal- 
 lantry or truth, is heart and hand, against the iron bands of 
 discipline, against the leadership of a leader competent to govern 
 the energies and point the enthusiasm of his men. 
 
 When Cromwell flung his arm aloft, amid the sun -burst 
 through the mist which revealed his enemies rushing down at 
 the bidding of their frenzied preachers to " do battle at Arma- 
 geddon," and shouted, in his massive tones, " Let God arise, and 
 let his enemies be scattered !" he showed himself a captain 
 among captains. The far-famed "sun of Austerlitz" is trite and 
 tame beside that glorious battle-word. When he drove, igno- 
 miniously, the." Rump" of the Long Parliament from the station 
 which it had so long misused, from domination over a nation 
 which it had so long misgoverned ; when he bade his obedient 
 
272 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 Ironsides " carry away that bauble," lie proved himself a braver 
 and more consistent patriot than when he thundered upon the 
 flank of the half-victorious cavaliers at Marston, and conquered 
 the reeling fight ; than when he fought bareheaded in the van 
 of the last deadliest melee of Naseby ; than when he dared to 
 sign the death-warrant of his hapless king. 
 
 When he once sat upon the throne — for which he had played, 
 as some men will have it, so foully, though we cannot regard 
 it as so altogether — he used that usurped power solely for Eng- 
 land's good and England's glory ; he wore, if not a crown, " a 
 more than dictatorial wreath," conquered, indeed, by might, but 
 affixed by mercy. ' 
 
 The worst blot on his name is the deeds which have rendered 
 that name, to this day, a curse in Ireland ; but it must be re- 
 membered that he was dealing with men whom he regarded as 
 murderers and heathens, and deeming himself probably the God- 
 ordained avenger of protestant and pious blood. 
 
 His greatest glory is Spain humbled, Holland overcome, 
 Scotland and Ireland pacified, the colonies planted, the naviga- 
 tion act passed, the maritime glory of England, the Anglo- 
 Saxonism of North America secured. These are his high glories 
 — glories enough for the greatest. They should secure him im- 
 mortality among men — may they secure him pardon before God ! 
 
 When he died, the greatest tempest on record — until that 
 kindled tempest which scourged the earth when Napoleon, the 
 second Cromwell, was departing from his scene of mingled 
 crime and glory — devastated Europe from the Baltic to Cape 
 Bon, from the Bosphorus to the Bay of Biscay, uptearing trees, 
 upheaving hills, unroofing houses, killing both man and beast 
 in the open field, with one continuous glare of lightning, one 
 roll of continuous thunder. . 
 i And, as the death hours of these, the two greatest of usurpers, 
 
OLIVER CROMWELL AND CHARLES I 273 
 
 were thus similar, so were their last words strikingly alike. 
 Cromwell, having lain senseless for above an hour, started to 
 consciousness at a tremendous thunderclap, and exclaimed, 
 " Ordnance !" Napoleon, transported by the din of elemental 
 strife into the strife of men, muttered the words, " tete cfarmee" 
 and passed into that world where the drum hath no sound and 
 the sword is edgeless. 
 
 Both were great in their day ; both were guilty ; but both 
 were instruments of the God who made them, not for evil, but 
 unto good. It is for Him alone to judge them, as it is His alone 
 to show mercy. Requiescant I 
 
 13 
 
CJmrlntte to la CmuBalb, 
 
 COUNTESS OF DERBY. 
 
 1651. 
 
CHARLOTTE DE LA TREMOUILLE, 
 
 COUNTESS OF DEBBY. 
 
 The Countess of Derby may well be pronounced one of the 
 noblest, greatest, and most heroical women that England or the 
 world ever has produced. I write England advisedly ; for, al- 
 though she was a Frenchwoman by birth, and that of the very 
 highest rank short of royalty, being a daughter of the princely 
 house of La Tremouille — it was still in England that all her 
 great exploits were performed — all her extraordinary qualities 
 displayed ; and as she was married in very early youth to the 
 gallant and noble Derby, nearly, indeed, at the same period 
 when his royal master, Charles L, espoused the beautiful daugh- 
 ter of the last hero-king of France, Henry, the Bearnois of 
 Navarre, it is not unnatural to conclude that it was in her 
 adopted, rather than her native country, that she learned those 
 lessons of strong persistency, cool endurance, and patient forti- 
 tude, which would appear in all ages to have been characteris- 
 tic rather of the English than of the French temper, which is 
 generally held to be conspicuous for impulsive gallantry and 
 offensive valor, rather than for perseverance under the pressure 
 of evil or iron sufferance of inevitable calamity. 
 
 Still, heroism is of no age or country — although there may 
 
278 PERSONS AND TICTURES. 
 
 be peculiar shades or hues which appear to belong to the attri- 
 butes, and to constitute, as it were, almost general traits of na- 
 tional character. Even in this view, however, there are discre- 
 pancies to be noted by the wise observer, which quickly show 
 the injudiciousness of those who, from general traits, would 
 seek to establish absolute principles, or to constitute individual 
 actions the basis of invariable laws. 
 
 Thus, in spite of the generally prevailing notion that the 
 French, however admirable at attack, are greatly inferior in the 
 defence of fortified places, the most wonderful instance of en- 
 durance, under horrors of famine, pestilence, and exhaustion 
 almost unparalleled, recorded in modern history, is the protract- 
 ed resistance of Massena within the walls of Genoa, against 
 the combined armies of Austria and fleets of England, by which, 
 in point of fact, he neutralized all the successes of the victors, 
 and converted defeat into triumph, by holding out until the 
 French columns had already crossed the Alps, and thus making 
 possible the almost miraculous campaign of Marengo. 
 
 Again, it was Charlotte de laTremouille, who, with unparalleled 
 feminine heroism, defended Latham House long after hope had 
 been extinct in the hearts of the bravest of its masculine de- 
 fenders, while her Lord was fighting afar off for his church 
 and his king — who, a second time, after the noble head of Derby 
 had fallen on the gory scaffold, last token of his adherence to 
 that holy cause which he could uphold no longer, defended the 
 Peel Castle in her hereditary realm of Man, fighting for the 
 rights of her son and the hereditary dignities of his race, long 
 after the weak unworthy monarch, Charles II., had departed a 
 fugitive from his kingdom — and who so earned the noble praise 
 of being the last person in all the territories, provinces, depen- 
 dencies of Great Britain, who laid down arms which she had 
 taken up for the rights, and which she resigned only — as the 
 
CHARLOTTE DE LA TREMOUILLE. 279 
 
 sovereign of a mere mimic realm almost within gunshot of the 
 shores of England — after Virginia, the Bermudas, Antigua, and 
 Barbadoes had submitted to the parliament ; after the sister 
 islands of the Channel, Scilly and Guernsey, had surrendered ; and 
 the narrow seas were swept far and nigh, cutting ofT all supplies, 
 and prohibiting all egress or ingress to her island fortalice, by 
 the unrivalled fleets of Blake. 
 
 Equally heroical with that heroine of all time, the Maid of 
 Arc, her heroism was yet of a character entirely different and 
 distinct. The character of the latter was essentially French — 
 French of all ages, though modified assuredly by the peculiar 
 influences of her own era ; deeply imbued with romance, full 
 of impulsive fire, burning with generous ardor, deeply imbued 
 with the sensibility to the call of glory, kindled at a word to 
 . the wildest enthusiasm, not unresponsive to the breath of su- 
 perstitious fatalism ; yet despondent when held inactive, and re- 
 covering her high courage and unflinching heroism only when 
 actually called upon to do or to suffer. 
 
 Widely different was the noble Charlotte de la Tremouille ; 
 for of her it might have been said, as was said of the greatest 
 man of the present day, that duty was everything and glory 
 nothing, except endorsed as it arose incidentally from the con- 
 sequence of duty done. Not in the slightest degree touched 
 by romance as to her own secret nature, although the history 
 of her career is in itself the wildest of romances ; scarcely, if 
 at all, influenced by impulses ; a person of slender imagination 
 and few sensibilities ; superior to all superstitions ; superior also 
 to all reverses of fortune, she was greater by far in suffering 
 than in living : and it was rather by supporting with unmoved 
 constancy what her enemies did unto her, than by doing unto 
 them what they might not have half so hardly supported, that 
 she earned her undying fame and spotless reputation. 
 
280 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 It is said, that in her younger days she was remarkable for 
 delicate and extraordinary beauty ; if it were so, anxiety and 
 a life harder, and exposed to vicissitudes more man-like, than 
 are wont to break the calm tenor of female ways, early de- 
 stroyed all its vestiges ; for in the magnificent painting of Van- 
 dyke, which still exists, as do those of most others of the cele- 
 brated ladies of her day, she is represented as a stout and some- 
 what coarse-featured matron, of middle age, richly attired, but 
 possessing none of that refined and gentle haughtiness — if I 
 may so express myself — which we somehow or other expect to 
 see in the carriage and lineaments of those who, themselves 
 great, have mingled much in the society of the great, and yet 
 more, who have themselves been the doers of great actions. 
 
 There is none of this haughtiness, or dignity, then, call it 
 which you will, in the air or features of Charlotte de la Tre- 
 mouille ; nor is there any marked impress on her brow and lip 
 either of deep thought and high intellect, or of brilliancy, dar- 
 ing, and courage almost superhuman. On the contrary, she 
 has the air of a genuine country matron of high class, in her 
 own age — something, one would think, of a Lady Bountiful ; 
 apt at distilling simples and dispensing medicines to the ailing, 
 good things to the hungry of her tenantry and neighbors ; 
 yet this was she, who for two successive kings of England did 
 more, held more, suffered more, and lost more than any other 
 woman who' ever drew the breath of life ; who, after the death 
 of one monarch on the scaffold, and the despairing exile of an- 
 other, for whom her noble lord had died devoted, endured the 
 utmost of persecution from the cruel and victorious parliament — 
 who, after the restoration of that monarch's worthless son, en- 
 dured yet more from his base ingratitude than she had done 
 from the rancor of his enemies, herself coming nigh to perish- 
 ing on the same scaffold which had drunk her husband's gore, 
 
CHARLOTTE DE LA TREMOUILLE. 281 
 
 charged by the perjured monster Oates with participation in 
 that popish plot, which never had an existence without the 
 brain of that most mean and odious of all murderers. 
 
 Early in the war of the commonwealth and the king, that 
 war through the furnace and fierce ordeal of which, through so 
 much misery to the kings, the nobles, and the people of Eng- 
 land, was wrought out at last the wonderful edifice of her pre- 
 sent constitution, with all its inestimable blessings — that con- 
 stitution, which alone possessing the power of self-modification, 
 can be progressive without being iconoclastic or destructive, can 
 undergo change without fear of revolution, and therefore bids 
 fair to be coeval with the chalk cliffs which wall its empire : 
 early in that war, or rather, I should say, at its very commence- 
 ment, the Earl of Derby had taken arms for his sovereign, be- 
 lieving it wiser to trust to the king, whose prerogatives were 
 already strictly limited, whose leaning towards absolutism might 
 be supposed to be, in a great measure, checked, and to whose 
 encroachments all constitutional means of resistance existed, in 
 full force, or rather reinforced and greatly strengthened by the 
 passage of the bill of rights, and the adoption of the general 
 remonstrance— than to submit to the self-constituted authority 
 of the parliament, now evidently bent on wresting everything 
 beyond the bare name of regal power from the almost help- 
 less monarch, whose proceedings had no limit save their own 
 consciences and their own will ; and whose violence and out- 
 rage, the kingly power once gone, and the ministers of the law 
 merely their own creatures, there was no means in the kingdom 
 constituted for disputing legally or resisting forcibly. 
 
 Steadfastly, gallantly, he had fought to the last — nor less 
 nobly had his countess contended, as all men know, for the de- 
 fence of Latham house is history — and there are few to whom 
 its details are not facts, as it were, of every-day allusion. How 
 
 13* 
 
282 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 she held out alone, with her lord afar, not fighting unwomanly 
 with the sword, not donning the attire or buckling on the armor 
 *of a man — for heroine as she was, she saw the indelicacy and 
 inutility alike of such procedure — but aiding, assisting, com- 
 forting, inspiriting all, by the unmoved composure of her 
 noble face, by the unvarying and placid smile with which 
 she received all evil tidings ; with which she endured all 
 personal inconveniences and sufferings — including towards the 
 end the want of common necessaries, of bread and water 
 to support human life. Limiting her own table to the quantity 
 and quality allotted to the meanest sentinel ; braving the hot- 
 test fire of the assailants to carry refreshments to the weary, as- 
 sistance to the wounded, of the combatants ; nay ! as defender 
 after defender fell slain outright or sorely wounded at his ap- 
 pointed station, carrying arms and ammunition, clad in her full 
 magnificence of court attire, to any member, as they failed him, 
 of that weak, yet invincible garrison ; and in that last assault, 
 when the ladders were reared against every bartizan and but- 
 tress, when the volleying death-shots raked every embrasure 
 and window, when the clash and clang of broadswords on cui- 
 rass and helmet were mingled with the roar of the culverins, 
 the sharp rattle of the musketry, and savage shouts and execra- 
 tions of her combatants, standing with her maidens side by side 
 with their defenders, and loading musquetoon and harquebuss 
 as fast as they might fire them, until all was ended. 
 
 Vainly, however, fought the earl in the field, vainly the 
 countess in her guarded fortalice — for the good cause might 
 not. prevail, until England should have supped deeper yet of 
 horrors, and her king should have bowed down that " grey dis- 
 crowned head," erewhile so fair and noble, to the base felon's 
 block. If Charles lost kingdom, crown, and life, Derby and 
 his young wife lost all they had in England, princely estates, 
 
CHARLOTTE DE LA TREMOUILLE. 283 
 
 high rank, wealth almost royal, title most exalted — all was 
 gone save the feudal royalty of the little Isle of Man ; save the 
 lives which both had risked so freely, one scarce had. thought 
 they valued them. 
 
 And even these they held, not as their own possessions, but 
 as things to be devoted to the cause, to be cast self-sacrificed to 
 the winds of heaven, to soon as the service of the king should 
 desire it. 
 
 So for the time all was over. Hopton, the king's best leader 
 in the west, was defeated, and his army utterly dispersed at 
 Torrington by Fairfax. Montrose was hors du combat, deprived 
 of all his men by the decisive route of Philiphaugh ; and Astley 
 — gallant Astley — who, before the first encounter of the cavaliers 
 and roundheads at Edgehill, knelt at the head of his lines, and 
 prayed this short prayer memorable through all time : " Lord, 
 Thou knowest how busy I must be this day. If I forget Thee, 
 do not Thou forget me !" and then springing to his charger 
 cried, " March on, boys !" and led a charge so fiery and so well 
 sustained, that it won the day. That same Lord Astley, de- 
 feated at Stowe by Morgan, with superior forces, and himself 
 taken prisoner, said to the parliamentarians : — "You have done 
 your work, and may now go to play, unless you choose to fall 
 out among yourselves I" 
 
 And in truth their work was done — and their cruel play was 
 about to commence, which had for stakes the fortunes of a 
 country, and the life of a king. 
 
 In the short insurrection which broke out, when the tidings 
 were proclaimed, how that the parliament had determined to 
 try the king by a high court of justice, and to bring him, whom 
 they dared not murder, to the block, Derby bore no part. Ill- 
 planned, uncombined, irregular, it had neither concert nor the 
 chances of success — it could be fatal only to its projectors, and 
 
284 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 fatal to them it was — for after it was shed on the scaffold the 
 first blood that flowed during the war, save by sword, flagrante 
 hello, when sword was met by sword, the blood of Lisle and 
 Lucas and Lord Capel shamefully slaughtered — Cromwell's first 
 deed of cruelty and shame — in spite of capitulation after Col- 
 chester. 
 
 So far from that insurrection deferring, or tending to prevent, 
 it accelerated only the murder of the king, by harassing the ap- 
 prehensions, without alarming the fears of the parliamentarians. 
 But, as I have said, in it Derby bore no part ; it was too sud- 
 denly concerted to permit him to be present, even if his mili- 
 tary sagacity and clear political foresight would have permitted 
 him to join so rash a rising. 
 
 But he was in no condition to have done so in any event, for 
 so soon as he saw that for the present all was lost, he made good 
 his retreat, rather than his escape, with his countess, her son, 
 and the trustiest of his adherents, to the strong walls and 
 castles of his island kingdom, which he put in order at once to 
 make the most vigorous defence of his own rights, and to wage 
 war for his own crown of Man, and for that of his brother king 
 of England.* 
 
 Ireton, meanwhile, who commanded in the north for the 
 parliament, and had a strong force afoot in Lancashire, sent 
 him a trumpet, with a summons to surrender on good con- 
 ditions, to whom the earl returned this answer of high and 
 stern defiance. 
 
 - * It musty be borne in mind that this was not a mere ceremonial or 
 nominal title ; but that this Countess of Derby was received by Charles 
 II. as " notre tres che're et tres puissant soeur, Heine de Man et Contesse 
 de Derby" — and that it is only within the memory of persons now alive, 
 that the feudal title of kings of Man was extinguished by its cession to 
 the crown of England, by the then Earl of Derby. 
 
CHARLOTTE DE LA TREMOUILLE. 285 
 
 " I received your letter with indignation, and with scorn 
 return you this answer, that I cannot but wonder whence you 
 gather any hopes that I should prove, like you, treacherous to 
 my sovereign ; since you cannot be ignorant of my former 
 actions in his late majesty's service, from which principles o. 
 loyalty I am no whit departed. : I scorn your proffers ; I dis- 
 dain your favor ; I abhor your treason ; and am so far from 
 delivering up this island to your advantage, that I shall keep 
 it to the utmost of my power for your destruction. Take this 
 for your final answer, and forbear any further solicitations : for 
 if you trouble me with any more messages of this nature, I will 
 burn the paper, and hang up the messenger. This is the im- 
 mutable resolution, and shall be the undoubted practice of him 
 who accounts it his chiefest glory to be his majesty's most loyal 
 
 and obedient subject. 
 
 " Derby." 
 
 Scarce had these stirring and memorable lines flowed from 
 the pen of the brave and noble cavalier, before he was again 
 called to prove in the field that indomitable loyalty, for which 
 his race was so nobly conspicuous. 
 
 The Second Charles, proclaimed by his Scottish subjects, who 
 had revolted against the grim intolerance and fanaticism of the 
 independents, had remained well nigh two years in their camp,, 
 rather indeed a prisoner than a king, but had still, in spite of 
 1 the fatal defeat at Dunbar, maintained his position as monarch, 
 and kept up his own hopes and those of his well-wishers, of one 
 day recovering his English crown. And now, at length, had 
 the day arrived. Profiting by a false movement of Cromwell, 
 who, being pressed for supplies, was compelled to leave the way 
 into England open to the Scots, he rushed down, high of hope, 
 into the centre of his native realm, trusting to rally on himself 
 all the stout cavaliers of the northern and the midland counties, 
 
286 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 and by a daring stroke to master the metropolis before Oliver 
 could retrace his steps, or come up with his rear. 
 
 But little knew he of the giant with whom he had to do. 
 
 Rapidly he marched southward, but tardily and feebly came 
 in the levies of the cavaliers. Defeat and death had thinned 
 their numbers, had tamed their high, hot blood, had rendered 
 them, although brave as ever, hopeless and averse to further 
 struggles. Sequestrations and confiscations had narrowed their 
 resources; their plate, their silver candlesticks and posset dishes, 
 had been melted down in the late king's service ; their trusty 
 war-horses were dead or aged ; their gallant sons were dead on 
 the field or on the scaffold ; their brave tenants were decimated, 
 and the survivors given to other masters. Never have men so 
 fought, so bled, so suffered for any cause or king, as have the 
 cavaliers of England for that most lamentable and disastrous 
 house of Stuart — never have men met with such ingratitude. 
 
 Levies and men came in slowly — but at the first trumpet call, 
 the foot of Derby was in the stirrup, the blue scarf of the king 
 upon his breast, the king's black feather in his hat — he left his 
 castle to the keeping of his noble wife, and as he kissed her 
 proud fair brow at parting — " It may be," he said, " that we 
 shall meet no more on earth, but we shall meet in heaven ! 
 Mourn not for me, therefore, Charlotte, if I fall, but be strong 
 and brave in duty." 
 
 And she replied, " Do but your duty, and I will not mourn, 
 save in the secret heart ; and when you are saint in heaven, 
 look you down on us, and see if I do not mine." 
 
 His race was soon run, and his days numbered. His small 
 detachment cut off and overpowered at Wigan Lane, he still 
 made good his way to Worcester, and fought there the last 
 desperate fight for Charles ; nor when that day was lost, stern 
 Cromwell's crowning mercy, did he desert his king, but saw him 
 
CHARLOTTE DE LA TREMOUILLE. 287 
 
 placed in safety, before he thought, too late, of his own pre- 
 servation. 
 
 A skirmish, a prisoner — a court-martial, a convicted culprit 
 — a block and a martyr — that was the last of Derby. 
 
 She heard, but wept not, nor despaired, but did her duty, 
 mourning in the secresy of her heart only. 
 
 Until not one English flag, save of the commonwealth alone, 
 was flying, she held out her island fortalice, and so stern had 
 been her defence, so great was their fear of her desperation, that 
 the parliament, on the surrender of her strongholds and her 
 submission to their usurping government, permitted her to re- 
 tain her estates, and enjoy their revenues, and she dwelt there, 
 educating her orphan son, as such a mother only can educate 
 a man ; adored by her islanders, respected by Englishmen in 
 general, and unmolested, if unreverenced, by the parliamenta- 
 rian chiefs, until the restoration of King Charles II. renewed 
 her persecutions, and perhaps brought her nearer to the block 
 than the worst enmity of his enemies. 
 
 She escaped all the perils of the pretended plot ; bore all her 
 sufferings to the last, as she had borne the first ; returned to 
 her island home, not the least instance of the ingratitude of 
 kings, lived in perpetual weeds for her lost lord — and died a 
 good wife, a good mother, a good mistress, a good subject — truly 
 a heroine of all time, and conspicuous on the page of history, as 
 the last lady that has levied war, or that shall levy war again 
 for ever within the kingdom of Great Britain. 
 
tf Jje Xittg'0 # rafifttte, 
 
 OR, 
 
 KING CHARLES II. AND HIS COURT. 
 
 1682. 
 
THE KING'S GRATITUDE; 
 
 OE, KING CHAELES II. AND HIS COUET. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 SIR REGINALD BELLARMYNE, AN OLD SOLDIER OF THE KING'S. 
 
 It was on a fine sunshiny morning of September, 1653, that 
 Sir Reginald Bellarmyne sat by the wide hearth of the summer 
 parlor, which he occupied when there were no guests, as was 
 for the most part now the case in the once hospitable cloisters 
 of Bellarmyne Abbey. 
 
 A small round table at his elbow displayed the relics of a 
 large hare-pasty — it would have been venison in the good days 
 of old ; and, in lieu of stoups of Malvoisie and Bourdeaux wine, 
 a solitary silver tankard thrust forward its capacious womb, 
 mantling with stout English ale recently stirred with the sprig 
 of rosemary, then held to impart a sovereign relish to the sub- 
 stantial joint ; nor did it appear, from the inroads the good 
 baronet had made on the contents of both, that his appetite had 
 suffered seriously from the retrenchment of luxuries which he 
 had, perhaps, once deemed necessaries to his rank and station. 
 He was a man of sixty years or upwards, who must at a former 
 
292 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 period of his life, have been eminently handsome, and who still 
 retained in his erect form, clear eye, and nobly cast features, 
 many traces of the beauty for which he had once been cele- 
 brated, even in the courts of the great and famous monarch. He 
 had, however, grown of latter years somewhat ponderous and 
 corpulent ; and his sinister leg wrapped in flannels, and bol- 
 stered up on an easy stool, gave painful evidence of that dis- 
 temper which is held to visit upon the children the pleasant 
 indulgences of their forefathers. Otherwise, Sir Reginald's ap- 
 pearance showed no token of those excesses which were unfor- 
 tunately so much in vogue, in those days, among the cavaliers 
 and courtiers of the king, as to be regarded almost one of their 
 characteristics. His eye was clear and calm, his complexion 
 pale rather than flushed ; and his frame, though somewhat 
 unwieldy, was well-knit, and still capable, when he was not 
 laboring under the attacks of the ancestral enemy, of both effort 
 and exertion. 
 
 His hair, which he still wore long and unpowdered, not having 
 adopted the new-fashioned abomination of the periwig, was, 
 indeed, very grey J his brow was deeply, wrinkled ; and there 
 was a singular expression, weary and wasted, yet intelligent and 
 keen withal, and full, of eager energy, pervading all the lines of 
 his face, which seemed to tell a history of cares, and troubles, 
 and anxieties — perhaps of almost mortal sorrows — encountered, 
 resisted, combated inch by inch as a man should combat such 
 things, if not vanquished by him. 
 
 He was dressed at all points as became a gentleman, in an 
 age when the distinctive garb of the different classes was main- 
 tained in all strictness, and when scarcely an article of wearing 
 apparel w r as common to the nobly born, and to the next beneath 
 him in station ; but yet so dressed that it was evidently rather 
 a matter of etiquette and self-respect than of convenience with 
 
THE KINGS GRATITUDE. 293 
 
 him to maintain the outward show of his family. His doublet 
 of uncut velvet was rather suited for the field sports, or out-door 
 occupations, than for the full morning-dress of a country gen- 
 tleman of the day ; yet it was evident from the ruffles at wrist 
 and knee, from the neat russet-leather buskins, and the long 
 rapier, with its ornamental shoulder-belt, that he wore it as his 
 habitual and distinctive attire. 
 
 A slouched grey hat, with a drooping feather, and a dark- 
 green roquelaure lay neatly folded and brushed on a slab hard by, 
 together with a crutch-headed cane mounted with a fine red- 
 deer's antler, and a pair of fringed buckskin gloves, that would 
 have reached well-nigh to the elbow of the wearer. 
 
 A noble deer greyhound, of the great Scottish breed, and of 
 the largest size, long of limb, long of muzzle, wire-haired, with 
 deep, earnest hazel eyes, lay on the deer-skin which covered the 
 hearth-stone, gazing into the face of his master with almost 
 superhuman intelligence ; while a couple of smaller dogs, fine 
 curly-fleeced water-spaniels, dozed closer to the embers of the 
 wood-fire, which the autumnal atmosphere, and the thick walls 
 of the ancient abbaye, rendered anything rather than unpleasant. 
 The parlor itself in which he sat showed, like its master, some- 
 thing at least of privation, if not of absolute poverty; the old 
 oak wainscoting, indeed, was as brightly polished ; the old high- 
 backed chairs and settles, with their quaint carvings and old 
 tapestried cushions, were as free from any speck of mould ; the 
 antique suits of steel-armor on the walls were as clear from rust ; 
 the modern implements of falconry or the chase were in as 
 accurate order and arrangement as if a hundred zealous hands 
 were daily employed in furbishing them. Still there was 
 nothing gay, nothing lightsome, nothing new ; nothing in all 
 the furniture or decorations of the room which did not wear a 
 wan and faded aspect, as if they had been coeval at least with 
 
294 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 their aged possessor; and as if, like him, they had seen their 
 better days. 
 
 Without, so far as could be seen from the large oriel window, 
 the stone mullions of which were so much overrun with clus- 
 tering ivy and woodbines as to indicate some slackness on the 
 gardener's part, things did not, on the whole, wear a more pro- 
 mising or brighter aspect. The fine elm avenue, which wound 
 away for above a mile, in full view, a broad belt of massive 
 verdure, had grown all out of shape and rule ; the great boughs 
 of many of the trees sweeping so low as to render the road 
 impassable to carriages, and difficult even to travellers on horse- 
 back. The lawn, immediately around the house, which had in 
 its palmier days been so neatly shorn and rolled, and decorated 
 with trim clumps of evergreens, and marble urns and statues, 
 was all grown up with coarse, long grass, among which the 
 hares and rabbits fed boldly as unscared by man ; and the wild 
 park beyond, with all its sunny fern-clad knolls, and rich shel- 
 tered hollows so closely pastured of old by the graceful herds of 
 fallow deer, showed but a wide expanse of rank untended vege- 
 tatidn, stocked with no denizens more aristocratical than a flock 
 of ragged-looking, black-faced, mountain-muttons, a score of 
 little sharp-horned kyloe oxen, and two or three queer-visaged 
 Shetland ponies, not much larger and much more ragged than 
 the moorland sheep with which they kept company. 
 
 The fish-ponds, one or two of which were visible among the 
 trees, scarcely gleamed blue, unless in casual spots, under the 
 bright sky of autumn, so thickly were they overspread with 
 water-grass and the green, slimy duckweed; the gravel road 
 before the door was matted with weeds, as if no wheel-track 
 had disturbed it for years. 
 
 All was a picture of neglect and desolation, yet beautiful 
 withal, from the very wildness and liberty of the unchecked 
 
the king's gratitude. 295 
 
 vegetation, and the frequency of those unusual sounds, so sel- 
 dom heard in the close vicinity of the abodes of men — the in- 
 cessant cooings of the hoarse woodpigeons, the crow of the 
 cock-pheasants from the garden walks, the harsh half-barking 
 bleat of the moorland sheep, and, most rarely heard of all, the 
 deep booming of the bitterns from the stagnant morass, into 
 which the fish-ponds were fast degenerating. 
 
 It was not difficult, though sad it was, either to understand 
 or to explain. Sir Reginald Bellarmyne, of Bellarmyne Abbey, 
 a baronet and a catholic, as long as there had been catholics 
 or baronets in England, loyalist and royalist, like all his fellows, 
 had in his own person, and in that of his fathers before him, 
 fought always on the wrong king's side, so far as fortune was 
 concerned, whatever might be said of fidelity. 
 
 One ancestor had perished on Crook-back Richard's side, at 
 Bosworth ; his grandson, and Sir Reginald's grandfather, had 
 fallen under the heavy censure of the man-hearted queen, Eliza- 
 beth, and escaped narrowly with life, for Scottish Mary's sake. 
 The baronet's own father, most unjustly, as they ever averred, 
 was mulcted thirty thousand pounds after the gunpowder affair 
 of Fawkes, with which they denied all participation ; and himself, 
 as he most undisguisedly proclaimed, had fought for King 
 Charles on every stricken field from Edgehill to Worcester 
 fight ; and when all was lost, had followed the fortunes of his 
 son in foreign lands, and melted his last ounce of plate to sup- 
 port the needy parasites of the discrowned and exiled king. 
 
 Mulcts, confiscations, forfeitures, in past reigns, had done 
 much ; the sequestrations under the parliament, for confirmed 
 and inveterate malignancy, all but completed the ruin of that 
 old, honorable family, as true and as English as the old oaks of 
 Bellarmyne. The last forfeiture would have completed it alto- 
 gether, but that, by a strange chance, the abbey, and a part of 
 
296 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 the estates immediately attached to it, being entailed most 
 strictly on the male heirs of the name for ever, an unknown, 
 and almost unsuspected cousin of the late Sir Armytage Bellar- 
 myne, turned up in the very nick of time, in the shape of a city 
 merchant, and a friend of some among the powers that were, 
 after justice had been done on the "Man of Blood," as they termed 
 it. He interposed the claim of himself and his son, who was 
 serving at the time under Lockhart against the Spaniards at 
 Dunkirk; thereby preventing the alienation of the property, 
 which was sorely coveted by a puritan drysalter of the West 
 Eiding, from the old name of the feudal tenure. 
 
 No sequestration occurred, therefore, of the last demesnes of 
 the House of Bellarmyne ; and, at the Restoration, the old, bat- 
 tered, widowed cavalier returned, with one daughter, who had 
 been educated in a French convent — his only son, the promise 
 of his race, had fallen, a boy of fifteen, fighting like a man by 
 his side at Worcester — to all that now remained of the once 
 broad possessions ; the old abbey, a world too wide for the 
 shrunken acres that now alone looked up to its time-honored 
 belfries. 
 
 The city cousin, the Bellarmyne of London, like an honest 
 man and a good Christian as he was, though a heretic in the 
 parlance of Rome — and a true gentleman, although he smacked 
 a little of the puritan — had ever remitted the rents of the ab- 
 bey to Sir Reginald, whom he constantly acknowledged, though 
 he had never seen him, as the head of the house during the 
 whole period of his exile ; and, on the restoration of King Charles 
 II., to which, with others of the eminent London merchants, he 
 had largely contributed, made over to him, as a matter of right, 
 and of course, and in no wise as a favor, the mansion and the 
 remnant of the lands, somewhat neglected, indeed, and out of 
 order, but neither dilapidated nor exhausted. 
 
the king's gratitude. 297 
 
 It is, perhaps, to be regretted that, at this time, no personal 
 meeting occurred between the kinsmen, for they were both 
 men of high character, high minds, and correct feelings ; but 
 having had no intercourse, each had probably in some sort con- 
 ceived of the other, something of the character ascribed to his 
 political party. The protestant merchant took it too much, 
 and as it proved wrongfully, for granted, that the old cavalier 
 and inveterate swordsman was more or less the rash, reckless, 
 rakehelly debauchee and rioter of his day and class ; and con- 
 tented with having done justice, thought no more about the 
 matter, nor troubled himself about his cousin, or his affairs. 
 
 The old soldier, more naturally, after he had acknowledged 
 frankly the honorable conduct of his unknown kinsman, and 
 expressed his sense of obligation, shrank from anything that 
 could savor of intrusion, or a desire of establishing any sort of 
 claim or clientelage on his rich and powerful relation. It is 
 probable that something might have added to this delicacy, in 
 the shape of the cavalier's distaste to the puritan, the romanist's 
 aversion to the heretic, and, yet more, of the soldier's distrust 
 and prejudice against the trader. 
 
 Still, none of these motives were very strong — for it was well 
 known that Nicholas Bellarmyne of the city, though neutral 
 throughout, and, at the commencement of the troubles, inclined 
 more to the parliament, had never joined the independents, 
 much less identified himself with the regicides. Sir Reginald 
 himself, moreover, though a catholic, was such rather because 
 he would not abjure the creed of his fathers than that he had 
 anything in him of the persecutor ; and he had seen so much, 
 in the Low Countries, of the noble merchants of those days, when 
 merchants were men of patriotism, intelligence, and honor, that 
 he was unusually free from the prejudices of the noble against 
 the trader caste. 
 
 14 
 
298 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 ; Neither of the two, in fact, knew much of the circumstances 
 or character of the other ; and neither was, at this time, even 
 aware that his distant kinsman was a father, though from his 
 energy in the matter of the entail, Sir Reginald might suspect 
 that the merchant had some further representative. 
 
 On his diminished estates, then, which barely now gave re- 
 turns sufficient for the maintenance of himself and his child, 
 with a household the most limited, and on the narrowest scale 
 compatible with his rank and name, Sir Reginald settled himself 
 quietly, afar from the tumult, the dissipation, and the heartless- 
 ness of courts ; perceiving at once that he had nothing to expect 
 from the gratitude or generosity, much less from the justice of 
 the sovereign, whose seal and sign-manual he held, as well as 
 that of his unhappy father, for sums advanced as loans, the 
 repayment of which would have more than redeemed all the 
 recent losses of the Bellarmynes, and enabled them to resume 
 their appropriate station in the country. 
 
 Had he been alone in the world, it is more than probable 
 that Sir Reginald would have resigned himself contentedly to 
 his diminished circumstances, and would have ultimately sunk, 
 more or less graciously, and with more or less repining, into the 
 condition of the fox-hunting, ale-consuming squire of the day, 
 something above the farmer, but. far from equal to the country 
 gentleman of England. The great nobles who in past reigns, 
 up to the unfortunate days of the unhappy Stuarts, had been 
 used to live on their own estates, in their viceregal castles, 
 during ten months of the year, holding cour-pleniere of the 
 lesser gentry, and collecting around them the intelligence, the 
 civilization, and the splendor of their several shires, no longer 
 lived — like their forefathers — independent nobles on their own 
 hereditary principalities. 
 
 During the troublous times, which had scarcely passed over, 
 
THE KING S GRATITUDE. 299 
 
 most of them wandering as exiles in foreign lands, France more 
 especially, they had contracted the false and pernicious usage 
 of abandoning their demesnes and rural residences to bailiffs 
 and intendants ; and wasting profligate, dishonorable, useless 
 lives about the precincts of the royal court; parasites of kings ; 
 loungers at the Exchange ; gamblers at Tonbridge Wells or 
 Newmarket ; fribblers and coxcombs, almost as free from any 
 manly vice, as from any grace or virtue. 
 
 At this time England had lost entirely that strong and living 
 feature of her social and political character — her rural aristo- 
 cracy, the greatest men of the land living among and with their 
 people, as if themselves of the people ; and regarded rather by 
 the throne in the light of allied or kindred princes than as 
 mere subjects — much less as mere flatterers and courtiers. 
 
 From the accession of King James the First to the death of 
 Queen Anne, England was virtually Frenchified ; she had no 
 longer a great nobility, but she had in lieu of it a little noblesse 
 of the court clique, of favorites of the great man, of favorites of 
 the bad woman of the day. 
 
 The lodgings of the metropolis were crowded with great lords, 
 crouching and crawling, and doing unutterable basenesses at 
 the feet of a minister, whose grandfathers their grandfathers 
 would have hung from their battlements ! — the country was 
 deserted to rude boors, drunken ignoramus squires, time-serving, 
 grotesque parsons, who thought it an advancement to marry 
 the lady-of-the-manor's waiting- worn an. 
 
 Coxcombry, profligacy, infidelity, insolvency, false refinement, 
 and favoritism at court, had reflected themselves in grossness, 
 ignorance, brutality, and want of all refinement in the country. 
 In the reign of Charles II. there was scarce a gentleman in all 
 England ; and if there were one, he was something out of place, 
 ridiculous, and obsolete, without honor at court, or influence in 
 
300 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 the country. And such, in sooth, was Sir Reginald Bellar- 
 myne. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 mistress rosamond bellarmyne ; a maid-of-honor of the 
 queen's. 
 
 It would have been a difficult thing, even in England, that 
 land of female loveliness, to find a brighter specimen of youthful 
 beauty than was presented by Rosamond Bellarmyne, when 
 she returned to her home, then in her sixteenth year, after wit- 
 nessing the joyful procession of the 29th of May, which ter- 
 minated in the installation of the son in that palace of Whitehall 
 from which his far worthier father had gone forth to die. 
 
 She was a perfect type, in a word, of the most purely English 
 type of insular beaut) r . -A trifle above the middle height of 
 women, her shape was exquisitely formed, so fully yet so deli- 
 cately developed that it never occurred to the spectator to ask 
 himself whether she was taller or shorter, plumper or slenderer, 
 than the average of her sex. Her complexion was that of her 
 native isle, pure as the drifted snow, yet with a rich undertone of 
 warm health showing itself, like the light within an alabaster 
 lamp, in an equable and genial glow, not fitfully or in electric 
 flashes. Her large, well opened eyes were of the darkest shade of 
 blue, yet full of the quickest and most mirthful light; so that, 
 when her lips smiled, her eyes anticipating them appeared to over- 
 flow their dark lashes with silent laughter. Features are not de- 
 scribable ; nor could any description give even a faint idea of the 
 varied expression of her rich beauty, or of the exceeding fasci- 
 
the king's gratitude. 301 
 
 nation of her smile. Yet it was in her expression more espe- 
 cially that lay the charm of Rosamond Bellarmyne ; and those 
 who knew her the best asserted that her expression figured 
 forth, and that not darkly, the character of her mind and 
 genius. 
 
 When she arrived in England and took possession with her 
 father of the old abbey, one thing at least was evident to all be- 
 holders, that neither a life spent abroad — for she could scarcely 
 lisp her native tongue when she left the land of her birth — nor 
 six years of convent discipline had availed anything to dena- 
 tionalize her, whether in outward show or in inward spirit. 
 
 She was from top to toe an English girl ; English no less in 
 her faults and failings than in her solid and sterling excellences. 
 Frank and fearless, truthful and free-spoken, she would at times 
 push these brave qualities hard on towards the verge beyond 
 which they cease to be virtues. Conscious of no wrong thought, 
 and confident of her own strong will and pure intent, she gave 
 perhaps too little heed to the opinion of others, even when 
 such might have been worth consulting. Nor, speaking as she 
 was wont to do constantly on the first rightful impulse, did it 
 fail to occur frequently that she spoke thoughts aloud which 
 better had been left unspoken. And doing things unadvisedly, 
 or against advice, for she would listen to none whom she did not 
 both love and respect, she often did what she repented. 
 
 Such was the heiress of the broken fortunes of Bellarmyne, 
 when the restoration of the king to his own, restored her father, 
 with many another storm and battle-beaten cavalier, to the 
 possession of his old impoverished demesnes ; and in the two 
 years which ensued previous to the marriage of Charles with 
 the Infanta, little occurred to alter, however the lapse of time 
 might tend to mature, her person and her mind. 
 
 Entirely deprived of female society of her own rank, and 
 
302 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 indeed of intercourse with her own sex beyond a staid, demure 
 personage who had been her mother's chamber-woman, and a 
 gay French girl from Provence, she had learned no conventional 
 lessons of etiquette, much less of courtliness or worldly pru- 
 dence, among the sequestered hills and dales of the West- 
 Riding of Yorkshire in which Bellarmyne abbey was situated ; 
 button the contrary, had become more and more the child of 
 nature, high-souled, intelligent, affectionate, docile to gentle 
 spiritings, and easily amenable to reason, but quick of impulse, 
 firm of purpose, and utterly ungovernable by mere formulas and 
 maxims. 
 
 It is npt strange that Sir Reginald, deprived of the means of 
 maintaining his own station, and associating with his own 
 equals in his county — a deprivation to which his habits of en- 
 durance in the field, and with the foreigners, might in some sort 
 have inured himself — should have been liable to deep solicitude, 
 nay, even to dark despondency, when he looked upon this 
 creature, endowed with everything that should fit her to grace 
 the world, condemned to absolute seclusion, or, desperate alter- 
 native, the worse than rude society of the Ghylls. 
 
 A lady of the highest and most delicate culture, of the most 
 refined tastes and accomplishments, who, in so much as she had 
 mingled yet in the great world, had been familiar with the first 
 personages of the first European court, that of the magnificent 
 Louis XIV., what could she have in common with the yeoman 
 farmers of the fells and dales, or with such simple-hearted un- 
 taught hoydens as their wives or sisters ? What could he do 
 for her, himself living — what should become of her, when, in 
 his season, he should have passed away and perished, like the 
 leaves of his own oak trees in November ? Such thoughts, 
 far more than the gloom of gathering years, more than the 
 twilight of his waning fortunes, more than the imminence of 
 
the king's gratitude. 303 
 
 pressing poverty, had darkened the brow and saddened the heart 
 of the failing but yet unbroken veteran. 
 
 It was, therefore, with feelings near akin to delight, that, 
 within a few months after the marriage of the king to Catharine 
 of Portugal, the baronet received a grand and wordy epistle 
 from a remote kinswoman, the widow of a noble earl — his school- 
 boy friend, fellow-Oxonian, fellow-soldier through the fierce 
 conflicts of civil war, dead by his side on the bloody field of 
 Naseby — who had never wholly forgotten her own distant cousin, 
 or the near friend of her lost lord. 
 
 This estimable lady, who, unhappily gifted with a son too 
 well adapted to the court, and too well liked by the facile king, 
 had never descended to the frivolities of the restored monarchy 
 but resided afar off in her jointure house, in Cornwall, possessed 
 yet some influence, both of herself, and through her son the 
 favorite, within the precincts of Whitehall. 
 
 The time had not yet arrived when to possess such influence 
 was in itself almost a brand of infamy. 
 
 Cognizant of the extremity to which were reduced the for- 
 tunes of Bellarmyne, and expecting, with all the English world, 
 that the marriage of the monarch would establish decorum at 
 least and decency in the court of England's king, the Coun- 
 tess of Throckmorton had exerted .her influence, and that suc- 
 cessfully, in procuring for the beautiful Bosamond an appoint- 
 ment as one of the queen's maids-of-honor ; securing to her, in 
 addition to a small salary and apartments in the palace, an 
 introduction into the first society of the- realm, and an establish- 
 ment on the most unquestionable footing, as it should seem, both 
 of propriety and honor. 
 
 Still it may be thought that the lady doubted, though it did 
 not so strike the sturdy old loyalist Sir Reginald — who would as 
 soon have thought of doubting the moral integrity of the king 
 
304 PERSONS AND TICTURES. 
 
 as of disputing his divine right to the crown — for her letter was 
 long, verbose, involved, and not altogether so unquestioning or 
 hilarious in its tone as was the response of the old cavalier. 
 
 Since it had pleased heaven, it ran, that in lieu of a son to 
 the house of Bellarmyne, whom it would have been an easy 
 matter to help to advancement in aid of his own honorable 
 efforts, to give her cousin a weak girl only, who so far from 
 helping to restore the fortunes of the house, could not even be 
 expected to help, in any considerable degree, herself — and 
 whereas she, the countess, feared, and was sore grieved to think, 
 that Sir Reginald could scarce h&ve the means — without even 
 looking forward to advancing her young cousin Rosamond, or 
 settling her in due season in marriage in her proper station — 
 wherewithal to bring up the child conformably to her degree, it 
 might not be amiss to bestow her for a time in the servitude of 
 her most gracious majesty, who was esteemed to be a most 
 gentle and kind-hearted lady, and withal, of the true church. 
 
 And, thereafter, the various privileges, immunities, and ad- 
 vantages of the position being duly and appreciatingly recorded, 
 many sage points of advice were' intermingled ; many hints as 
 to the dangers, the temptations, the insidice to honor and virtue 
 incidental to court life were not obscurely added ; the principal 
 reliance of the countess appeared to rest on the character, not 
 merely for sag esse in the French meaning of the term, but for 
 candor/ stability, and persistency which she had learned — by what 
 means it was not stated — that Rosamond possessed, and not on 
 any safeguards she must expect to find in her new situation. 
 
 She advised her cousin Reginald to weigh the matter well 
 within himself, and to consult with Mistress Rosamond, con- 
 cealing from her nothing of the frivolities, and baseness, and 
 wickedness of the court, and of her own especial liability to 
 perils and temptations, before accepting the offer. 
 
the king's gratitude. 305 
 
 Nor did lie perceive anything, in the prospective of circum- 
 stances and the reasonable chances of life, as eligible, or even 
 less eligible, so it were honorable and secure, did she counsel 
 him to be in haste to accept the offer. 
 
 For the rest, should he judge it for the best to do so, she 
 prayed humbly and hopefully tliat it should turn out for the 
 best here and hereafter ; and so, with kind recollections to pretty 
 Mistress Rosamond — who, she heard, was in truth pretty Mis- 
 tress Rosamond — and begging her to wear the carcanet, inclosed 
 herewith, in memory of her loving kinswoman and godmother, 
 she remained ever, until death, his dutiful and regardful cousin 
 and friend, not forgetful of the past, 
 
 GlTENDOLEN THROCKMORTON. 
 
 But save the news itself, all was thrown away on the stout 
 Yorkshire baronet. The promotion was, to his honest, trustful 
 soul, as honorable as it was in a worldly view acceptable — less 
 an advantage than a distinction. An advancement, in short, so 
 splendid, as far to exceed his wildest wishes. 
 
 Educated from his childhood to a belief in the divine right of 
 kings, and in the impossibility of a son of the royal martyr 
 doing wrong, as entire as his faith in the infallibility of his 
 church, he would have regarded it no less treason to doubt the 
 one, than sacrilege to question the other. 
 
 Accepting, therefore, joyously all that there was acceptable 
 in the tidings, and pshawing, in his secret heart, at the cau- 
 tions which he regarded as old womanish scruples, he wrote 
 gratefully and with a full heart to his kinswoman, at her Cor- 
 nish manor with the unpronounceable name ; and, proudly com- 
 municating to Rosamond the news of her glorious prospects, 
 set about making such preparations as the narrowness of his 
 means permitted for sending, or conducting rather, his daughter 
 
 14* 
 
306 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 to her future abode under the shelter of the wing of England's 
 royalty. 
 
 Many of the herd of Bellarmyne cattle were driven to Ripon 
 markets, many of the ancestral oaks of Bellarmyne chase came 
 lumbering to the earth with all their leafy honors, destined 
 thereafter to ride, under England's red-cross flag, the briny 
 waves, scarce Salter than the tears shed by their stalwart owner, 
 as he saw their old places vacant, and the green park dis- 
 mantled of its noblest ornaments. 
 
 Even by dint of these sacrifices, little of splendor was effected 
 in the outfit of the queen's young maid-of-honor, and when the 
 aged baronet, presented himself at court by his old colonel the 
 noble Duke of Ormond, had delivered up his fair child to the 
 royal circle, and left her as a member of the household under 
 the care— nominal care — of the mother-of-the-maids, and the real 
 guardianship of her own delicacy and virtue, he returned alone 
 to the ancient abbey, which was now more solitary, sadder, 
 stiller, than ever before, to pass his old days alone, in increasing 
 poverty, increasing infirmities, increasing despondency, and, 
 alas ! decreasing vigor and elasticity whereby to endure them. 
 
 His out-door enjoyments were now limited to an occasional 
 day's coursing in the park, with his still choicely nurtured grey- 
 hounds, which he followed on a stout, gentle hackney ; falconry 
 and the chase had become enterprises of too much pith and 
 moment for the war-worn cavalier ; while his fireside relaxations 
 were limited to the study of his two books, the Bible and Wil- 
 liam Shakspeare, with an occasional game of chess and a cool 
 tankard with the vicar, and — greatest delight of all — the peru- 
 sal of a letter from Rosamond, when three or four times a year 
 the tardy and irregular post brought down the stirring news of 
 the loud and licentious city to the quiet hills and pastoral dales 
 of Yorkshire. 
 
the king's gratitude. 307 
 
 These letters for some time, until above a year had passed, 
 were all bright and sparkling. Everything seemed to wear 
 the couleur de rose veritable; his majesty's wit, his majesty's 
 courtesy and frank kindness ; the affectionate and genial graces 
 of the pretty, interesting, foreign queen, the loveliness of the 
 maids-of-honor, the belle Jennings, and the belle Hamilton, and 
 the lovely Miss Stewart, and the merry, witty, gipsy Miss Price ; 
 and the graces and accomplishments of the unrivalled courtiers 
 of the day, the admirable De Grammont, and the unapproach- 
 able Anthony Hamilton, and Sedley and Etherege, and the 
 gallant Buckhurst, and the princely Buckingham — these were 
 the subjects of her first epistles, and their burden, that all and 
 every one were so good-natured and so kind to her, little Rosa- 
 mond Bellarmyne, that she felt herself there, in that splendid 
 court of Whitehall, or in those merry-makings under the superb 
 elms of Hampton court, or in those rantipole junketings at Ton- 
 bridge Wells, or in those grand hunting matches at Newmarket, 
 or races on Epsom Downs, every bit as much at home, every bit as 
 safe, and almost — but no, not quite — as happy as she used to be 
 with her birds and flowers, her pigeons and her pheasants, and 
 her ponies, and her poor pensioners, at dear old Bellarmyne. 
 
 And the old man rejoiced and exulted as he read them ; and 
 formed strange fancies and high hopes, hardly admitted even 
 to himself, as he conned them over in his own mind ; and then 
 rehearsed, in the intervals of their peaceful chess, to his good 
 old friend Dr. Fairfax, how his little girl had been chosen to fill 
 such or such a place in such a masque Or revel ; and how the 
 young Marquis of Ossory, or this or that more illustrious cour-' 
 tier, had sought her hand in some figure dance, which had been 
 performed with such good fortune as to elicit royal approbation 
 — and above all, how the same little girl's head was entirely 
 proof against all the flatteries and frivolities of the great world ; 
 
308 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 and how her heart was still in the right place, honest and true, 
 and frank and candid ; and how, in a word, the admired and 
 toasted, and already famous belle, Mistress Eosamond Bellar- 
 myne, the queen's maid-of-honor, was still the same, the very 
 same good little Eosamond, who had been the life of the old 
 abbey, and with whose departure s© much of that life had de- 
 parted. ;; 
 
 &, By and bye, however, the letters were changed, though the 
 writer still seemed to be unchanged — what was said was, beyond 
 doubt, said truly ; but much appeared to be left unsaid. There 
 were no more praises of the maids-of-honor, no more eulogies 
 of king and courtiers ; but much pity for the queen. 
 
 At length came mention of annoyances, almost of insults, by 
 a person not named. It was evident even to Sir Eeginald, not 
 usually too acute, that she was unhappy, ill at ease. Some- 
 times he fancied that she felt herself in danger ; but he never 
 dreamed that she concealed half her grievances, from her 
 knowledge of his inability to aid her, and fear of his hot temper 
 and violent resentments. 
 
 After a protracted silence, oame a wild, sad, anxious letter, 
 containing a dark tale, darkly told, of imminent peril from the 
 same unnamed person ; of timely rescue by a young gentleman, 
 likewise nameless — rather than a letter, it was an earnest im- 
 ploring cry, to be removed from that accursed place, or ere it 
 should be too late. And, therewith, the old man's eyes were 
 opened, and all his dreams vanished. He would have set forth, 
 that day, that hour, to fetch her home at all risks ; but his in- 
 firmity, rendered more acute by the excitement of his mind, 
 forbade locomotion. 
 
 So he sat in his old hall alone, as we have seen him, and 
 chafed and fretted himself almost into madness, from conscious- 
 ness of his own impotence to assist the jewel of his old heart, 
 
the kino's gratitude. 309 
 
 and by fears for her safety, worse almost than the worst reality. 
 One wise measure he took promptly. He wrote at length, 
 inclosing his child's innocent appeal, to their good kinswoman 
 of Throckmorton, praying her aid and counsel in this their ex- 
 tremity. Rosamond he advised of what he had done ; com- 
 mended her courage ; praised her ; and promised, as soon as 
 his distemper would permit, to be with her in person. 
 
 A second measure, wiser yet, he took some days later ; for 
 it cost his pride many a pang, and to do it at all was a great 
 self-conquest. He wrote to Nicholas Bellarmyne, in the city, 
 stating the whole case — asking nothing. That done, he could 
 no more ; he waited, in darkness, for the dawn. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 CAPTAIN BELLARMYNE ; A YOUNG SOLDIER OF THE EMPEROR'S. 
 
 A beautiful autumnal day had drawn to its close some three 
 weeks previous to the little incident which produced Rosamond's 
 letter, and caused so much anxiety and suffering to the old 
 cavalier ; and she was sitting alone and despondent at the win- 
 dow of her apartment which looked over the gardens, in those 
 days extending from the rear of the exquisite palace of White- 
 hall to the banks of the brimful silver river. 
 
 But she had no eyes for the shaven lawns, the tufted. par- 
 terres, or the moonlighted bosom of the argent Thames; no 
 ears for the sounds of merriment and music which came, at 
 times, swelling on the gentle air from the returning barges of 
 pleasure parties and homebound revellers. 
 
 She thought of herself only, of her perplexities, her trials, 
 
310 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 her undefended situation, her offended virtue, her menaced 
 honor. 
 
 For she had discovered, in season, both the offence and the 
 menace ; and while resenting the one, and fortifying herself 
 against the other, had learned that, in the path of virtue, she 
 might hope for neither encouragement among her beautiful 
 companions, the fair, frail maids-of-honor ; nor for the chivalric 
 defence of one noble heart among the corrupt, licentious cour- 
 tiers. To the king an appeal for support would have been 
 worse than absurd ; since his smiles, his encouragement, his 
 good wishes, were all with the offender. 
 
 The queen, alas ! could have given sympathy and tears only, 
 had she chosen to give these ; but, short as was the space since 
 her espousals, she had learned already the sad lesson that, to 
 preserve even the outward semblance of her husband's respect, 
 she must 'turn a consenting ey6 to his foibles, and interfere with 
 no one of his unroyal pleasures. 
 
 It was, perhaps, wonderful that — beautiful and accomplished 
 as was Rosamond Bellarmyne ; and, moreover, from her very 
 inexperience, free-spoken as she was free-hearted — she had not 
 been singled out before in that profligate and ungracious court 
 for dishonorable and degrading pursuit. 
 
 But it had. so happened that, when she arrived, the king him- 
 self had eyes or ears for none but La belle Stewart — who, by 
 her meretricious half-consents and half-denials, kept him sighing 
 and dangling at her knees longer than his constancy ever en- 
 dured for any other maid or matron ; the Duke of York, for 
 whose gross tastes the innocent and lively Rosamond would 
 have lacked piquancy and vice, was in the chains of the ill- 
 favoured and brazen Sedley ; and of the other courtiers none, 
 perhaps, dared — so much was there, even in her lightest and 
 gayest moments, of the true dignity of virtue in her every word 
 
THE KING'S GRATITUDE. 311 
 
 and gesture — to approach the young maid-of-honor with the 
 suit of dishonor. 
 
 To accident, therefore, and in some lesser degree to her own 
 demeanor, she had owed, thus far her escape from perse- 
 cution. 
 
 But one had now come upon the scene — to whom to outrage 
 dignity, as to ruin virtue, and pollute honor, was but an incen- 
 tive, added to the gratification of his passions, and — what with 
 him stood far higher than his passions — his extraordinary and 
 indomitable vanity. 
 
 Master of all graces, all arts, all accomplishments, which 
 conciliate one sex and ruin the other, animated by no solitary 
 spark of honor, courage, manhood, or integrity, though so 
 skilled in polite and politic dissimulation as to make all the 
 world believe him the very soul of honor, chivalry, and cour- 
 teous courage, De Grammont had resolved to compass her de- 
 struction. 
 
 And what he had resolved in that sort heretofore, had almost 
 inevitably come to pass. 
 
 His own powers of seduction, should they prove for once 
 insufficient, were now aided to the utmost by no less an auxi- 
 liary than Charles himself ; who lately being deeply smitten 
 with the charms of a young French coquette — to use no 
 harsher term — a cousin, it was given out, of the consummate 
 count himself, had bargained — shameful contract, but most 
 characteristic of those shameful days — for the facile French- 
 man's favor with his kinswoman by engaging to throw into 
 his arms the beautiful Bellarmyne. 
 
 All this, of course, was a secret beyond the reach of Rosa- 
 mond; yet she had already perceived much and divined more 
 of the iniquities which were plotting against her. 
 
 The odious compliments, the resolutely pertinacious atten- 
 
312 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 tions, so marked as to banish all other courtiers from her side ; 
 his insolently graceful importunities — to be repulsed by no 
 scorn, no coldness, no denials ; for these he treated either as 
 girlish caprices, or as English pruderies — had given way of late 
 to an assumption of radiant triumph in her presence ; to an 
 affectation of being perfectly in her good graces ; to a boastful 
 and self-sufficient complacency ; as if he were, indeed, the ad- 
 mitted and successful lover — the gorgeous Jupiter of a submis- 
 sive Semele. 
 
 She heard, too, from the maids-of-honor, who rallied and 
 complimented her on her victory — as if to be the fallen victim 
 of that Hyperion's passions were a triumph — that he proclaim- 
 ed, almost aloud, by the insinuation of adroit disclaimers and 
 modest inuendoes, that to him at least the severe Bellarmyne 
 had lowered her arms ineffectual. 
 
 By bribery of her maids learning what would be her dress 
 at each court festival, he appeared always wearing her colors ; 
 so that to every one not in his secret, it must appear a matter 
 of concert between them. 
 
 By connivance of the king — who played his most unroyal 
 game with all the zeal of an interested ally; and with an 
 adroitness which proved that, if he made a less than indifferent 
 monarch, he would have made an admirable Sir Pandarus — in 
 every masque, quadrille, riding-party, hunting match, or other 
 court diversion, in which it was the custom of the day that the 
 company should be paired, the famous chevalier had as his 
 partner the unwilling and unhappy Rosamond, whom the rules 
 of court etiquette, stringent as those of court morality were lax, 
 prohibited from refusing this detested companion. 
 
 Thus all the world of Whitehall, from Charles himself to the 
 least of his courtiers, either by connivance or from being them- 
 selves deceived, received it as an acknowledged fact that the 
 
the king's gratitude. 313 
 
 Beau Grammont either stood already, or was in a fair way of 
 standing, as he would with the Belle Bellarmyne. 
 
 And she, while she felt this, and perceived no way of avoid- 
 ing it, or of disentangling herself from the nets sensibly spread- 
 ing their meshes around her, trembled, and wept and prayed, 
 and feared even herself for herself should this miserable deceit 
 continue, fatal as the enchantment of some evil genius. 
 
 Perhaps had things thus continued .had no overt violence 
 been attempted, no outrage offered, had she been left to the 
 influence of that evil society in which all the angels around her 
 were fallen angels, rejoicing and luxuriating in their fall — left 
 to the imputation of being herself a victim of the same dark 
 sin — left to doubt and distrust herself, and to despair of being 
 virtuous alone in the midst of that carnival of vice — she had 
 fallen. 
 
 But, for this time, it was not so ordered ; and, as it is often 
 the case when the darkness of human calamity is deepest, that 
 the dawn of happiness is nearest, so now events — of which she 
 had not the smallest suspicion, over which she had not the 
 least control — were in progress, which effected changes as un- 
 expected as important both in her present and future con- 
 dition. 
 
 It was the close of a beautiful autumnal day; the sun had 
 sunk, as he rarely does in summer-time in that humid climate 
 of England, unclouded over the soft Richmond hills ; and a 
 tender, dusky twilight, mellowed only by the young light of a 
 crescent moon, was outspread over the city and its suburbs. 
 
 On this evening there was no court ceremonial ; and dis- 
 pensed from attendance on her royal mistress, and yet more 
 odious attendance in the court circle, Rosamond Bellarmyne 
 had just wept herself and her sorrows into temporary forgetful- 
 ness, when an affair fell out between Barns Elms and Batter- 
 
314 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 sea, which seeming to have no connexion with her or her 
 affairs, yet influenced the whole way of her after life. 
 
 The country in that direction was, in the days of which I 
 write, although now so covered with streets and squares of thickly 
 settled parishes as to be indistinguishable from the metro- 
 polis itself, truly the country ; a suburban district, it is true, but 
 in all its aspects rural ; green fields and green groves, and a 
 maze of green winding lanes, with here and there a country 
 villa, here and there a country tavern and wine-garden — fre- 
 quented for the most part by the dissolute and wanton of both 
 sexes, the scum of the neighboring metropolis, though visited 
 occasionally by the petits maitres and petites mattresses of the 
 court — often in disguise, and always on errands no less secret 
 and illicit than those of the ordinary inmates. 
 
 It was, in short, a district presenting all the worst features — 
 beauty excepted — of both city and country ; in addition to 
 which its character was not greatly improved by being the 
 favorite resort of seafaring men on a frolic, and of the crews — 
 then, as now, a most unruly set — of the river craft and 
 barges. 
 
 In the centre of this district, not far from the river bank, to 
 which extended its overgrown gardens and shrubberies, too 
 luxuriant from neglect, there stood a pleasant Italian edifice ; 
 once the suburban residence of a foreign ambassador near the 
 court of the first, king James, but for some time past fallen 
 into disuse and disrepair. 
 
 Within the few weeks preceding the date of my narrative, 
 the minds of the country quidnuncs of the vicinity had been 
 exercised by the repairs and decoration of the villa ; the bring- 
 ing thither in many wains overland, in many barges by river, 
 much sumptuous furniture, mirrors and tapestries, carpets and 
 
the king's gratitude. 315 
 
 couches, cabinets of marquetry and tables of rare carving, suita- 
 ble only for the abodes of the great and noble. 
 
 On the morning of that beautiful autumnal day the exercised 
 minds had been strained to their utmost tension by the arrival 
 — in a grand caleche, drawn by superb Flanders mares, and 
 escorted by a train of servants of both sexes — of a very young, 
 and very lovely, though dark-complexioned, foreign lady, with- 
 out any visible protector and companion. And the excitement 
 was relieved only by the announcement made by an English 
 postillion — all the other servants being French — that the lady 
 was Mademoiselle de la Garde, of almost royal blood in France ; 
 and that the Italian House, as it was called, had been purchas- 
 ed for her residence by her kinsman, the celebrated Chevalier 
 de Grammont. 
 
 It was in one of the country hostelries mentioned above that 
 this announcement was made ; a pleasant rustic-looking place 
 enough, at about half a mile's distance from the villa, and 
 nearly twice as far from the main London road ; lying on a 
 lonely lane, secluded by thick, bowery hedges, and rendered 
 almost dark at noon by the overhanging branches of the huge 
 elms. This inn had a bowling-green, a maze, and a large 
 garden in the rear, with pleasant apartments, both for day and 
 night, opening upon them, for the use of visitors of the better 
 class ; while in front were a tap-room, an ordinary w 7 ith shovel- 
 boards, and a skittle-ground, for the accommodation of the 
 neighbors and the city roisterers, who mightily affected the 
 Koyal Oak — on Sundays more especially. 
 
 At the time when this announcement was made a young 
 gentleman of good mien was present, having entered the house 
 casually as a stranger, dismounting from a good horse, and 
 announcing his intention of tarrying there a day or two, hav- 
 ing some business with a sea-captain of Battersea. 
 
316 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 He was a man of some twenty-eight or thirty years, finely 
 and powerfully formed, with a very deep chest, and muscular 
 limbs. His present complexion was dark and sunburned; 
 though the color of his chestnut hair and steel-grey eyes, as 
 well as the fairness of his forehead — where it had been protect- 
 ed by his hat — showed that the blackness was the effect of 
 exposure to the weather, not the work of nature. His car- 
 riage and air, no less than a slight scar as of a sabre-cut omhis 
 forehead, indicated that he had seen service. His garb — rich, 
 though of grave colors, and of foreign fashion — was half mili- 
 tary, and worn with a martial air ; and he bore on his breast 
 a small foreign order. His name, as he gave it to the curious 
 barmaid, proved, if it were a true one, the rank and the station 
 of the bearer — Captain Bellarmyne, from the Low Countries. 
 
 This gentleman appeared, indeed, to be something moved, if 
 not surprised, by what he heard ; but he said nothing, asked 
 no questions, dined privately at noon in one of the garden- 
 chambers, and after dinner took his cool tankard in an arbor 
 looking upon the cool, winding lane. 
 
 "While he was sitting there a superb cavalier came powder- 
 ing along the lane, as hard as a splendid English hunter 
 could carry him, splendidly dressed in a grand peruke, a velvet 
 coat, and high riding-boots : a man of great personal beauty 
 and grace ; both evidently made the most of, and set off to the 
 utmost. 
 
 " In truth it is himself!" muttered the young man. "It is 
 De Grammont. Whom shall we see next ?" 
 
 And therewith he raised himself erect, so that he came into 
 full view of the passer-by ; and lifting his plumed hat bowed 
 courteously, but coldly. 
 
 The chevalier looked puzzled — as if he recognised the face 
 without recognising the owner of it ; looked annoyed at being 
 
the king's gratitude. 31 7 
 
 recognised ; half checked his horse — as if to stop and speak ; 
 then changing his mind, bowed slightly and galloped forward. 
 
 " He does not recollect rne," said Captain Bellarmyne ; 
 " that is well, too. And, now — whom shall we see next V 
 
 It was late in the afternoon of that day before the captain 
 saw any one ; yet it was evident that he kept himself in the 
 way to see what was to be seen. 
 
 But when the sun had set, and the moon was almost rising, 
 two gentlemen rode up to the horse-trough before the door, 
 accompanied by a single groom ; and one of them asked how 
 far was it to what was called the Italian House. 
 
 On receiving the reply they both dismounted ; and giving 
 their horses to their attendant desired him not to wait, as they 
 would walk home in the pleasant moonlight or tarry until 
 morning. 
 
 That done, they called for a stoup of claret; and stood 
 chatting while they drank it not far from Captain Bellarmyne, 
 who soon saw clear enough who had come the next. 
 
 One of the two — the most remarkable in all respects — was 
 middle-aged ; something above the middle stature ; dark-com- 
 plexioned and harsh-featured, with coarse, black hair, partially 
 redeemed only by a bright, intelligent smile ; a quick, vivacious 
 eye ; and an air of innate and unconcealable gentility, if not 
 dignity, which shone like a diamond through the disguise — 
 evident to Bellarmyne's eyes, at least — which he wore. 
 
 In a word, it was the king ; and* the captain knew him in 
 his disguise, as he had known De Grammont in his splendor. 
 
 At a glance anyone would have pronounced him, as he was, 
 more witty than wise ; more good-natured than good-princi- 
 pled ; fitter to be a gay companion than a true friend, whether 
 to himself or to others ; fitter to be anything than a king — and 
 that a king of freemen. 
 
318 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 His comrade Captain Bellarmyne knew likewise ; knew for 
 what he was, the most worthless of men living then — perhaps, 
 of all men — without one redeeming trait of good by which to 
 palliate the infamy in which he steeped his really transcendent 
 talents — John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, the constant compa- 
 nion of the monarch ; one of whose worst faults lay in the 
 selection of his intimates — for friends they were not. 
 
 They tarried but a minute, and then sauntered down the lane 
 towards the villa ; unobservant, but not unobserved by others 
 than the young soldier of the Low Countries. 
 
 A group of bystanders were collected, who had been playing 
 at skittles when the gentlemen rode up ; and one of these, as 
 they spoke to the groom of walking home in the pleasant 
 moonlight, nudged his next neighbor with his elbow, and he 
 cast a meaning glance at a third. 
 
 Bellarmyne seeming to see nothing, saw all with his marking 
 military eye. 
 
 One of these was — that common character in the dramas of 
 those days — the soldado ; a brawny ruffian, with a swashing 
 exterior and a coward's heart within, in a stained plush doublet 
 with tarnished lace, a broad shoulder-belt and a long rapier 
 balanced by a great dagger ; the second was another genius of 
 the same order ; but of a yet lower class ; the third and most 
 dangerous of the party, was a seafaring man ; smuggler, slaver, 
 or pirate — any, or perhaps all — as times and occasions suited. 
 
 " Didst hear that, Ruffling Jem V asked the latter, scarce in a 
 whisper, of the soldado, as they strolled back to their inter- 
 rupted game. 
 
 " Ay, Bully sailor. What'sJ make of it ?" 
 
 " That there'll be pickings in the pleasant moonlight, if we 
 look sharp, this evening." 
 
the king's gratitude. 319 
 
 " Mum's the word. Sure and steady. Three to two wins 
 the game. " 
 
 "But not so surely three to three," muttered Bellarmyne, 
 between his clinched teeth ; " and you may meet that, and find 
 it odds against you." 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 KING CHARLES II. AND THE EMPEROR'S YOUNG SOLDIER. 
 
 Some hours had passed since the occurrences which had 
 attracted Captain Bellarmyne's attention at the Royal Oak, 
 and it was already past ten o'clock, when three persons came 
 forth from the marble portico of the Italian villa, two of them 
 bareheaded, and one attired in most sumptuous court costume, 
 with a huge flowing peruke, impregnating the air with essences, 
 and giving out clouds of Marechal powder at every motion of 
 the owner, a French embroidered coat of pompadour-colored 
 velvet, gold-clocked silk stockings, and diamond-hilted sword, 
 and diamond aiguillettes and buckles. The other two were 
 plainly, though handsomely, attired in the usual riding costume 
 of gentlemen of that day. 
 
 It was one of these, who stood covered, receiving the profuse 
 compliments and thanks of the gorgeous courtier. 
 
 " Since, then, your majesty," he said, in reply to some words 
 spoken before they left the house, " is so well satisfied with 
 your reception, and with the fair recipient of your gracious 
 favors, nothing remains for me but to express my deep sense 
 of regret at the poor entertainment which I have been able to 
 offer to so great a king ; and to pray, with all humility, that 
 your highness will be pleased to make use of my poor house, 
 
320 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 and all that it contains, at all times and in all manners, as if it 
 were your palace of Whitehall ; which is not, in truth, more 
 entirely your own." 
 
 " A truce to your compliments, chevalier," replied the king, 
 laughing : " your courtesy, like the splendor of your collation, 
 is almost beyond the power of our gratitude to return. We 
 shall hope to see your fair cousin, near her majesty, at the next 
 drawing-room. Meanwhile reckon on me, chevalier, as your 
 friend in all things wherein I may serve you." 
 
 " Your majesty will remember — " 
 
 " The Bellarmyne ! So far as I can promise, count, you shall 
 be as happy — as I have been — as you desire to be. Can I say 
 more ? I give her to you with all my heart." 
 
 "His majesty," interrupted Rochester, whose caustic wit 
 never spared his king more than less exalted subjects, " hath 
 ever had a gracious liberal usage to give away what he hath 
 not to give. The old cavaliers of his sainted father aver that 
 it is all he ever hath been known to give." 
 
 " At least, he hath given enough to you, Wilmot," replied 
 the king, who was stung as much by the truth as the pointed- 
 ness of the hit : * too much, it might be thought, the license to 
 speak so to your kind master, as, for your life ! you durst not 
 to a private gentleman. But, enough of this : it grows late ; 
 and there were some customers at that Royal Oak as we pass 
 by, who looked as if it might be their profession, or their pas- 
 time, to cut — throats, or purses. Rochester may fall yet on a 
 chance, this very night, to prove that his sword is not more 
 harmless than his pen. Not a step further, chevalier ; we 
 would be incognito; and your splendor, no less than your 
 courtesies, would betray us. Give you good night, my lord 
 count, and au revoirP 
 
 And with the word, waiting no further response, the king 
 
THE KINGS GRATITUDE, 321 
 
 took his way, at his own rapid pace — with which few men 
 could keep up without inconvenience — through the wilderness 
 of the neglected grounds, into the gloomy windings of the 
 lane, now almost as dark as a closed room, so feebly did the 
 young moon and the winking stars penetrate the heavy foliage 
 which overhung it. 
 
 The loneliness and the gloom affected even the rash and 
 careless mind of Charles. " Odds fish ! " he muttered to him- 
 self, " a flambeau, and two or three stout lacqueys were not so 
 much amiss to-night, after all." And then he added, turning 
 to his taciturn companion, whose late insolence, with his 
 wonted facility, he had forgotten — 
 
 " This were a rare time and place for your friend Bucking- 
 ham's friend, Colonel Blood. If we were to encounter him 
 now, with two or three of his roaring boys to back him, we 
 should soon see how much that divinity would avail us, which 
 Will Shakspeare says ' doth hedge about a king.' " 
 
 "Think not of it, sir," replied Wilmot, whose teeth were 
 half-chattering in his head already, with the self-suggested 
 thought of what Charles had spoken. " Think not of it, sir ; 
 no one knows of this adventure save myself, the chevalier, 
 and Tom Hardy, the groom, whom you have proved trust- 
 worthy." 
 
 " In great things," answered the king, " no man is proved 
 trustworthy till he be tried in great things. But look not so 
 down-hearted, Wilmot ; I did not think, I only jested of it. 
 See, here are the lights of the Royal Oak; too loyal a sign, 
 sure, to harbor treason ; and within a mile or so we shall be 
 in the high road, where you will find company enow to rouse 
 your spirits : or stay, the good folk are a-foot yet here, it 
 seems ; we will tarry, and take a cup to revive them." 
 
 As the two gentlemen came into sight, or rather as soon as 
 15 
 
322 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 the sound of their quick, light footsteps — so unlike the hob- 
 nailed tramp of the customary foot travellers — was heard, it 
 was observed that the three ruffians who had lingered about 
 the tap, gambling and affecting to drink, though eschewing 
 deep potations, slunk away into the darkness, and hurried off 
 in the direction of Hyde Park, up the lane by which their 
 intended prey must pass. 
 
 At the same moment the young soldier, who had been con- 
 stantly watching them from his station in the arbor, arose, 
 and entering the house, went to his apartment quickly and in 
 silence. 
 
 No one was left except the landlord, leaning on the hatch of 
 his door, a green-aproned tapster, and two or three hostler- 
 boys, lounging about the horse-block and trough. 
 
 A cup of burnt sherry, which they first called for, was 
 speedily supplied ; but when Charles himself, who perhaps 
 felt that he had acted rashly, began to sound Boniface as to 
 the possibility of hiring, or even purchasing saddle-horses, he 
 soon found that he might as well have asked for camels ; so 
 making Wilmot pay the scot, who by chance possessed a few 
 shillings — the royal pockets being, of course, empty, he walked 
 away with slashing strides, laughing gaily at. his own ab- 
 surdity in thinking to hire post-horses at a wine-garden. 
 
 Scarcely had they departed, following unconsciously in the 
 steps of the ruffians who had preceded, and were now, doubt- 
 less, awaiting them in ambush, when Captain Bell army ne passed 
 the landlord, who was shutting up the house ; and without 
 answering his inquiry, how soon he should return, followed the 
 pair at such a distance as to keep barely within hearing of 
 their footsteps. 
 
 He had a long, dark cloak thrown loosely over his shoul- 
 ders ; and besides a stout horseman's tuck hanging on his 
 
the king's gratitude. 323 
 
 thigh, wore a brace of fine pistols, recently loaded, at his 
 belt. 
 
 For about half a mile he followed the king slowly and un- 
 seen, yet having still in ear his firm, rapid, vigorous footstep, 
 until at length, just at the spot where he anticipated mischief, 
 the sound suddenly ceased. 
 
 It was as fit a spot for ill deeds as ever was chosen by the 
 clerks of St. Nicholas. The lane here turned at right angles, 
 a footpath entering it on the right by a turnstile ; it was 
 overhung by two or three heavy-boughed oaks, making it twi- 
 light even at noon ; and on the left was flanked by a dark, 
 thick-set coppice, divided from it by a foul, stagnant ditch, 
 deep in mire, and mantled with duck-weed and rank aquatic 
 verdure. 
 
 The only gleam of light which entered this thieves' corner, 
 came faintly through the opening of the footpath, and was 
 reflected a little more brightly from the water, on the surface 
 of which seemed to be concentrated all the feeble glimmer of 
 the starlit skies. 
 
 As the tread of the king ceased, Bellarmyne flung away his 
 cloak, and rushing forward, heard a rough voice exclaim — 
 
 " Come ! come ! No nonsense ! Your purses, cavaliers — 
 or your lives ; and you may think yourself in luck if the weight 
 of the first redeem the second." 
 
 " Odds fish ! " cried Charles, " mine won't ; for there's riot a 
 groat in't, I'll be sworn. How runs yours, Jack Wilmot ? for, 
 if it's not the fuller, we must make steel redeem our lives 
 instead of silver." 
 
 And he drew as he spoke, and put himself on guard, facing 
 the sailor and the soldado ; who, though with their points 
 advanced, still paused, awaiting the courtier's reply, as pre- 
 
324 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 ferring a sure ransom to a doubtful conflict; but the bolder 
 ruffian cried — 
 
 " But silver won't do, my noble roisterers ; we must get 
 gold, an' you are to go skin free." 
 
 "Hold your hands!" exclaimed Wilmot, losing all self-pos- 
 session from the extremity of fear ; " this is treason — it is the 
 King ! " 
 
 A loud, coarse laugh replied, in scorn, " The king — a likely 
 king, indeed ; without a maravedi in his purse ! — down with 
 the lying beggars, if 'twere but for their impudence. Treason, 
 quotha ! and not a groat in 's pocket ! Together, boys — have 
 at them." 
 
 And the clash of steel followed sharp and continuous. All 
 this had passed so rapidly, and the minds of those engaged 
 were so intent on the work in hand, that Bellarmyne's ap- 
 proach, swiftly as he hurried up, was unperceived till he was 
 close beside them. 
 
 " Stand to it, cavaliers ! " he cried ; " aid is at hand ! We 
 are stronger than the ruffians — pink them home ! " 
 
 At his shout the thieves fell back a little ; and had the true 
 men stood their ground stoutly, would have fled without more 
 ado. But Rochester, though he had fought tolerably well for 
 a moment, fear lending him a desperate sort of courage, when 
 he heard a step and shout close behind him, misunderstood 
 their import ; and, losing all heart, threw down his sword, 
 leaped the foot-stile with singular agility, and ran away as 
 hard as he could across the fields toward London. 
 
 Seeing this cowardly desertion, the rogues rallied ; and the 
 sailor, who was their best man, facing Bellarmyne, the other 
 two pressed the king home. Had there been any light, the 
 ruffian could not have kept his life ten seconds against the 
 practised weapon of the Imperialist; but, as it was, scarcely 
 
the king's gratitude. 325 
 
 the glimmer of the points could be discerned, like glow-worms 
 in the gloom ; and the antagonists struck, thrust, and warded, 
 by feeling the contact of their blades, not by seeing their 
 direction. 
 
 After a minute or two, finding that the men were resolute — 
 that in the dubious darkness he - had little or no advantage 
 over his immediate antagonist — while the king's hard breath- 
 ing, and his breaking ground once or twice, told him that he 
 was overmatched — the young soldier changed his tactics. 
 Still keeping up his guard against the sailor, he quietly drew 
 a pistol with his left hand, cocked it, and springing back with 
 a quick bound to the side of Charles, who had been pushed a 
 pace or two behind him, discharged his weapon within a 
 hand's breadth of the head of the tallest ruffian. 
 
 It was just in time ; for the king's guard was beaten down 
 by the blade of the other, and the soldado's point was at his 
 throat. The broad glare of the sudden discharge startled all 
 who w T ere engaged save one ; and he never started more. 
 The fatal ball crashed through his brain, and he was a dead 
 man ere his heavy body plashed into the noisome ditch behind 
 him. 
 
 " Fire-arms ! " shouted the sailor. " Ware-hawk ! Vamos ! " 
 and he, too, leaped the turnstile, and disappeared ; while his 
 companion took to his heels up the lane, and was soon out of 
 hearing. 
 
 " You are not hurt, sir ? " asked the young soldier, not 
 desiring to penetrate the- incognito of the king, as he returned 
 the pistol to his girdle. 
 
 " Thanks to you, no, sir," answered the king, warmly. " But 
 for you, I had been past feeling any hurt. Your pistol did 
 good service — it saved my life." 
 
 " It has done me better before," replied Bellarmyne, laugh- 
 
32G PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 ing ; " for it saved my own at Cracow, when a big Croatian 
 bad me down, witb bis knee on my chest, and a knife a span 
 broad at my weasand." 
 
 " That was good service, sir, too," said Charles, gravely ; 
 " but, perhaps, not better than this." 
 
 " Better for me, I only said," answered Bellarmyne, gaily ; 
 " but come, sir, if you are of my way of thinking, we were 
 better to be moving. That pistol-shot will bring out all the 
 bees buzzing from their hives under the .ftoyal Oak ; and, 
 though not dangerous, they might be troublesome. I should 
 have used my pistols when I first came up, but that I thought 
 of this ; and I should not have needed to use them at all, had 
 your friend shown himself a man." 
 
 " You are prudent, sir, as well as brave ; rare qualities in 
 any man. We were better, as you say, to be moving. Add 
 to the favor you have done me by giving me my friend's sword ; 
 yonder it lies ; it might tell tales of him. Thanks ! Now, 
 which way lies your road, sir? Mine takes me towards the 
 Mall. Will you give me your company \ " 
 
 " Willingly, sir. Had you not asked I should have offered 
 it. I have friends in the city with whom I can bestow myself; 
 although I had intended to pass the night, where, perhaps, you 
 saw me, sir, at the Royal Oak." 
 
 " Saw you ? No ! When, sir ? " asked the king, quickly ; 
 and then, without giving him time to reply, he added, " One 
 word more — do you know me, sir ?" 
 
 " I saw you, sir, as you dismounted at the Royal Oak this 
 afternoon with your companion, and judged you to be gentle- 
 men of the court on a frolic ; but I have not the honor of 
 either of your acquaintance. Fortunately, I overheard some 
 chance words of those ruffians, by which I learned that they 
 
the king's gratitude. 327 
 
 intended to waylay you, and was so enabled to do you this 
 slight service." 
 
 " Slight service ! " answered Charles, with a light laugh ; " I 
 wonder what you gentlemen of the sword think good service ? 
 But come, as that learned thief exclaimed, as he made his exit, 
 * Vamos? The rogue patroles, I suppose, will find their brother 
 thief dead in the ditch to-morrow, and raise a hue and cry of 
 murder — let them. We can keep our secret." 
 
 And walking stoutly and rapidly along, they soon reached 
 the high-road ; after an hour's active exertion passed Hyde 
 Park corner — a field on the very outskirts of the town, just 
 coming into vogue as a court-promenade and riding-course; 
 and entered Piccadilly — a wide road, lined with the occasional 
 mansions and gardens of the nobility, but little resembling the 
 continuous and fashionable street of the present day. 
 
 The hour was so late that all the lights in the dwellings and 
 public places were extinguished ; and the watchmen of that 
 time, like those two centuries later, preferred dozing in their 
 snug sentry boxes to perambulating the streets, when all 
 sensible and well-disposed people are sound asleep in their 
 beds. 
 
 Before the guard-house, however, at the entrance of the 
 Mall, there was a brilliant lamp burning and a sentinel on duty; 
 here, without approaching so near to the latter as to give him 
 occasion to challenge or salute, the king paused where the full 
 light fell on his strongly-marked, swarthy features. 
 
 " Now, sir, look at me well : peruse my lineaments ; and see 
 if you recognise the person whose life you have saved ? Did 
 you ever see me before to-day V 
 
 Bellarmyne looked at him earnestly, and replied — 
 
 " If ever, it must have been in the Low Countries. Perhaps 
 
328 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 at Breda — were you ever there ? I trod on English soil but 
 three weeks since, for the first time these thirteen years." 
 
 " And your 'name ?" asked the king, perfectly satisfied that 
 his incognito was safe. 
 
 " Is Armytage Bellarmyne, late captain of the Emperor's 
 Life-Guard." * - 
 
 " A kinsman of my good friend Nicholas Bellarmyne, of the 
 city ? whom men call the English Merchant." 
 
 " His son. Is he your friend ! M 
 
 " A very old one." 
 
 " And your name ?" asked Bellarmyne. 
 
 " Is my secret. We shall meet again ; then you will know 
 it. Good night !" 
 
 They shook hands, bowed, and parted. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE CHEVALIER DE GRAMMONT ; THE FRENCH KING'S EX- 
 COURTIER. 
 
 It was some five or six days after the occurrences near the 
 Italian House, a space during which Rosamond had been more 
 seriously annoyed than ever by the importunities of the count, 
 and the scarcely equivocal allusions of Charles to what he was 
 pleased to call her penchant for the illustrious Frenchman, that 
 a gay group of courtiers had, at an early hour of the morning, 
 accompanied the king and his train of spaniels into St. James's 
 Park ; where he amused himself, as was his wont, feeding his 
 tame water-fowl in the canal, playing with his dogs, and chat- 
 ting in his easy unkingly manner, which rendered him so popu- 
 
the king's gratitude. 329 
 
 lar, despite all his ill-government, with such promenaders or 
 chance-passengers as he chanced to know by sight. 
 
 Among the party, who accompanied him rather as equal 
 associates than as subjects, were De Grammont, Sir George 
 Etherege, the accomplished Buckhurst* afterwards Duke of 
 Dorset, and wild William Crofts, groom of the stole ; with all 
 of whom, making no distinction of rank, he gossipped and 
 jested in his loose, idle way, and allowed them to pass their 
 jokes on himself in return. 
 
 In the course of their wild and licentious talk, De Grammont 
 alluded jestingly, but with a visibly earnest intention, to the 
 want of progress which he made with the beautiful Bellar- 
 myne, adding pointedly, " if your majesty were half as energetic 
 a wooer for others as you are for yourself, and came as briskly 
 to the point, she would not remain long so perdurably en 
 garde." 
 
 The king laughed, not less, perhaps, at the effrontery of the 
 count's jeu des mots on his own kinswoman's dishonor, than on 
 the coolness with which he seemed to rely on his good offices 
 in a matter so dishonest ; and replied — " Faith ! when I do 
 such things by proxy, I use my good friend Chiffinch ; you had 
 better apply to him, count, and if he do not bring the affair to 
 a prosperous event, by my honor, I see nothing for it but you 
 must carry her off vi et armis, as Rochester would have done 
 fair Mistress Mallet. I dare say, you have many another petite 
 maison besides the Italian House." 
 
 " But I have heard say, your majesty was very angry with 
 Rochester ; I could not survive my king's anger." 
 
 " Rochester failed, chevalier, and the lady was neither paci- 
 fied nor placable. I never heard the name of De Grammont 
 coupled with the word failure." 
 
 " Not at Basset, sire, nor Lansquenet, nor yet at Ombre," re- 
 15* • 
 
330 PERSONS. AND PICTURES. 
 
 plied Etherege, with a mock reverence to De Grammont ; " but 
 fame is more mendacious even than her own ill-report goes, if 
 fortune be as kind to the chevalier in the affairs of Venus, as 
 she has shown herself in those of Mars and Plutus. Crofts, 
 here, has told us some funny tales about his devotion to Made- 
 moiselle St. Germain." 
 
 u Odds fish 1" exclaimed the king, breaking off abruptly, and 
 looking earnestly towards the Bird-cage Walk, from which direc- 
 tion two persons were advancing — one an old gentleman of 
 seventy years of age or upwards, dressed in a suit of plain brown 
 velvet, with a gold chain about his neck, and a gold-headed 
 crutch-cane in his hand, in lieu of the sword at his side, without 
 which gentlemen then rarely went abroad ; the other a youth 
 of a military deportment, in half military attire, whom Charles, 
 with his usual quickness, recognised at once as his timely assis- 
 tant in the lane near Chelsea — " Odds fish ! whom have we 
 here? That should be our worthy friend of the city, good 
 Master Nicholas Bellarmyne ; but who is the stout gallant on 
 whose arm he leans ? — a likely looking lad, with an arm and 
 \eg that might have won favor in bluff King Harry's sight, who 
 loved, they say, to look upon the thews and sinews of a man ! 
 Who is he ? Do none of you know, gentlemen ? Then, faith ! 
 I must e'en ask myself." 
 
 Then as the old merchant and his son were passing by, as 
 was the etiquette, at a respectful distance, merely uncovering 
 as they went their way, he called after them in his ordinary 
 blunt manner, " Why, how now, Master Nicholas Bellarmyne, 
 are we out of favor with our good friends in the city, that one 
 of their best men gives us the go-by so cavalierly ?" 
 
 Thus summoned, the persons who had provoked the royal 
 attention drew near, the father keeping his head erect, though 
 uncovered, and looking his majesty full in the face, with an eye 
 
the king's gratitude. 331 
 
 as clear and calm as his own ; but his son drooping his brow 
 a little, and having his eyes downcast, as if he were either bash- 
 ful or reluctant, and falling back a pace or two as they ap- 
 proached the presence. 
 
 "Not so, your majesty," replied the merchant, seeing that 
 the king waited a reply, " you are, as ever, our very good lord 
 and gracious master, and we desire but to know wherein we 
 may pleasure your grace, in order to do so. But, seeing that 
 you were private, we did not dare intrude until commanded." 
 
 " One would think, Master Bellarmyne," replied the king, 
 laughing, " that you had attained the years to know that there 
 is no intrusion, nowadays, possible by men with money-bags 
 like yours, if fame overrate them not, especially on kings and 
 courtiers, who, however much of gold they may bear on their 
 backs, carry none, on a point of honor, in their purses. But 
 who is this gentleman you have with you ? I have not, I think, 
 seen his face at court, yet I remember something of the trick of 
 it. Who is he, that I know him, but cannot call a name to 
 him ?" 
 
 " My son, your majesty. Armytage Bellarmyne ; he has re- 
 turned but of late from Germany, where, and in the Low Coun- 
 tries, he has had the honor to serve the king and emperor in 
 twelve campaigns." 
 
 " Twelve campaigns !" replied the king. " He must have be- 
 gun betimes. And did he win that medal there, which he 
 wears on his breast ? And wherefore hath he not been pre- 
 sented to us, his ^lawful native sovereign, for whom, I presume, 
 his sword will be drawn hereafter ?" 
 
 u Whenever need shall be, your grace. But you have in- 
 dulged us so long with the blessings of peace that England had 
 no need of it ; and youth is rash, as your majesty knows, and 
 perilous, and will have its vent in mischief somewhere. Touch- 
 
332 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 ing his presentment, he tarried only for the arrival of my lord 
 of Craven, to whom he had the good fortune to be known 
 abroad, and who was gracious to promise that he would stand 
 his sponsor to your majesty." 
 
 " Ha ! Craven !" said the king ; " gallant and loyal Craven ! 
 Well, we will accept Craven absent, as his sponsor, and elect 
 you, sir, present, as his proxy. Present him to us. We would 
 know where we have seen his face before." 
 
 Armytage, on hearing these words, exceeding gracious as 
 they were, advanced uncovered ; and, as his father named him, 
 knelt gracefully on one knee, and kissed the hand which was 
 extended to him with a smile, thinking, as he did so, with how 
 much less ceremony he had grasped it only a few nights pre- 
 viously. Then, rising to his feet, he stood, respectfully, but 
 perfectly unembarrassed, before Charles, who, with a twinkling 
 eye and suppressed smile, pursued the subject, determined evi- 
 dently to try his new ally's spirit and discretion. 
 
 " How is it, sir," he said, " that your face is so familiar .to 
 me ? It is not your likeness to your father, for you are not like 
 him. I have seen yourself before — where have we met?" 
 
 " So please your majesty," replied Armytage, himself unable 
 to refrain from smiling, " once, many years since, I had the 
 honor to see you ride through the streets of Breda ; and, I be- 
 lieve, your majesty's eye might have fallen on my features. But 
 I had thought it too small a matter to rest in your memory." 
 
 " More things rest in my memory," said the king, signifi- 
 cantly, " than men think for. It must have been in Breda, 
 then. Well, sir, you see I have not forgotten ; and you shall 
 see I will not forget you. I hear you have served, sir — where 
 and under whom ? And where did you win that medal which 
 you wear ? I see it is imperial." 
 
 " I have served, sire," replied the young man, modestly, " both 
 
the king's gratitude. 333 
 
 in the Low Countries and in Transylvania ; besides one cam- 
 paign in Denmark. I have fought under Turenne and Monte- 
 cuculi, and had the good fortune to be at the forcing of the 
 Prince of Conde's lines at Arras, at the defeat of Ragotsky's 
 Transylvanians before Cracow, and at the relief of Copenhagen. 
 It was before Cracow, where I served as the general's aide-de- 
 camp, that I had the honor to receive this decoration." 
 
 " You have, indeed, been fortunate, sir," answered the king, 
 graciously. " Whether to have fought under such heroes as 
 Montecuculi, or against such heroes as Conde and Gustavus 
 Adolphus, were enough to satisfy the most ambitious of glory. 
 And what propose you to do now, sir ?" 
 
 " To lay my sword at your majesty's feet, if it can serve you. 
 I should have done so earlier, could I have quitted the empe- 
 ror's service with honor, before peace was declared. If not, and 
 these rumors of war between the empire and the Turks prove 
 true, I may have your license, sire, to take a turn against the 
 Ottomans, under my old commander." 
 
 " No, no, sir. For the present, you have had fighting enough, 
 methinks, without getting your ears cut off by some janizary, 
 and sent up in salt to the Sublime Porte. We shall try to find 
 something for you to do here in England. Meantime, her 
 majesty holds court to-morrow night ; we shall command your 
 attendance, desiring to know how our English ladies compare 
 with the fair Austrians, and the Polish beauties, of whom we 
 have heard wonders." 
 
 And a slight bow indicating that the interview was finished, 
 Armytage and his father retired with due reverence, the latter 
 marvelling much to what they could owe so unusual a reception 
 from the king. 
 
 As they withdrew, Charles sauntered away towards the palace 
 playing with his dogs ; and, reverting to the matter uppermost 
 
334 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 in his mind, asked De Grammont carelessly, " Well, chevalier, 
 what think you of our new-found subject ?" 
 
 " A bold youth !" answered De Grammont, shortly — for he 
 had observed the community of names between the young im- 
 perialist and his charmer, and foreboded no good from his 
 arrival. Moreover, he foresaw a rival favorite near the throne, 
 and his vanity could brook nil simile aut secundum. 
 
 " Odds fish !" cried the . king hastily, " a brave one, rather, 
 and a modest, and a discreet ! I should like to see one of you, 
 gentlemen, who — " he checked himself abruptly, and added 
 with a low bow to De Grammont, " but I forget that I speak 
 to the comrade and sharer of the great Conde's glory at Sens, 
 Norlinguen, and Fribourg, and of the no less great Turenne's, 
 at the forcing of those same lines at Arras." 
 
 The chevalier could but bow low to the gracefully turned 
 compliment of the king, though he half suspected some latent 
 meaning in the king's reticence. He remained, however, 
 silent, and something discomposed during the remainder of the 
 promenade. 
 
 The king was also, contrary to his wont, absorbed in thought, 
 grave, and taciturn. 
 
 " What's a-foot now, Buckhurst ?" whispered Etherege to his 
 friend, as they lagged a step or two behind the party. " And 
 who's the new Bellarmyne ?" 
 
 " Some one," replied Buckhurst, profanely, " whom either the 
 good Lord or the foul fiend has sent to spoil the Frenchman's 
 game with the other Bellarmyne." 
 
 " The good Lord, then," replied Etherege, laughing, " the 
 good Lord, for a rouleau ! The foul fiend would have helped 
 the Frenchman. I don't like this selling or swapping of Eng- 
 lish ladies' honors — not being over nice myself, or squeamish." 
 
 " Nor I — an English king being salesman," said Buckhurst. 
 
the king's gratitude. 335 
 
 Yet these were two of tlie wildest and most licentious gallants 
 of that unscrupulous time ; but there are things so foul as must 
 needs make the most corrupt gorge rise against them, if the 
 heart thrill to any latent sense of honor. 
 
 The queen's court, on the following night, was more superb 
 than usual ; more decked with flowers of female loveliness, than 
 usual, it could not be ; for probably no such assemblage of 
 beauty and grace — alas ! that modesty and virtue may not be 
 added — was ever brought together. 
 
 There was the superb Barbara of Castlemaine, radiant in 
 almost incomparable beauty, but dressed, or undressed rather, 
 to a degree calculated to excite disgust, rather than any warmer 
 feeling, and brazen with more than cynical effrontery ; yet the 
 poor, broken-spirited queen smiled on her, and exchanged com- 
 pliments with her, in the face of all the sneering court. 
 
 There was Frances Stuart, for whose love it was rumored that 
 Charles would fain have been divorced from Catharine of Bra- 
 ganza, " the greatest beauty," as quaint old Pepys says, " I did 
 ever see in all my life, with her cocked-hat and red plume, with 
 her sweet little Eoman nose, and excellent taille? 
 
 There was the fair and languid Middleton, with her soft insi- 
 pid smile and love-lorn look askance. There was the beauteous 
 and virtuous Miss Hamilton, with her commanding form, and 
 swan-like neck, her open, smooth, white forehead, and her 
 round arms, the loveliest in the world. There was little Miss 
 Jennings, with her complexion the fairest and brightest that 
 was ever seen ; her abundant flaxen hair, her exquisite mouth, 
 with that nez retrousse, and that animated arch expression, that 
 redeemed her from the charge of insipidity — reproach of blonde 
 beauties ; Miss Bagot, with her regular, calm features, her 
 " brown complexion, of that sort so unusual in England, and the 
 continual blush which she had ever on her cheek, without having 
 
336 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 anything to blush for ;"* Miss Temple, with her fine and lan- 
 guishing eyes, wreathed smile, and lively air ; and, though the 
 last, the most lovely, the best, the purest of them all, innocent 
 Eosamond Bellarmyne, with her clear blue eyes revealing every 
 sentiment of her frank and candid soul, her cheek pale from 
 annoyance and agitation, yet sweeter from the purity of its very 
 pallor, and her rich brown hair flowing, as it were, in mingled 
 masses of chestnut silk and gold, over her marble shoulders. 
 
 That night the king did not tease her, nor did his face once 
 wear that malicious smile, or his lip once syllable the Count De 
 Grammont's name. On the contrary, his countenance was 
 grave, and his voice calm and kind, when he told her that he 
 had found her a new cousin, whom he would present to her 
 that evening. And when . she started, and blushed crimson, 
 and looked fluttered and frightened, he answered her look by a 
 reassuring smile, and said, "A very honorable one, Mistress 
 Eosamond." 
 
 No man in England knew the family histories of all his sub- 
 jects better than Charles, long as he had resided in a foreign 
 land ; nor was the name of Bellarmyne so common of occur- 
 rence but that so soon as he knew the name of the emperor's 
 young soldier, he knew also his relationship to the queen's maid- 
 of-honor. To day he had thought — not a common thing for 
 Charles to do — he had thought of all that those Bellarmynes, 
 of old race, had done and suffered for his unlucky house, and, 
 as he thought, his conscience smote him — for he had a con- 
 science, at times, when anything pierced deep enough to wake 
 it into life — and he paused and repented. 
 
 He did present Captain Bellarmyne to Eosamond, after he 
 had presented him, with much distinction, to the queen, and 
 
 * Memoirs of De Grammont, by Count Anthony Hamilton. 
 
the king's gratitude. . 33*7 
 
 took care that he should be her partner ; which then implied 
 association not for a single dance, but for the whole ball, and 
 the banquets that followed it ; and once or twice during the 
 evening, as he went round among his guests, joking and drink- 
 ing with them like anything rather than a king, he found time 
 to say a passing word or two good-naturedly, and winked most 
 unroyally at Armytage, and clinked his glass of champagne 
 with Kosamond, as he drank to her " with his eyes." 
 
 Grammont was furious. Finding himself balked of Rosa- 
 mond, he had attached himself to Miss Hamilton, to whom he 
 was always very attentive, and whom he afterwards married — 
 being brought back from Calais for that purpose by dislike to 
 her brother's pistols — but he was abstracted and rude, and tore 
 her enamelled fan to pieces in his fretful mood; and when Miss 
 Jennings quizzed him on his discomposure, he answered her so 
 sneeringly and shortly, that the saucy gipsy turned her back full 
 in his face, and did not speak to him again for a month. 
 
 Once he attacked the king, bantering, but evidently sore. 
 
 " Odds fish ! chevalier," Charles answered testily, " win her 
 yourself, and wear her. If you can't win her yourself, send 
 Chiffinch, or your man Termes, who lost your fine coat in the 
 quicksand at Calais. But for your reputation's sake, chevalier, 
 don't lisp to them at Paris what dirty work you asked a king- 
 to do for you !" 
 
 " Or did for a king," said Etherege, in a low voice, as he 
 chanced to stand near him. 
 
 " Sir !" cried De Grammont, turning on him furiously. 
 
 " Sir," replied Etherege, quietly. " I call you so, because it 
 is the English for chevalier" — and, with a low bow, he turned 
 his back, and walking away, asked some one to present him to 
 Captain Bellarmyne. 
 
 So incensed was De Grammont, now, that he lost all com- 
 
338 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 mand of himself; and though he felt it was impossible to quarrel 
 in the very banqueting hall of the palace, he still could not refrain, 
 when the ball was ended, and his self-constituted rival was 
 looking for his hat and cloak in the ante-chamber, from walk- 
 ing up and addressing him, in a manner anywhere haughty and 
 unbecoming, but surpassingly so in a royal apartment. 
 
 " Captain Bellarmyne, I believe f" 
 
 " At your service, Chevalier de Grammont." 
 
 " Will you permit me, then, to inquire the meaning of your 
 attentions to Mistress Rosamond Bellarmyne V 
 
 " Certainly, count, to inquire anything you please ; and, 
 being myself the lady's poor cousin, on learning your superior 
 pretensions, I shall gladly answer you." 
 
 a Then, sir, I have another question," De Grammont began 
 fiercely ; when Bellarmyne as calmly interrupted him, " Which 
 I shall also gladly answer, sir, anywhere but within the pre- 
 cincts of my sovereign's palace." 
 
 " Good-night, Count de Grammont !" said a deep voice 
 behind them. Both turned ; it was the king, with a mien of 
 unwonted dignity, if severity were not the better word. The 
 proud Frenchman could but bow and retire. 
 
 The face of Charles relaxed, as he asked, " Where did you 
 learn to be so discreet, so young, Captain Bellarmyne ?" 
 
 " Under General Montecuculi, sire. He made me once stand 
 on guard, all steel from my teeth to my toes, from the rise to 
 the -set of a July sun, for saluting my superior officer when he 
 wished to be incognito." 
 
 " He did very right, sir," answered Charles, laughing ; " and 
 he seems to have made you a pretty good soldier. Now, if you 
 will wait on Major-General Craven, at eight o'clock to-morrow 
 morning, he will be very glad to see Major Bellarmyne. of the 
 Coldstream Guards. Pleasant dreams to you, major." 
 
the king's gratitude. 339 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 blackheath; an attempt and a failure. 
 
 Three days succeeding the queen's mask flew away, to Rosa- 
 mond, on wings of the swiftest — perhaps the pleasantest three 
 days she had ever known. The court, meanwhile, was full of 
 rumors, the least definite and the most singular imaginable. 
 The sudden, and incomprehensible advancement of a young, 
 unknown soldier; representing no interest, urged forward by no 
 favorite, seemingly without recommendation beyond a foreign 
 order of merit, to a grade in the. favorite regiment of the service 
 which great lords coveted, would have been in itself a nine 
 days' wonder. But to this were added the retirement of Ro- 
 chester from court, no one knew whither, no one pretended to 
 conjecture on what cause — the quasi disgrace of the Chevalier 
 de Grammont ; who, though he was still constant in attendance 
 on the royal person, still sulked and held himself aloof, while no 
 one, Charles the least of all, appeared to notice his ill-humor, or 
 to regret his withdrawal, who a little while before had been the 
 magnus Aypollo of Whitehall — the preferment of Major Bellar- 
 myne not only to his military grade, but to something nearly 
 approaching to familiarity with the easy monarch, who distin- 
 guished him on every occasion, constantly required his presence, 
 selected him as the companion of his private walks, and would, 
 it was evident, have promoted him to the questionable honor of 
 favoritism, had not Armytage shown himself utterly intractable 
 and repugnant, as unfitted alike by temper and principle for the 
 envied but unenviable post — and last, not least, the reticence of 
 the king, who, usually so garrulous and free of access, held perfect 
 silence, and was entirely unapproachable on this subject, de- 
 
340 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 meaning himself in all other respects as if nothing had occurred 
 out of the ordinary course, and appearing even gayer and more 
 lighthearted than his wont. 
 
 The least of these events would have sufficed, even in busier 
 circles, where luxury and leisure are less prolific of idle surmises 
 and flippant scandal, to set the drones a-buzzing, and the whole 
 hive humming angrily, if not yet stinging. Dire, therefore, in 
 Whitehall, was the confusion of tongues ; wonderful in Spring- 
 Garden the ruin of characters. Yet, for all this, seeing that 
 Major Bellarmyne was, not dubiously, the rising man of the day, 
 and in favor both with the king's and the queen's circles, it is 
 wonderful how soon all the handsomest women of the court dis- 
 covered a thousand manly charms and graces in his person, a 
 thousand attractions in his air and conversation, of which no 
 one had ever before suspected him ; and how all the men 
 reported him a person of parts no less shining than solid, a 
 fellow of infinite wit, in short the most desirable of companions, 
 although a week before they would have passed him in the Mall 
 with a contemptuous wonder who that tall fellow might be, or 
 a sneer at the soldier of fortune. 
 
 Nor is it much more easy of explanation how Eosamond, who 
 had for months been left almost alone, in the midst of an un- 
 sympathizing crowd, to endure persecutions which she could not 
 avoid, now that she was connected, both by similarity of name 
 and by the intimacy which the king undoubtedly fostered 
 between them, with the new hero of the minute, became the 
 object of so much friendly regard and attention, that it would 
 have been impossible, had he attempted it, for the count to 
 renew the importunities which, had rendered her past life almost 
 insupportable. 
 
 Neither Rosamond, however, nor her newly acquired friend 
 and cousin — of whose existence she had never even heard 
 
THE KINGS GRATITUDE. 341 
 
 a week since — attached much importance, or paid much 
 regard to the fickle favors of the courtier crowd. To both of 
 them it was a new phase of existence ; to her who had never 
 known one of her own blood, except her father, too far re- 
 moved from herself in years to be more than a tenderly loved 
 and dutifully reverenced parent, it was a new delight to find a 
 kinsman on whose strength she might repose, in whose honor 
 she might confide, in whose conversation she might find — 
 something long sought but undiscovered — truth blended with 
 wit, sincerity undivorced from the lighter graces, to whom she 
 could disclose much which it had sorely galled her to conceal, 
 almost as if he had been a dear elder brother. 
 
 And for him whose life had been spent for the most part 
 in the tented field, in the actual shock of the heady fight, or in 
 the dull monotony of the camp, who had mingled but little in 
 female society, and that little only ceremoniously according to 
 the formal routine of the continental courts, now to find him- 
 self thrown, as if naturally, into close and intimate association 
 with one so beautiful, so frank, so charming in her innocence 
 and artless graces, one whom nothing should lead him to 
 regard as a stranger, but rather to protect and cherish as his 
 nearest of kin on earth, except those of the elder generation, it 
 possessed a pleasure greater far than the mere fascination of 
 novelty. 
 
 All those who have travelled or sojourned long abroad, know 
 well what a void they have felt about the heart on returning 
 to the old home and finding that for them it is no longer home 
 — that they are gone, all gone, those old familiar faces ; that 
 the old friends are dead ; the young friends dispersed, es- 
 tranged, occupied with new friends, new ties, new pleasures, 
 new associations ; that, in quitting the land of the stranger 
 
342 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 tliey have in truth broken off the later, though without reco- 
 vering the older, bonds of companionship. 
 
 Particularly had this been the case with Armytage Bellar- 
 myne. He had left England when little more than a mere 
 boy ; his mother he had never known ; brothers, sisters, 
 kinsmen, and kinswomen, he had none. Sir Reginald and his 
 daughter, who were, though his nearest relatives, but distant 
 cousins, had been in exile from a time beyond the date of his 
 earliest memory ; in truth, he remembered not ever to have 
 heard oHhem at home. 
 
 But he had heard much, pitied much, sympathized much 
 abroad ; for he had learned there, on all sides, of the doings 
 and the sufferings of the elder branch of his house, of the un- 
 faltering loyalty and faith, of the extreme poverty and unbend- 
 ing integrity of the old cavalier, and something of the beauty 
 and high qualities of his daughter. 
 
 Having left home, known to no relations, and to few friends 
 beyond mere school-companions, the weariness, the void, the 
 sense of strangeness he experienced, finding himself, not figura- 
 tively, but indeed a stranger in the land of his birth, were so 
 overpowering that he had indeed meditated returning — as he 
 had informed the king he wished to do — to take arms under 
 his old commander, who was in hourly expectation of being 
 called into the field against the redoubtable forces of the Turk, 
 who was then held in awe by the strongest powers of conti- 
 nental Europe. 
 
 Here, then, were two young persons thrown together into 
 that most perfect and confidential of all solitudes, the solitude 
 of a crowd ; because it is solitude without having the air of 
 being such, and, as being liable to slight interruptions, which 
 do not in truth interrupt it, awakens no sense of strangeness, 
 no idea of alarm, or suspicion of impropriety. 
 
the king's gratitude. 343 
 
 Far otherwise, indeed, for it -seemed to be agreed by com- 
 mon consent of all around them that they were to be partners, 
 companions on all occasions together ; and who that has ever 
 been so placed, knows not how strongly that operates, in faci- 
 litating, almost in creating, intimacy. 
 
 Inclined from the first to be pleased — to like each the other 
 — every moment drew them nearer and nearer together ; 
 ' topics of mutual interest were not wanting, for the young 
 soldier never wearied of listening to his artless companion's 
 descriptions of the old ivy-mantled abbey, grey and neglected 
 among its unshorn woods and fern-encumbered chase, a world 
 too wide for its shrunken demesnes ; and the deep sympathy 
 he evinced for the aged, honorable veteran, sitting alone, in 
 his old age, in the grand gloom of his ancestral halls, brooding 
 over the ruins of his dilapidated fortunes, with no child, no 
 dear friend, no veteran companion, to fill his cup or smoothe 
 his pillow, or soften the downward path of his declining years ; 
 with nothing to look forward to on earth but a deserted death- 
 bed, and the care of menials, would alone have bound Rosa- 
 mond to him with chains of steel, had there been nothing else 
 to draw them together. 
 
 But she, too, like Desdemona, would seriously incline her 
 ear to what he had to relate of foreign climes and customs, 
 and to the chances and romances, the gleams of chivalry and 
 touches of sweet mercy, which are the redeeming tints in the 
 black hue of battle-histories, the " one touch of nature " which 
 indeed makes the " whole world kin." 
 
 And from liking, they imperceptibly glided on into loving, 
 without being led at all to examine into the nature of their 
 feelings, without suspecting or inquiring how things went with 
 them, until Armytage awoke and found that he had been 
 dreaming how pleasant it would be, and how excellent a use 
 
344 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 of his father's hoarded stores and ponderous money-bags, to 
 redeem the sequestered acres and restore the antique glories of 
 Bellarmyne Abbey ; and to cheer the sad and solitary days of 
 old Sir Reginald, by giving him a stout and soldierly son's 
 arm whereon to prop his tottering steps ; and then, by an 
 easy transition, to fancy how delightful it would be to see 
 Rosamond presiding as the household deity, serene in youthful 
 beauty, the cherished daughter, adored wife, and charming 
 mother. 
 
 And Rosamond, too, began to count the minutes when 
 Armytage was absent, and to look wistfully for his tall figure 
 in the crowded ball or banquet-hall ; and to thrill and blush 
 and tremble when she saw him coming ; and to wonder why 
 she was such a little fool to shake and quiver like an aspen 
 leaf at his approach, when she was so glad to have him come. 
 
 And the good-natured king chuckled and laughed within 
 himself, perfectly content and delighted at the success of his 
 plans. He knew how the elder branch of the Bellarmynes 
 had lost all in his own and his father's cause ; and now that 
 he had begun to think about it at all, he both thought and 
 felt strongly. If he could easily have redressed their griev- 
 ances, he had done so eagerly ; but, in truth, he had not the 
 power to redress them by any means. The sequestered lands 
 had been sold to innocent third parties, and these were secured 
 by amnesty at the restoration. There were no means of in- 
 demnifying the impoverished and ruined cavaliers ; the court 
 was needy, thriftless, improvident, indebted, and, between his 
 ladies, and his favorites, and his pleasures, the king was for the 
 most part penniless. 
 
 But he had conceived this plan of rewarding his staunch 
 old veteran, and of building up his broken fortunes by means 
 of the vast wealth of the London merchant ; making, at the 
 
the king's gratitude. 345 
 
 same time, two very charming young persons happy, bringing 
 together a dissevered family connection, reinstating a fine old 
 hereditary estate, a fine old hereditary name — in a word, if not 
 of doing a good action, at least of bringing about a good 
 result. To effect this he was willing — yes ! he was even 
 willing to take some personal trouble. It was rather amusing, 
 by the way, than the reverse. He had made up his mind, 
 if he could bring it about, to create a new peerage, in which 
 Sir Reginald should be first baron, with remainder to the 
 citizen's son, if that might facilitate matters ; and, as he saw 
 all things in progress as he would have them, he began to wax 
 proud and happy in self-approbation, and to fancy himself a 
 sort of Deus ex machina, descending to solve a knot indisso- 
 luble by the efforts of his faithful subjects. 
 
 It occurs, not so seldom as we are apt to imagine, however, 
 that some sudden incident or -occurrence — accidents, perhaps, 
 in the true sense of the word, are not — will often either pro- 
 duce, or mature and expedite results which the most skilful 
 management .and the wisest counsels would have failed to 
 bring to so felicitous a termination. Times will occur when all 
 things appear to keep in one consentient current, accidentally, 
 as it were, tending — yet with a purpose so evident, a direction 
 so manifest, that it is impossible to doubt the interposition of 
 an unknown, overruling will — to one desired or dreaded event, 
 one favorable or disastrous end ; and so it fell out in this 
 instance. 
 
 A grand stag-hunt was to be held in honor of some foreign 
 prince of one of the small German states, who happened to 
 be on a visit at Whitehall ; and all the court circle were 
 ordered to attend on an appointed day, the court itself ad- 
 journing for the time to Windsor Castle, and those who were 
 not so fortunate as to be of the royal party taking up their 
 
 16 
 
346 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 quarters, wherever they might find them, in the town of 
 Windsor, or the adjacent villages, as Datchet, Egham, Staines, 
 and Kingston-upon-Thames, all of which were crowded with 
 gay guests and splendid retinues of horses, livery servants, and 
 followers of all kinds. 
 
 Major Bellarmyne was one of the fortunate few who were 
 ordered to attend at the castle ; and, on the eve of his depar- 
 ture, received his appointment as chief equerry to his majesty, 
 which of course relieved him from duty with his regiment. 
 
 The day appointed for the hunt — a rare occurrence for fete 
 days — dawned auspiciously, warm, soft, and slightly overclouded, 
 precisely such a day as huntsmen love, and lady equestrians do 
 not hate, as there was neither sun enough to offend their fair 
 complexions, nor wind to disturb their plumes, or ruffle then- 
 flowing draperies/ 
 
 At an early hour the heath was alive with gay and animated 
 groups ; large tents were pitched on a rising ground, with the 
 royal banner floating above them, in which a superb collation 
 was to be served at noon ; while the bands of the Lifeguards 
 and Oxford Blues, then as now the magnificent household troops 
 of the British sovereign, made the wild echoes ring with the 
 symphonies of their brazen instruments. Deer, which had been 
 taken in toils in Windsor forest, were on the ground in carts, 
 to be released and coursed by the fleet and superb English grey- 
 hounds, a breed of dog which had already been brought to a 
 high degree of perfection by Lord Oxford and others ; and the 
 wide, open, undulating stretches of the heath being excellently 
 appropriate to the sport, and the day in every light propitious, 
 great sport was anticipated. Nor did the result deceive the 
 expectation. Course succeeded course, proving alike the speed 
 and strength of the noble red deer, and the unrivalled ardor, 
 courage, and condition of the gallant greyhounds. 
 
the king's gratitude. 347 
 
 The king was in the highest spirits and good humor, for out 
 of the first five matches his dogs had won three, and the best 
 of his kennel had not yet been slipped. It was about ten 
 o'clock — for our ancestors, if they had many vices, had at least 
 the one virtue of rising early in the morning, and on that day 
 the beauties of King Charles's court were mounted and a-field, 
 radiant in fresh beauty, almost as soon as Aurora herself — when 
 the king observing that Bellarmyne, according to the duties of 
 his office, followed closely at his heels, called to him, pointing 
 as he spoke to a fair bevy of maids-of-honor with their atten- 
 dant cavaliers, among whom the graceful figure of Rosamond 
 Bellarmyne was conspicuous. 
 
 " Major Bellarmyne," he said, " for att we have named you 
 our equerry in chief, it is not with the purpose of tying you to 
 our horse's tail, or keeping you dangling after us from matins 
 to midnight Away with you, sir ; yonder is metal more 
 attractive, if I be not the worse mistaken, than the best stag 
 that ever ran upon four legs over lifted lea or mountain heather. 
 Away ! we will summon you, if we need your presence." 
 
 De Grammont, with a group of other gentlemen and nobles, 
 was about the king and his princely guest when the courteous 
 words were uttered ; but Armytage paused not to see who heard 
 or heard not, but galloped away joyously to join her whom he 
 had already begun to admit to himself as the mistress of his 
 heart. 
 
 By this time, as was unavoidable from the nature of the sports, 
 the company had become much scattered, many of the chases 
 having been long and nearly straight on end ; and, as each deer 
 was taken, a .fresh one was driven up, as fast as four horses 
 could convey the light cart which contained it to the scene of 
 the last capture, so that there was no general rallying point for 
 the straggling groups, but the scene of action varied from point 
 
348 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 to point, over the wide extent of wild heath, open clowns, and 
 forest land, which was then included in the royal chase of 
 Blackheath. 
 
 In spite of this, however, many minutes did not elapse before 
 Armytage had found his" lady, who, infinitely the best rider of 
 the whole field of beauties, though but indifferently mounted, 
 was riding with Miss Bagot, who was but a timid horsewoman, 
 and a single cavalier only, the young Lord Dynevor, who greatly 
 affected the society of that graceful nymph ; the rest of their 
 party having just separated from them in order to approach 
 nearer to the royal presence. 
 
 Scarcely had he exchanged the first salutations with his fair 
 lady before a noble h^*t, with no less than ten tines to his ant- 
 lers, being what is technically called a hart royal, was uncarted, 
 and, taking their direction, came sweeping gracefully past them, 
 followed by three choice greyhounds, and close behind these by 
 the king, his royal guest, and the best mounted of the courtiers. 
 The fears of Miss Bagot, and the indifference of Rosamond's 
 hunter, soon threw our party far in the rear ; for the stag was 
 strong and ran wild, pointing towards the Surrey hills, and, 
 though they contrived to keep the hunt in sight, they were at 
 least a mile distant when the gallant beast was run into and 
 pulled down, on a heathery knoll crowned by a single fir tree, 
 near to which they might see the straggling hunters, as thej^ 
 came up one by one, gathering towards the person of the sove- 
 reign. 
 
 It was during the gallop, which they were forcing to the best 
 powers of both riders and ridden, that the attention of Army- 
 tage was attracted to the strange apparition of a carriage and 
 six horses, one of the huge, cumbersome wheeled caravans of 
 the time, followed by two mounted servants, without liveries 
 or badges, manoeuvring hither and thither among the intricate, 
 
the king's gratitude. 349 
 
 deep-soiled, and sunken lanes which intersect the surface of the 
 heath; but he, thought nothing of the circumstance, except to 
 point it out to the party, with a laughing expression of wonder 
 as to who could be so fond of the chase as to follow a stag-hunt 
 in a coach and six. 
 
 He had scarce spoken of it, when the vehicle and its train 
 were lost to sight in the skirts of a wide tract of hazel coppice, 
 which covered the country for many miles of space, in the direc- 
 tion of Luckfield and St. Leonard's forest ; and almost at the 
 same moment, a man in the royal livery galloped up at full 
 speed, exclaiming — " Major Bellarmyne, Major Bellarmyne ! His 
 majesty is instant to see Major Bellarmyne !" 
 
 There was nothing for it but, however unwilling, to obey; 
 and bowing low to Rosamond and Miss Bagot — " I leave you, 
 my lord," he said, " even as I found you, one cavalier to two 
 fair ladies ; a grave charge to protect and entertain them." 
 
 And, setting spurs to his fine, thorough-bred charger, which 
 was quite fresh, he was soon at a distance ; while the servant 
 in royal livery uncovered as the ladies passed, and dropped into 
 the rear as if to attend them. 
 
 Nothing which had passed as yet had excited any surprise 
 in Bellarmyne's mind ; but as he rode up at full speed, with his 
 horse a little blown, pulled up, and uncovering close to the 
 king's side stood, evidently waiting orders, the inquiring look of 
 Charles perplexed him. 
 
 " So please your majesty, I am here at your orders." 
 
 " So I perceive, sir," said Charles laughing. " To what do I 
 owe the pleasure of your presence ?" 
 
 " Your majesty sent after me." 
 
 " Not I, sir, on my honor ! When ? By whom ? I have 
 not even thought about you since I sent you to wait on Miss 
 Bellarmyne." 
 
350 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 " Not twenty minutes since, by one of the grooms of the 
 household." 
 
 "There is some trick here, sir; or, at the least,- some scurvy 
 jest. Odds fish ! who hath done this, gentlemen ?" cried 
 Charles, looking angrily about him. "I like not such free- 
 doms." , ' 
 
 Bellarmyne's eye glanced half-suspiciously over the group ; 
 the Chevalier de Grammont was no • longer near the king's 
 person. An instinct or intuition made him turn his head and 
 gaze eagerly in the direction where he had last seen the coach 
 and six. 
 
 He saw it now issuing, at full gallop, from the coppice, about 
 a quarter of a mile from the spot where he had last seen it, 
 thundering along amid a cloud of dust towards London. Its 
 followers had increased to six persons, and one, who rode the 
 last, was evidently a man of distinction. 
 
 " By God !" cried Armytage, forgetful of the* presence in 
 which he stood, and striking his clenched hand on his thigh — 
 "By God ! he has carried her off!" 
 
 "Who, sir? Carried whom off? What do you mean?" 
 cried Charles, too much excited to observe the breach of eti- 
 quette. 
 
 " Mistress Bellarmyne, sire — the Chevalier de Grammont ! 
 Here comes her horse, and Miss Bagot, and my Lord Dynevor 
 to tell us of it." 
 
 " Odds fish ! he shall repent it," cried the king, very angrily. 
 But Bellarmyne had not waited to hear his reply, but had put 
 spurs to his horse and was already a hundred yards distant, 
 riding, as straight as a crow flies, toward the heads of the coach 
 horses, which were forced to describe a sort of semicircle round 
 the hillock on which the king sat, owing to the intricacies of 
 the lane, and the difficult nature of the ground. 
 
the king's gratitude. 351 
 
 " After him, gentlemen !" cried the king. " Away with you ! 
 Crofts, Brouncher, Sydney, Talbot, Tollemache— Ride, ride, 
 my favor to him who stops yonder carriage. Bring them before 
 us, both ; and have all care to the lady. Ride, ride, or we shall 
 have hot blood spilt." 
 
 But it was in vain that they spurred ; for Bellarmyne rode 
 as if the devil drove him. 
 
 Two or three broad, bright, bankfull brooks crossed his line, 
 but he swept over them in his stroke as if they were but cart- 
 ruts. 
 
 Now a white handkerchief was waved from the window of 
 the carriage. A stiff stone wall, full five feet high, opposed his 
 progress —in went his spurs, down went his elbows, and, with a 
 hard pull at his head, the good horse cleared it. There was 
 now only a smooth slope of two hundred yards, or a little more, 
 between him and the lane, along which the lumbering carriage 
 was rolling and jolting at headlong speed ; but the servants, who 
 followed it, were spurring out and drawing their swords as if to 
 intercept him. 
 
 But he gave his good horse the rein and spur, shot ahead of 
 the foremost, and in a moment he was abreast of the leaders, 
 calling vehemently on the postillion to stop if he would save his 
 life. But the boy only spurred on the more fiercely, and struck 
 at the young officer with his whip. 
 
 In virtue of his office of equerry, holsters were at his saddle- 
 bow, with his pistols loaded. He drew one, and, without relax- 
 ing his speed, shot the horse on which the boy rode, through the 
 heart. It bolted upright into the air and fell dead, the others 
 plunged over it, one or two stumbled and went down, the coach 
 was overset. 
 
 The next moment De Grammont came up at full speed — . 
 
352 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 " You have shot my horse — how dare you ? You shall an- 
 swer for it." 
 
 " Think yourself lucky," he replied, " that I have not shot 
 you!" 
 
 The chevalier answered by an insulting word in French ; and 
 scarcely was it uttered before Armytage's sheathed sword 
 crossed his shoulders with a smart blow. 
 
 Both sprang to the ground, drew, and their rapiers were 
 crossed in a moment ; but by this time the gentlemen, who had 
 followed at the order of Charles, galloped in, one by one. 
 
 " Swords drawn in the king's sight," cried Crofts, who came 
 first. " Fie ! gentlemen ! hold your hands ! You are under 
 arrest !" 
 
 Rosamond had fainted ; but by aid of the ladies of the court, 
 she was soon restored to consciousness, if not to ease of mind. 
 
 The first words Charles spoke when the offenders were brought 
 before him were addressed to De Grammont. " Chevalier," he 
 said, " I have heard that my brother, Louis XIV., desires your 
 return to Paris. Major Bellarmyne, you will surrender yourself 
 to the authorities. You have to learn, sir, that swords are not 
 to be drawn in our presence ; and that justice and punishment 
 both belong to the king." 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Whitehall; a double marriage. 
 
 It scarcely need be stated that Rosamond Bellarmyne's letter, 
 which, as we have seen, caused so much grief and anxiety to 
 stout old Sir Reginald, was composed and sent off on the very 
 
the king's gratitude. 353 
 
 morning following the commission of the outrage on Blackheath ; 
 and before the agitated girl had recovered from the consterna- 
 tion and excitement into which this, not unprecedented, violence 
 had thrown her, and before she had, indeed, learned anything 
 accurate concerning the situation of her own affairs, or the 
 intentions of the king. 
 
 All, in fact, that she had heard when she wrote wore an 
 adverse aspect. The very outrageousness of such an attempt in 
 the very presence, and almost under the eyes of the king, 
 seemed to carry conviction with it, that the attempt, if not 
 made under his direct sanction, was felt by its perpetrator to be 
 one which would not, at the worst, provoke his anger to evil 
 consequences. 
 
 To this consideration De Grammont's long and insolent im- 
 portunities, the king's undeniable allowance and indulgence of 
 them, until within the last few weeks, were naturally added ; 
 and the helplessness of her own isolated and friendless condition 
 recurred with tenfold strength. 
 
 She had heard nothing, when she wrote, of the Chevalier de 
 Grammont's honorary exile from the court of England ; but she 
 had heard, so much more quickly does ill news at all times 
 speed than good, of Major Bellarmyne's imprisonment in New- 
 gate, for breach of privilege ; and to this intelligence was added 
 the heart-rending information that the penalty of his offence 
 was no less than mutilation, by the loss of his right hand, and 
 that in his case there was little prospect of any relaxation, since 
 in addition to the offence of drawing his sword, constructively, 
 in the king's presence, he had gone so far as to strike a noble- 
 man high in the favor of the crown. 
 
 Harassed by these feelings, reports, and imaginations, the poor 
 girl wrote, as may be imagined, a letter which would have 
 harassed almost to madness a father even less loving and less 
 
 16* 
 
354 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 irritable than the broken-spirited and failing cavalier. And 
 little she imagined, as she wrote, that the superb chevalier, 
 whom she pictured to herself as flushed with triumph, burning 
 with brilliant hope, ready for new aggression, and backed by 
 the favor of obsequious majesty, was actually at the moment 
 when she was penning her doleful ditty travelling, as hard as 
 post-horses would carry him, towards Calais, without the least 
 idea whither he should next betake himself; since he well knew 
 that so far from wishing his presence, Louis XIV. was much 
 more likely to commit him to the Bastile than to welcome him 
 to Paris ; while the king, whom she supposed the devoted con- 
 fidant of De Grammont's pleasures, was in reality plotting 
 against him the bitterest pleasantry of which that easy, laughter- 
 loving prince was ever guilty. 
 
 Tired in body, for, having no mind to encounter the pleasan- 
 tries much less the mock condolences of his fellow-courtiers, he 
 had taken horse at daybreak on the morning following the 
 stag-hunt, and ridden post without dismounting, except to 
 change horses, discomfited in his projects, vexed with himself, 
 and angry with the world, De Grammont had reached the 
 Crown Inn at Dover late in the evening, had refused all offers 
 of supper, had drunk deeply, contrary to his custom, and re- 
 tired to bed, with the intent to forget his cares in a good night's 
 rest. 
 
 But even in this reasonable hope the unfortunate Frenchman 
 was frustrated ; for, before he had been in bed two hours, a 
 prodigious clatter of hoofs in the court-yard awakened him, 
 and the inn was in a bustle, as it seemed to him, until it was 
 almost morning. 
 
 At length he fell asleep ; and scarce were his eyes closed 
 before his celebrated valet, Termes, the greatest thief, the most 
 impudent liar, but the best valet de chambre living, entered 
 
the king's gratitude. 355 
 
 his chamber with the announcement that two gentlemen were 
 below stairs, who had ridden post from London, in order to 
 have the honor of paying him their compliments before sailing ; 
 and that they desired the pleasure of his company, so soon as 
 he had made his toilet. 
 
 No further information could be obtained from Termes, 
 although De Grammont could perceive by a single glance at 
 the queer grimaces into which that paragon of servants was 
 delighting himself by contorting his nut-cracking nose and 
 chin, that he was thoroughly aware what was in the wind ; and 
 moreover, he shrewdly suspected that it boded himself no good. 
 
 No ; Monsieur Termes knew nothing about it. He had not 
 seen the gentlemen ; only the waiter of the hotel. He did not 
 give their names, in fact he did not know them ; they had 
 ridden post, and brought no domestic with them. But apparem- 
 ment they were friends of Monsieur le Comte ; otherwise why 
 should they have ridden so far to have the honor of paying 
 their compliments ? "What suit would it please the count to 
 wear — the maroon riding-dress with purple trimmings — or the 
 blue and silver ? If it would please the chevalier to bestir him- 
 self, for the gentlemen were waiting. 
 
 So the chevalier consigned Termes to perdition, and did 
 bestir himself. He put on his blue and silver suit, and his best 
 riding peruke, and his jack-boots and spurs ; and so descend- 
 ing to the breakfast-parlor, found there waiting him his dear 
 friend, Count Antony Hamilton, the witty author of his me- 
 moirs, and his brother George, both, like himself, booted and 
 spurred, with their riding-swords at their sides; but, unlike 
 him, each with a pair of long-barrelled pistols at his belt. 
 
 " Good-morrow to you, chevalier," they ^oth exclaimed in a 
 breath, as he entered, making him profound congees ; u Have 
 you not forgotten something in London V 
 
356 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 " Excuse me, gentlemen," replied the imperturbable French- 
 man, with a low bow. "I have forgotten — to marry your 
 sister. So lead on, and let us finish that affair. But I fancy 
 it must be finished in the Tower ; for our old friend, Kowley, 
 is sure to send me thither, as soon as he learns that I have 
 returned to London, in the teeth of his gentle hint at honora- 
 ble exile." 
 
 " By no means, count," answered Antony, with a smile and 
 a bow ; " in that case we could not have allowed you to re- 
 turn, in spite of your anxiety to do us and our sister this 
 honor. We have a license with us from his majesty for your 
 return and reception at court." And with the words he hand- 
 ed to the count a parchment, which was thus inscribed : 
 
 " We hereby grant free permission to the Count de Gram- 
 mont to return to London, and remain there six days, in prose- 
 cution of his lawful affairs ; and we accord to him the license 
 to be present at our palace of Whitehall, on the occasion of 
 his betrothal to our gracious consort's maid-of-honor, the beau- 
 tiful Mistress Elizabeth Hamilton. 
 " Given at our palace of Whitehall, 
 
 "this 16th day of September, 1663. 
 
 "Charles E." 
 
 Whereupon they breakfasted together, each with what appe- 
 tite he might ; and then rode back to London, with much less 
 velocity and bustle than they had ridden down. 
 
 Of this, however, Rosamond Bellarmyne knew nothing ; much 
 less did she suspect that the genuine, honest-hearted old Lon- 
 don merchant had been closeted nearly three hours tete-a-tete 
 with the king, much to the wonder of the courtiers, on matters 
 closely connected with herself, though this was the king's 
 
i the king's gratitude. 357 
 
 secret ; and that thereafter he had gone to Newgate, provided 
 with a document bearing the sign-manual, on the exhibition of 
 which Major Bellarmyne was immediately discharged, his 
 sword being duly restored to him ; whereupon he took horse 
 within half an hour, having his pockets filled with a voluminous 
 epistle, as long as a modern title-deed to an estate, and a fat 
 purse, and was riding, when last seen, followed by a couple of 
 stout serving men, at the deliberate pace of an old traveller who 
 has a long journey before him, out of town by the great North 
 Road. 
 
 For the benefit of those whose imaginations are not lively 
 enough to forebode what ensued, it may be necessary to state, 
 that before Sir Reginald Pellarmyne's touching letter arrived 
 at the house of Nicholas in the Minories, the emperor's young 
 soldier, now the king's officer, Armytage Bellarmyne, had 
 alighted at the gates of the old abbey, well furnished with cre- 
 dentials, not from his father only, but from the Majesty of 
 England, backing his suit for the fair hand of the maid-of- 
 honor. 
 
 To these also it may be necessary to say, that the old cheva- 
 lier was too implicit a believer in the doctrine of passive obe- 
 dience, to dream of disputing the will of the king ; that the good 
 Dowager of Throckmorton was already in London, when the 
 old baronet, cured of his gout by the best of all remedies, a 
 dose of unexpected happiness, dismounted at the palace-gates, 
 to claim the brief possession of his fair child, whom he was 
 soon to give away for ever — that the two kinsmen, so long and 
 unnecessarily estranged, were never estranged more ; and that 
 on the festive and joyous day when two marriages were cele- 
 brated in the chapel of Whitehall, if the first and most famous 
 was that of the notorious Count de Grammont with the beau- 
 tiful Miss Hamilton, the most interesting, and, as after days 
 
358 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 proved, the happiest, was that of Major Armytage Bellarmyne 
 to Rosamond, the no less beautiful daughter of Reginald, first 
 Viscount of Bellarmyne. 
 
 To the world, who have heard only of the recklessness, the 
 heartlessness, the worldly coldness, ill redeemed by his facile 
 and frivolous good-nature, of the Second Charles of England, it 
 may appear surprising ; but the tenants of the old house, so 
 happily reinstated, of Bellarmyne, as well as the restored avenue 
 and the redeemed acres, truthful although mute witnesses, still 
 tell this simple tale of " The King's Gratitude." 
 
«Bft Stig ate rab; 
 
 1085 
 
THE LADY ALICE LISLE. 
 
 It was late on a dark summer's night, the day following the 
 disastrous field of Sedgemoor, on which the forces of the king, 
 under the incapable voluptuary Feversham, had annihilated the 
 rebel army of Monmouth, owing scarcely less to the incapacity 
 and want of judgment of the leader himself, than to the cow- 
 ardice of his general of the horse, Lord Gray, of Werk. The 
 scene lay amid the wooded hills of Hampshire, or that skirt 
 of the country which is nearest to the confines of Wiltshire. 
 The weather was wild and stormy, though in the height of 
 summer ; the wind blowing very freshly in heavy gusts from 
 the southwest, with occasional squalls of sharp, driving rain. 
 The skies were very dim and gloomy, although the moon was 
 neariy at the full, so densely were they overlaid with masses of 
 thick grey clouds, drifting onward, still onward, layer above 
 layer, before the driving storm, so as to blot the stars entirely 
 from the visible firmament, and only at times to suffer a faint 
 lack-lustre gleam of the waning moon to struggle through the 
 rifts of the changeful vapors. Dark, however, and inauspicious 
 as the night would have been pronounced by ordinary way- 
 farers, it was yet hailed, for the causes which would have ren- 
 dered it obnoxious to others, by two pedestrians, who, seemingly 
 almost overdone with fatigue, travel-stained, and splashed from 
 
3G2 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 head to foot with fifty different shades of mud and clay, con- 
 tinued to plod sturdily though slowly onward, through the half- 
 forest scene, amid which ran the narrow and unfrequented coun- 
 try road by which they were travelling. 
 
 One of these men, though he carried ostensibly no arms, nor 
 wore any of the regular trappings or insignia of the soldier, had 
 yet something in his port, carriage, and demeanor, which at 
 once indicated, to an experienced eye, that his proper pro- 
 fession was that of arms. His broad-leafed hat was orna- 
 mented with a band and feather, and though he was on foot he 
 wore high horseman's boots, from which, either in his haste or 
 forgetful ness, he had neglected to remove a pair of heavy 
 spurs. 
 
 The other person was older, less athletic in his build, and was 
 evidently far more wearied than his stouter companion, and it 
 was with pain and difficulty that he struggled feebly through 
 the deep mire and broken ruts of the ill-made country road. 
 He was dressed in black, with the band of a non-conformist 
 clergyman about his neck, and the close fitting black skull-cap, 
 which had procured for his sect the contemptuous name of 
 crop-ear, under his steeple-crowned hat. 
 
 " It is no use," he said at length, after stumbling two or three 
 times so badly that he had all but fallen ; " I can go no further. 
 Though my life depended on it, I could not another mile." 
 
 " Your life does depend on it," replied the other, shortly ; 
 " of a surety the avenger of blood is close at our heels, and 
 the broad-swords of the Blues are just as thirsty for the blood 
 of a preacher of the word, whom they call a trumpeter of sedi- 
 tion, as for that of a man-at-arms. Up ! up ! friend, and on- 
 ward ! give me your arm, and let me lead you ; nay, if it 
 must needs be, I. will carry you. For the house of the woman 
 of Israel, whom men call the Lady Alice, cannot but be within 
 
THE LADY ALICE LISLE. 363 
 
 a short half mile, and there shall we have shelter, for the ask- 
 ing, until this tyranny be over-past." 
 
 The preacher, who had sat down utterly exhausted on a 
 bank by the wayside, replied only with a groan to this friendly 
 exhortation, but he arose to make another effort for his life, and 
 with the assistance of the stalwart arm of his younger and 
 hardier companion, toiled onward by a steepish ascent which 
 lay before them, stumbling at every step, and declaring his ina- 
 bility to proceed even for the sake of life. 
 
 As they arrived, however, at the summit of the hill, a glim- 
 mering light met their eyes, seen faintly and at intervals 
 through the foliage of the thick woodlands, which filled the 
 slopes and bottom of a small lap of land into which they were 
 descending, watered by a rapid and tumultuous brook, swollen 
 by the recent rains, whose murmurs came up to their ears hoarse 
 and menacing. 
 
 " Heaven be praised !" exclaimed the soldier, as he saw the 
 friendly gleam, "we are saved ! That light burns in the lat- 
 tice of the lady, the pious relict of the God-fearing patriot, 
 John Lisle. The sounds of the brook make me sure of it. 
 Courage, my friend, a few more steps, and our toils and perils 
 shall be over." 
 
 " God send it be so," said the preacher. " But think you 
 she shall give us shelter when she knows who we are, and 
 from what deed we come ? " 
 
 " Ay ! do I," replied the other, confidently. " There is that 
 in the heart of Alice Lisle that would not suffer her to yield 
 up even her most deadly enemy to the sword of the pursuer. 
 She is all woman charity, and saintly tenderness and mercy. 
 Besides, for her there is little danger ; she is known through 
 the land for her loyalty, and for her deeds of love to the 
 cavaliers in the days of their tribulation. No one, by her 
 
364 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 prayers and intercession, nay, by her active aid, saved more 
 lives of the king's party than the Lady Alice. No one shed 
 more tears, or more openly, over the death of King Charles, 
 when to shed tears in itself for such a cause was perilous. 
 Nay ! had John Lisle listened to her counsels, or yielded to 
 her entreaties, he never had borne the name of regicide, or 
 perished in a foreign land by the knives of assassins for his 
 zeal in the cause. No officer of the enemy would ever think 
 of searching in her premises for rebels, and were she even 
 convicted of harboring them, the country with one voice, 
 Tory as much as Whig, would cry aloud m her behalf. 
 Come on, we are saved, I tell you. But it needs not to tell 
 her whence we come. She knows you for a nonconformist, 
 and may well believe that you are pursued for preaching 
 without license." 
 
 As he said these words they had come to the banks of the 
 flooded stream, which, ordinarily a mere thread of water, was 
 crossed by a ford scarce ancle-deep in usual weather. Now 
 it was a wild roaring torrent, at least waist deep, and bridge- 
 less. Still there was no alternative ; it must be crossed or 
 they must die on the hither bank so soon as the cavalry, 
 which were scouring the country on every side in merciless 
 pursuit, should come up with them. 
 
 The soldier breasted it the first, and bravely ; for though 
 the current was so strong as almost to take him off his legs, 
 he persisted, forced his way to the further side, . which he 
 reached unharmed, and then, after pausing a moment to 
 recover his breath, returned to assist his weaker and more 
 timid companion across the dangerous ford. It required 
 some persuasion to induce the divine, who was far more daring 
 in resistance to the authority of men, and defiance of the 
 perils of the law, than in endurance of fatigue and suffering, 
 
THE LADY ALICE LISLE. 365 
 
 or opposition to physical dangers, to venture himself in the 
 deep and dangerous flood ; nor, indeed, was it strange that 
 a person of weak nerves and inconsiderable bodily force 
 should prefer the incurring of a distant and uncertain dan- 
 ger, to rushing into what would seem immediate death. 
 
 The energies of the military man were however victorious 
 over the fears and hesitations of the preacher, but it was not 
 without some gentle violence that he compelled his friend to 
 trust to his own courage and power, which he asserted were 
 fully equal to the preservation of both from a greater danger 
 than any threatened by the sullen eddies of the swollen brook. 
 
 His actions indeed made good his assertions, but it was not 
 without a severe struggle, and the exertion of every nerve to 
 the very utmost, that he succeeded in dragging out his help- 
 less and half-drowned companion on the further shore ; for, 
 offering no resistance to the stream, and opposing only an 
 inert body to its force, he stumbled in the hard channel and 
 was swept down the stream, dragging his more robust auxi- 
 liary helplessly along with him for some yards. It is doubt- 
 ful, indeed, whether either of the two could have escaped, 
 for the soldier showed no disposition to extricate himself at 
 the sacrifice of the other, had not the branches of a large 
 willow tree, growing in the fence through an opening of 
 which the stream passed into the adjoining fields, swept the 
 surface of the waters, and fallen by chance into the extended 
 hand of the stronger of the fugitives. By aid of this, he 
 soon reached the dry ground, and dragged out the groaning 
 and exhausted preacher, whom, finding that he was now 
 really unable to proceed, he hoisted on his shoulders, and, 
 weary as he was himself, bore for nearly half a mile to the 
 gate, which gave access through a low brick wall to the 
 demesnes of the Lady Alice Lisle. 
 
366 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 It was a small, old-fashioned red-brick hall, with the window 
 casings and the angles faced with white stone ; a small court- 
 yard, with smoothly shaved turf and a few formal evergreens, 
 lay upon it ; and behind, half screened by a belt of plantation, 
 were seen indistinctly the out-houses attached to the dwelling 
 of a rural proprietor in those days, stables, and granaries, 
 and pigeon-house, and barns, and malt-house, while the bay- 
 ing of several large dogs from the farm-yards showed . that 
 the stock was not left unprotected. 
 
 The light which the fugitives had seen from a distance 
 still burned calmly at the window of a small parlor to the 
 right of the door, and as they drew nearer to the house, they 
 could distinguish the figure of the lady bending over a large 
 volume, which they at once recognised as the bible. 
 
 " It is a good omen," said the faint-hearted priest. " One so 
 employed shall scarce refuse Christian charity and succor." 
 
 " I tell you that she would not do it, were she assured that 
 she should lose her own life thereby." 
 
 " Yerily, a sainted woman," snuffled the preacher ; " and 
 worthy to be held a mother of Israel." 
 
 " She is worthy to be held a right noble English lady," 
 answered Nelthorpe, abruptly, as if he were half disgusted 
 either by the cowardice or the cant of his companion, whom 
 he addressed, now that they were for the moment in a place 
 of safety, as master, though with far less warmth of manner 
 than he had done while they were both in actual danger. 
 
 At the first summons, the door of the hall was opened by 
 a very old grey-headed serving man, whom Nelthorpe in- 
 stantly addressed by name, as an old acquaintance, bidding 
 him tell the lady that he and pious and learned Master Hicks 
 were at her door belated and weary wanderers, and fugitives 
 for conscience sake, with men of Belial at their heels, praying 
 
THE LADY ACE LISLE, 36*7 
 
 for a morsel of food, and a night's lodging until the morrow 
 morning, when they would go on their way refreshed and 
 thankful. 
 
 The old servitor shook his head doubtfully, and seemed 
 reluctant to be the bearer of such a message to his mistress, 
 who he, perhaps, foresaw with the preciseness of aged affec- 
 tion, might be endangered in consequence. But the Lady 
 Alice had heard something of what was passing without, and 
 while the old man was hesitating, opened the parlor door 
 and made her appearance in the hall, inquiring what was 
 the matter, and who were the visitors at so late an hour. 
 
 She was a very aged woman, with the still abundant tresses 
 of her snow-white hair braided plainly across her brows, be- 
 neath her stiffly-starched muslin cap. Her face, however, still 
 retained traces of uncommon former beauty, and the bene- 
 volence, tranquillity, and serene mildness which beamed from 
 every lineament, rendered her face still singularly pleasant and 
 attractive. Her figure, which was tall and slender, was still 
 full of grace, and her every movement was made with that 
 easy elegance which is perhaps the most distinctive proof of a 
 high and gentle education, and which we never fail to attri- 
 bute to the consciousness of good birth and breeding, and to 
 the influence of a mind at ease with itself and at peace with 
 others. 
 
 Her voice was low and gentle, and though she spoke half 
 reproachfully to the old servant for his churlishness and want 
 of charity in hesitating to admit men in such weary plight 
 and peril, the softness of her tones and the quietude of her 
 manner made her words seem anything rather than a cen- 
 sure. 
 
 A change of raiment was speedily supplied to the fugitives, 
 with one of whom, Nelthorpe, she was personally, though 
 
368 persons J^fjy pictures. 
 
 slightly acquainted, while the other she knew by reputation 
 only, and that, perhaps, not too favorably, as a very zealous, 
 somewhat intolerant, and confessedly rather turbulent dissent- 
 ing minister. 
 
 The Lady Alice was herself a sincere loyalist, and a devout 
 and devoted member of the church of England, though it had 
 been her lot in early life to be mated with an independent and 
 a regicide, whose errors, whose crimes, and whose untimely 
 death had steeped her life in sorrow, and blanched her dark 
 hair immaturely, though it had failed to cloud the calm and 
 religious serenity of her composed and gentle spirit. Still, 
 neither in the political nor the religious creed of the Lady Alice, 
 was there one touch of intolerance ; and so full was her heart 
 of that truly feminine chivalry, of that almost maternal sense 
 of hospitable duty which ever prompts woman to defend and 
 protect the helpless, that it is probable that, as Nelthorpe said, 
 had her worst enemies, nay, the very assassins of her husband, 
 stood in her threshold claiming protection from the avenger of 
 the blood, hard on the traces, she would have granted it, woman- 
 ly pity conquering human resentment, and the sense of duty 
 prevailing over all fear of consequences. 
 
 Thus, though she did not greatly admire or respect the 
 character of her nocturnal visitants, and perhaps half-suspected 
 the reasons of their desperate position, she never thought for 
 one moment of denying them asylum against their pursuers. 
 Perhaps she did not reflect on the consequences to herself; per- 
 haps she believed that her character, her well-known loyalty 
 and admitted service to the cause of the cavaliers, when that 
 cause was at the lowest, would protect her, should her deed of 
 mercy be discovered : but had she been fully aware of all that 
 was to follow, certain it is that in no respect would her conduct 
 have been altered. 
 
THE LADY ALICE LISLE. 369 
 
 ■ So soon as they were drily and comfortably clad, meat and 
 wine were set before them, and when they were thoroughly 
 warmed and recruited, as they still persisted in declaring them- 
 selves in mortal peril of pursuit, although when they would 
 have entered into particular details, the lady resolutely refused 
 to listen ; when the time for retiring had arrived, they were 
 conducted to such hiding places as the old house afforded — 
 Hicks to a secret chamber within the thickness of the wall, 
 having its entrance from the back of a fire-place in one of the 
 upper rooms, and ISTelthorpe to an inner arched recess of the 
 malt-house, the mouth of which was in part concealed by a 
 pile of grain heaped against it ; and here, with good store of 
 mattresses and bedding, they were left to enjoy the delight of 
 sound and secure slumbers, after four and twenty hours of un- 
 interrupted toil and terror. 
 
 So soundly did they sleep, and till so late an hour, that the 
 sun was near the meridian, and neither of them had yet made 
 his appearance, the lady respecting their fatigue, and forbid- 
 ding that they should be aroused ; when suddenly sounds were 
 heard, which made them start in terror from their couches. 
 The long blast of a cavalry trumpet was succeeded by the tram- 
 pling of a troop of horse, and a loud and simultaneous knocking 
 at all the doors of the house, which was surrounded by a force 
 of dismounted troopers with carbines in their hands, their 
 officers demanding admittance in the king's name, which, as 
 it could not be resisted, was immediately, if not cordially 
 accorded. 
 
 The garments of the fugitives, which were still drying by the 
 kitchen fire, were instantly discovered and identified as those 
 of Nelthorpe and Hicks, both of whom, as the lady now learn- 
 ed, positively, for the first time, had borne arms against the 
 king at Sedgemoor, and being proclaimed traitors, she was 
 
 11 
 
370 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 herself liable to the pains and penalties of high treason, for 
 harboring and secreting them. ' A vigorous search followed, 
 and as the general character of such hiding places, in the old 
 halls and manor houses of that day, had become almost uni- 
 versally known during the late civil wars, in the course of 
 which many of the cavaliers had found protection in them 
 from their puritan pursuers, it was not long before Hicks and 
 Nelthorpe were both discovered and made prisoners, and the 
 Lady Alice herself was commanded to hold herself as attached 
 for high treason, and to prepare for immediate removal to the 
 county town, where an extraordinary circuit was about to be 
 held for the effectual suppression of the rebellion, and the 
 extirpation of the rebels. It was only as an especial favor that 
 the aged lady was permitted the use of her own carriage to 
 convey her to the prison, in which she was immured like a 
 common felon, to wait the arrival of the infamous Jefferies, 
 who was already appointed to hold the circuit, known after- 
 wards as the Bloody Assizes, by the cold-blooded and barbarous 
 tyrant, the worst man and most atrocious king w 7 ho ever sat 
 upon the throne of England. 
 
 It may well be said that her fate was decided before she 
 was brought to trial, for, although it was proved beyond ques- 
 tion that the venerable lady — who pleaded her own cause, unaid- 
 ed by counsel, confronting the insolent and shameful abuse and 
 ravings of Jefferies with meek and calm self-confidence — was 
 not even aware that the battle of Sedgemoor had been fought 
 on any grounds beyond mere popular rumor ; much less that 
 either of the prisoners had borne arms in that affair ; though 
 she had sent her own son to support the royal cause, and fight 
 against the very rebels she was now accused of harboring ; 
 though it had not been proved in any court that the men she 
 now arraigned for sheltering were actually traitors ; though 
 
THE LADY ALICE LISLE. 3*71 
 
 the jury twice presented favorable verdicts, they were sent 
 back with roars and bellowings of almost frantical abuse by 
 the monster Jefferies, who called them knaves and villains, brow- 
 beat the witness with foul-mouthed vituperation, and claimed 
 the conviction of the prisoner, on the ground that her husband 
 had officiated as one of the regicide judges — a fact not proved 
 in court, and irrelevant, had it been proved — until at length 
 driven to their wits' ends, half crazed, and wholly terrified by 
 the furious and appalling menaces of the chief justice, they at 
 length brought in a verdict of guilty, though coupled with the 
 strongest recommendation to mercy. Utterly disregarding this 
 recommendation, the monster sentenced her at once to be 
 burned alive on the following day, and it was only by the 
 strong remonstrances of all the clergy, and especially of the 
 bishop of Salisbury, a most loyal prelate, who had lent his own 
 carriage horses to draw the royal artillery to Sedgemoor, that 
 he was compelled to renounce his determination of putting her 
 — an aged and most venerable woman, of the most blameless 
 life, and now convicted only for one of those acts of womanish 
 mercy, for which, in the darkest of the middle ages, and in the 
 first strife of the bloodiest civil wars, no woman had ever been 
 capitally punished — to a death the most horrible, without 
 allowing an appeal to the mercy, if not to the justice of the 
 king. 
 
 The appeal was made — intercession, entreaties of the strong- 
 v est, solicitations"^ the most urgent, were offered, but the savage 
 and cowardly bigot was, as ever, merciless — the only mercy he 
 would grant was the commutation of her punishment from the 
 stake and fagots to the block and axe — for he had promised 
 Jefferies, he said, that he would not pardon. 
 
 So, in the clearness of her innocence, conscious of her justifi- 
 cation on high, she bowed her grey head dauntlessly to the 
 
372 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 block, and died indeed a heroine, and little less than a saint 
 and martyr, on the very same day on which Elizabeth Garnet, 
 an ancient matron of the anabaptist persuasion, was actually 
 burned to death, almost under the eyes of the ruthless James, 
 for a like offence, at Smithfield. They were the first women, 
 it is believed, that ever suffered in England for any similar 
 offence — they are the last who have been capitally punished 
 therein for any political crime, and the last they will be for ever. 
 Their fame grows brighter and their memories dearer, every 
 day, while that of the murderer becomes blacker hourly, as 
 fresh investigations bring forth fresh proofs of his utter infamy. 
 It is something to know that he was punished, even in this 
 world, as few men ever have been punished — that he was 
 deserted, at his utmost need, by his own children, and that he 
 died the most abject of things — not of men — a pauper king, 
 subsisting on the charity of his own country's foes. 
 
lita-ra-ttiB-lok; 
 
 THE DAYS OF JAMES II. 
 
 1687. 
 
DITTON-IN-THE-DALE; 
 
 THE DAYS OF JAMES II. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 It has beea gravely stated by an Italian writer of celebrity, 
 that " the very atrocity of the crimes which are therein com- 
 mitted, proves that in Italy the growth of man is stronger and 
 more vigorous, and nearer to the perfect standard of manhood 
 than in any other country." 
 
 A strange paradox, truly, but not uningenious — at least 
 for a native of that " purple land, where law secures not life," 
 who would work out of the very reproach, an argument of honor 
 to his country. If it be true, however, that proneness to the 
 commission of unwonted and atrocious crime is to be held a 
 token of extraordinary vigor — vigor of nerve, of temperament, 
 of passion, of physical development — in a race of men, then 
 surely must the Anglo-Norman breed, under all circumstances 
 of time, place, and climate, be singularly destitute of all those 
 qualities — nay, singularly frail, effeminate, and incomplete. 
 
 For it is an undoubted fact, both of the past and present his- 
 tory of that great and still increasing race, whether limited to 
 .the narrow bounds of the island realm which gave it being, or 
 
376 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 extended to the boundless breadth of isles, and continents, and 
 oceans, which it has rilled with its arms, its arts, its industry, its 
 language — it is, I say, an undoubted fact, that those dreadful and 
 sanguinary crimes, forming a class apart and distinct of them- 
 selves, engendered for the most part by morbid passions, love, 
 lust, jealousy, and revenge, which are of daily occurrence in the 
 southern countries of Europe, Asia, and America, are almost 
 unknown in those happier lands, where English laws prevail, 
 with English liberty and language. 
 
 It is to this that must be ascribed the fact, that, in the very 
 few instances where crimes of this nature have occurred in Eng- 
 land or America, the memory of them is preserved with singular 
 pertinacity, the smallest details handed down from generation to 
 generation, and the very spots in which they have occurred, 
 how much soever altered or improved in the course of ages, 
 haunted, as if by an actual presence, by the horror and the 
 scent of blood ; while on the other hand the fame of ordinary 
 deeds of violence and rapine seems almost to be lost before the 
 lives of the ^perpetrators are run out. 
 
 One, and almost, I believe, a singular instance of this kind — 
 fori would not dignify the brawls and assassinations which have 
 disgraced some of our southern cities, the offspring of low prin- 
 ciples and an unregulated society, by comparing them to the 
 class of crimes is question, which imply even in their atrocity a 
 something of perverted honor, of extravagant affection, or at 
 least of not ignoble passion — is the well-known Beauchamp 
 tragedy of Kentucky, a tale of sin and horror which has afforded 
 a theme to the pens of several distinguished writers, and the 
 details of which are as well known on the spot at present, as if 
 years had not elapsed since its occurrence. And tbis, too, in a 
 country prone above all others, from the migratory habits of its 
 population, to cast aside all tradition, and to lose within a very 
 
DITT0N-1N-THE-DALE. Sll 
 
 few years tlie memory of the greatest and most illustrious events 
 upon the very stage of their occurrence. 
 
 It is not, therefore, wonderful that in England, where the 
 immobility of the population, the reverence for antiquity, and 
 the great prevalence of oral tradition, induced probably at first 
 by the want of letters, cause the memory of even past trifles to 
 dwell for ages in the breasts of the simple and moral people, any 
 deed of romantic character, any act of unusual atrocity, any 
 crime prompted by unusual or extraordinary motives, should 
 become, as it were, part and parcel of the place wherein it was 
 wrought ; that the leaves of the trees should whisper it to the 
 winds of evening ; that the echoes of the lonely hills should 
 repeat it ; that the waters should sigh a burthen to its strain ; 
 and that the very night_should assume a deeper shadow, a more 
 horrid gloom, from the awe of the unforgotten sin. 
 
 I knew a place in my boyhood, thus haunted by the memory 
 of strange crime ;• and whether it was merely the terrible ro- 
 mance of the story, or the wild and gloomy character of the 
 scenery endowed with a sort of natural fitness to be the theatre 
 of terrible events, or yet again the union of the two, I know 
 not ; but it produced upon my mind a very powerful influence, 
 amounting to a species of fascination, which constantly attracted 
 me to the spot, although when there, the weight of the tradi- 
 tion and the awe of the scene produced a sense of actual pain. 
 
 The place to which I allude was but a few miles distant from 
 the celebrated public school, at which I passed the happiest 
 days of a not uneventful life, and was within an easy walk of 
 the college limits ; so that when I had attained that favored 
 eminence, known as the sixth form, which allows its happy oc- 
 cupants to roam the country, free from the fear of masters, pro- 
 vided only they attend at appointed hours, it was my frequent 
 habit to stroll away from the noisy plaving-fields through the 
 
 11* 
 
378 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 green hedgerow lanes, or to scull my wherry over the smooth 
 surface of the silver Thames, towards the scene of dark tradition ; 
 and there to lap myself in thick-coming fancies, half sad, half 
 sweet, yet terrible withal, and in their very terror attractive, 
 until the call of the homeward rooks, and the lengthened 
 shadows of the tall trees on the green sward, would warn me 
 that I too must hie me back with speed, or pay the penalty of 
 undue delay. 
 
 Now, as the story has in itself, apart from the extraneous 
 interest with which a perfect acquaintance with its localities 
 may have invested it in my eyes, a powerful and romantic cha- 
 racter ; as its catastrophe was no less striking than un-English ; 
 and as the passions which gave rise to it were at once the 
 strongest and the most general — though rarely prevailing, at 
 least among us Anglo-Normans, to so fearful an extent — I am 
 led to hope that others may find in it something that may 
 enchain their attention for a time, though it may not affect 
 them as it has me with an influence, unchanged by change of 
 scene, unaltered by the lapse of time, which alters all things. 
 
 I propose, therefore, to relate it, as I heard it first from an 
 old superannuated follower of the family, which, owning other 
 though not fairer demesnes in some distant county, had never 
 more used Ditton-in-the-Dale as their dwelling-place, although 
 . well nigh two centuries had elapsed since the transaction which 
 had scared them away from their polluted household gods. 
 
 But first, I must describe briefly the characteristics of the 
 scenery, without which a part of my tale would be hardly com- 
 prehensible, while the remarkable effect produced by the coin- 
 cidence, if I may so express myself, between the nature of the 
 deed, and the nature of the place, would be lost entirely. 
 
 In the first place, then, I must premise that the name of 
 Ditton-in-the-Dale is in a great measure a misnomer, as the 
 
DITTON-IN-THE-DALE. . 379 
 
 house and estate which bear that name, are situated on what a 
 visiter would be at first inclined to call a dead level, but on what 
 is in truth a small secondary undulation, or hollow, in the 
 broad, flat valley through which the father of the English rivers, 
 the royal-towered Thames, pursues, as Gray sang, 
 
 The turf, the flowers, the shades among, — 
 
 His silver-winding way. 
 
 But so destitute is all that country of any deep or well defined 
 valleys, much less abrupt glens or gorges, that any hollow con- 
 taining a tributary stream, which invariably meanders in slow 
 and sluggish reaches through smooth, green meadow-land, is 
 dignified with the name of dale, or valley. The country is, 
 however, so much intersected by winding lanes, bordered with 
 high straggling white-thorn hedges full of tall timber trees, is 
 subdivided into so many small fields, all inclosed with similar 
 fences, and is diversified with so many w r oods and clumps of 
 forest trees, that you lose sight of the monotony of its surface, 
 in consequence of the variety of its vegetation, and of the limited 
 space which the eye can comprehend at any one time. „ 
 
 The lane by which I was wont to reach the demesne of Ditton, 
 partook in an eminent degree of this character, being very 
 narrow, winding about continually without any apparent cause, 
 almost completely embowered by the tall hawthorn hedges, and 
 the yet taller oaks and ashes which grew along their lines, 
 making, when in full verdure, twilight of noon itself, and com- 
 manding no view whatever of the country through which it ran, 
 except when a field-gate or cart-track opened into it, affording 
 a glimpse of a lonely meadow, bounded, perhaps, by a deep 
 wood-side. 
 
 On either hand of this lane was a broad, deep ditch, both of 
 them quite unlike any other ditches I have ever seen. Their 
 
380 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 banks were irregular ; and it would seem evident that they had 
 not been dug for any purposes of fencing or inclosure ; and I 
 have sometimes imagined, from their varying width and depth — 
 for in places they were ten feet deep, and three times as broad, 
 and at others but a foot or two across, and containing but a few 
 inches of water — that their beds had been hollowed out to get 
 marl or gravel for the convenience of the neighboring cul" 
 tivators. 
 
 Be this as it may, they were at all times brimful of the clear- 
 est and most transparent water I ever remember to have seen — 
 never turbid even after the heaviest rains ; and though bordered 
 by water-flags, and tapestried in many places • by the broad, 
 round leaves of the white and yellow water-lilies, never cor- 
 rupted by a particle of floating scum or green duckweed. 
 
 Whether they were fed by secret springs I know not ; or 
 whether they communicated by sluices or side-drains with the 
 neighboring Thames ; I never could discover any current or 
 motion in their still, glassy waters, though I have wandered by 
 their banks a hundred times, watching the red-finned roach and 
 silvery dace pursue each other among the shadowy lily leaves — 
 now startling a fat yellow frog from the marge, and following 
 him as he dived through the limpid blackness to the very 
 bottom — now starting in my own turn, as a big water-rat would 
 swim from side to side, and vanish in some hole of the marly 
 bank — and now endeavoring to catch the great azure-bodied, 
 gauze-winged dragon-flies, as they shot to and fro on their 
 poised wings, pursuing, kites of the insect race, some of the 
 smaller ephemera. 
 
 It was those quiet, lucid waters, coupled with the exceeding 
 shadiness of the trees, and its very unusual solitude — I have 
 walked it, I suppose, from end to end at least a hundred times, 
 and I never remember to have met so much even as a peasant 
 
DITTON-IN-THE-DALE. 381 
 
 returning from his daily labor, or a country maiden tripping to 
 the neighboring town — that gave its character, and I will add 
 its charm, to this half pastoral, half sylvan lane. For nearly 
 three miles it ran in one direction, although, as I have said, 
 with many devious turns and seemingly unnecessary angles, 
 and through that length it did not pass within the sound of one 
 farm-yard, or the sight of one cottage chimney. But to make 
 up for this, of which it was, indeed, a consequence, the nightin- 
 gales were so bold and familiar that they might be heard all 
 day long filling the air with their delicious melodies, not waiting, 
 as in more frequented spots, the approach of night, whose dull 
 ear to charm with amorous ravishment ; nay, I have seen them 
 perched in full view on the branches, gazing about them fearless 
 with their full black eyes, and swelling their emulous throats in 
 full view of the spectator. 
 
 Three miles passed, the lane takes a sudden turn to the north- 
 ward, having previously run for the most part east and west ; 
 and here, in the inner angle, jutting out suddenly from a dense 
 thicket of hawthorns and hazels, an old octagonal summer- 
 house, with a roof shaped like an extinguisher, projects into the 
 ditch, which here expands into a little pool some ten or twelve 
 yards over in every direction, and perhaps deeper than at any 
 other point of its course. 
 
 Beyond the summer-house there is a little esplanade of green 
 turf, faced with a low wall towards the ditch, allowing the eye 
 to run down a long, narrow avenue of gigantic elm-trees, meet- 
 ing at the top in the perfect semblance of a Gothic aisle, and 
 bordered on each hand by hedges of yew, six feet at least in 
 height, clipped into the form and almost into the solidity of a 
 wall. At the far end of this avenue, which must be nearly 
 two-thirds of a mile in length, one can discern a glimpse of a 
 
382 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 formal garden, and beyond that, of some portion of what seems 
 to be a large building of red brick. 
 
 At the extremity of the esplanade and little wall, there grows 
 an enormous oak, not very tall, but with an immense girth of 
 trunk, and such a spread of branches that it completely over- 
 shadows the summer-house, and overhangs the whole surface of 
 the small pool in front of it. Thenceforth, the tall and tangled 
 hedge runs on, as usual denying all access of the eye, and the 
 deep, clear ditch all access of the foot, to the demesnes within ; 
 until at the distance of perhaps a mile and a quarter, a little 
 bridge crosses the latter, and a green gate, with a pretty rustic 
 lodge beside it, gives entrance to a smooth lawn, with a gravel- 
 road running across it, and losing itself on the farther side, 
 in a thick belt of woodland. 
 
 It is, however, with the summer-house that I have to do prin- 
 cipally, for it is to it that the terror of blood has clung through 
 the lapse of years, as the scent of the Turkish attar is said to 
 cling, indestructible, to the last fragment of the vessel which 
 had once contained it. 
 
 When first I saw that small' lonely pavilion, I had heard no- ■ 
 thing of the strange tradition which belonged to it, yet as I 
 looked on the plastered walls, all covered with spots of damp 
 and mildew, on the roof overrun with ivy, in masses so wildly 
 luxuriant as almost to conceal the shape — on the windows, one 
 in each side of the octagon, closed by stout jalousies, which 
 had been once green with paint, but were now green with damp 
 and vegetable mould, a strange feeling, half of curiosity and 
 half of terror, came over me, mixed with that singular fascina- 
 tion of which I have spoken, which seemed to deny me any 
 rest until I should have searched out the mystery — for I felt 
 sure that mystery there was — connected with that summer- 
 house, so desolate and so fast lapsing into ruin, while the hedges 
 
DITTON-IN-THE-DALE. 383 
 
 and gardens within appeared well cared for, and in trim cul- 
 tivation. 
 
 I well remember, the first time I beheld that lonely and de- 
 serted building. It was near sunset, on as lovely a summer 
 evening as ever shed its soft light on the earth ; the air was 
 breathless ; the sky cloudless ; thousands of swallows were 
 upon the wing, some skimming the limpid surface of those old 
 ditches, others gliding on balanced pinions so far aloft in the 
 darkening firmament that the eye could barely discern them. 
 
 The nightingales were warbling their rich, melancholy notes 
 from every brake and thicket ; the bats had come forth, and 
 were flitting to and fro on their leathern wings under the dark 
 trees ; but the brilliant dragon-flies and all the painted tribe of 
 butterflies had vanished already, and another race, the insects 
 of the night, had taken their places. 
 
 The rich scent of the new-mown hay loaded the air with 
 fragrance, and vied with the odors of the eglantine and honey- 
 suckle, which, increased by the falling dew, steamed up like 
 incense to the evening skies. 
 
 I was alone, and thoughtful ; for the time, although sweet 
 and delicious, had nothing in it gay or joyous ; the lane along 
 which I was strolling was steeped in the fast increasing sha- 
 dows, for although the air aloft was full of sunshine, and the 
 topmost leaves of the tall ashes shimmered like gold in the 
 late rays, not a single beam penetrated the thick hedgerows, or 
 fell upon the sandy horse-road. The water in the deep ditches 
 looked as black as night, and the plunge of the frogs into their 
 cool recesses startled the ear amid the solitude and stillness of 
 the place. 
 
 It was one of those evenings, in a word, which calls up, we 
 know not why, a train of thought not altogether sad, nor wholly 
 tender, but calm and meditative and averse to action. I had 
 
384' PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 been wandering along thus for nearly an hour, musing deeply 
 all the while, yet perfectly unconscious that I was musing, much 
 more what was the subject of my meditations, when coming 
 suddenly to the turn of the lane, the old summer-house met my 
 eyes, and almost startled me, so little did I expect in that place 
 to see anything that should recall to my mind the dwellings 
 or the vicinity of man. 
 
 The next minute I began to scrutinize, and to wonder — for it 
 was evident that this building must be an appendage to the 
 estate of some gentleman or person of degree, and, knowing all 
 the families of note in that neighborhood, I was well assured 
 that no one dwelt here of sufficient position to be the owner of 
 what appeared at first sight to be a noble property. 
 
 Anxious as I was, however, to effect my entrance into that 
 enchanted ground, I could discover no means of doing so ; for 
 the depth of the water effectually cut off all access to the 
 hedgerow banks, even if there had been any prospect of forcing 
 a passage through the tangled thorn-bushes beyond. Before I 
 could find any solution to my problem, the fast thickening 
 shadows admonished me that I must beat my retreat ; and it 
 was only by dint of redoubled speed that I reached college in 
 time to escape the consequences of absence from roll-call. 
 
 An early hour of the evening found me at my post on the 
 following day ; for having a direct object now in view, I wasted 
 no time on the road, and the sun was still some distance above 
 the horizon when I reached the summer-house. 
 
 It had been my hope, as I went along, that I might find 
 some shallow spot, with a corresponding gap in the hedge, be- 
 fore reaching the place, by means of which I might turn the 
 defences, and take the enemy in the rear ; but it was all in vain ; 
 and I came upon the ground without discovering any opening 
 
DITTO N-IN-THE-D ALE. 385 
 
 by which an animal larger than a rat could enter the forbidden 
 ground. 
 
 Difficulty, it is well known, heightens desire ; and, if I wished 
 before, I was now determined that I would get in. Quickening 
 my pace, I set off at a smart run to reconnoitre the defences 
 beyond, but having found nothing that favored my plans in 
 some half mile or so, I again returned, now bent on forcing my 
 way, even if I should be compelled to undress, and swim across 
 the pool to the further side. 
 
 Before having recourse to this last step, however, I recon- 
 noitred my ground somewhat more narrowly than before, and 
 soon discovered that one of the main limbs of the great oak 
 shot quite across the pool, and extended some little distance on 
 my side over terra firma. 
 
 It is true that the nearer extremity of the branch was rather 
 of the slenderest, to support the weight even of a boy, and that 
 the lowest point was a foot or two above my head. But what 
 of that ? I was young and active in those days, and somewhat 
 bold withal ; and without a spice of danger, where were the 
 pleasure or excitement of adventure ? 
 
 It did not take me long to make up my mind, and before I 
 had w r ell thought of the risk, I had swung myself up into the 
 branches, and was creeping, with even less difficulty than I had 
 anticipated, along the great gnarled bough above the mirrored pool. 
 
 Danger, in fact, there was none ; for slender as the extremi- 
 ties appeared, they were tough English oak ; and the parent 
 branch once gained, would have supported the weight of Qtus 
 and Ephialtes, and all their giant crew, much more of one slight 
 Etonian. 
 
 In five minutes, or less, I had reached the fork of the trunk, 
 and, sw r arming down on the further side, stood in the full frui 
 tion of my hopes, on that enchanted ground. 
 
386 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 It was, as I had expected to find it, a singular and gloomy 
 spot ; the tall elm trees which formed the avenue, and the 
 black wall of clipped yew which followed their course, di- 
 verging to the right and left, formed a semicircle, the chord 
 of which was the low wall and hawthorn hedge, the sum- 
 mer-house standing, as I entered, in the angle on my left 
 hand. 
 
 Although, as I have said, the sun was still high in heaven, 
 the little area was almost dark already ; and it was difficult, in- 
 deed, to conjecture for what end the wisdom of our ancestors 
 had planted a sun-dial in the centre of the grass-plat, where it 
 seemed physically impossible that a chance sunbeam should 
 ever strike it, to tell the hour. 
 
 If it had not been for the narrow open space between the oak 
 tree and the summer house, the little lawn would even now 
 have been as black as night ; as it was, a sort of misty-grey 
 twilight, increased, perhaps, by the thin vapors rising from the 
 tranquil pool, filled all its precincts ; and beyond these, stretch- 
 ing away in long perspective until the arch at the further end 
 seemed dwindled to the size of a needle's eye, was the long aisle 
 of gloomy foliage, as massive and impenetrable to any ray of 
 light as the stone arches of a Gothic cloister. 
 || The only thing that conveyed an idea of gaiety or life to 
 the cold and tomb-like scenery, was the glimpse of bright sun- 
 shine which lay on the open garden at the extremity of the 
 elm-walk, with the gaudy and glowing hues, indistinctly seen 
 in the distance, of some summer flowers. 
 
 Yet even this was not all unmixed with something of me- 
 lancholy, for the contrast of the gay sunbeams and bright 
 flowers only rendered the gloom more apparent, and like a con- 
 vent-garden, seemed to awaken cravings after the joyous world 
 without, diminishing nothing of the sorrow and monotony within. 
 
DITTON-IN-THE-DALK 387 
 
 But I was not in those days much given to moralizing, or to 
 the investigation of my own inward feelings. 
 
 I had come thither to inquire, to see, to learn, to find out 
 things — not causes. And perceiving at one glance that my 
 first impression was correct, that the grass-plots were recently 
 mown, the gravel-walks newly rolled and spotless of weeds, the 
 tall yew hedges assiduously clipped into the straightest and 
 most formal lines ; that everything, in short, displayed the 
 most heedful tendance, the neatest cultivation, with the excep- 
 tion of the summer-pavilion, which evidently was devoted to 
 decay, I became but the more satisfied that there was some 
 mystery, and the more resolute to probe it to the core. 
 
 It was quite clear that when that garden was laid out, and 
 that avenue planted, how many years ago the giant size of the 
 old elms denoted, the summer-house was the meaning of the 
 whole design. The avenue had no object but to lead to it, the 
 little lawn no purpose but to receive it. Doubly strange, there- 
 fore, did it seem that these should b'e kept up in all their trim- 
 ness — that suffered to fall into decay. 
 
 It was the tragedy, of Hamlet, with Hamlet's part omitted ! 
 
 I stood for a little while wondering, and half overcome by a 
 sort of indescribable fanciful superstition. A cloud had come 
 over the sun, the nightingales had ceased to sing, and there 
 was not a sound of any kind to be heard, except the melancholy 
 murmur of the summer air in the tree-tops. 
 
 In a moment, however, the transitory spell was shaken off", 
 and, once more the bold and reckless schoolboy, I turned to the 
 performance of my self-imposed task. 
 
 The summer-house, as I have said, was octagon, three of its 
 sides, with a window in each, jutting out into the clear pool, 
 and three, with a door in the centre, and a window • on each 
 side, fronting the little lawn. But, alas ! the windows were all 
 
388 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 secured with jalousies, strongly bolted and barred from within, 
 and the door was secured by a lock, the key of which was 
 absent. 
 
 A short examination showed, however, that the door was 
 held by no bolts at the top or bottom ; and the rusty condition 
 of both lock and hinges rendered it probable that it would not 
 stand a very violent assault. 
 
 "Wherefore, retreating some twenty paces, I ran at it more 
 Utoncnsi, at the top of my speed, planted the sole of my foot 
 even and square against the key-hole, with the whole impetus 
 of my charge, and had the satisfaction of feeling the door fly 
 open in an instant, while a jingling clatter within showed 
 that my entrance had been effected with no greater damage 
 to the premises than the starting of the staple into which the 
 bolt of the lock shot. 
 
 Having entered thus, my first task was to repair damages, 
 which was effected in five minutes, by driving the staple into 
 its old place by aid of a great stone ; my second, to provide 
 means for future visits, which was as speedily managed by 
 driving back the bolt of the lock with the same great stone ; 
 and my third, to look eagerly and curiously about me. To do 
 this more effectually, I soon opened the tw T o windows looking 
 upon the lawn, and let in the light, for the first time, I 
 fancy, in many a year, to that deserted room. 
 
 If I had marvelled much before I entered, much more did 
 I marvel now ; for although everything within showed marks 
 of the utmost negligence and decay, though spiders had 
 woven their webs in every angle, though mildew and damp 
 mould had defaced the painted walls, though the gilding was 
 black and tarnished, though the dust lay thick on the fur- 
 niture, still I had never seen anything in my life, except the 
 state-rooms at Hampton Court and Windsor^ Castle, which 
 
DITTO N-IN-THE-D ALE. 389 
 
 could have vied with this pavilion in the splendor of its ori- 
 ginal decoration. 
 
 Its area was about thirty feet in diameter, and in height 
 nearly the same, with a domed roof, richly fretted with what 
 had once been golden scroll-work upon an azure ground. 
 The walls were painted, as even / could discover, by the 
 hand of a master, with copies from Guido and Caracci, in 
 compartments bordered with massive gilded scroll-work, the 
 ground between the panels having been originally, like the 
 ceiling, of bright azure. The window-frames had been gilded ; 
 and the inside of the door painted, like the walls, in azure, 
 with pictures of high merit in the panels. Every side of the 
 octagon but two, the opposite walls to the right and left, 
 was occupied by windows or a door ; but that to the right 
 was filled by a mantel-piece, exquisitely wrought with Carya- 
 tides in white Carrara marble, with a copy of the Aurora above 
 it, while the space opposite to it had been occupied by a 
 superb mirror, reaching from the cornice of the ceiling. 
 
 Nearly in the centre of this mirror, however, there was a 
 small circular fracture, as if made by a stone or bullet, with 
 long cracks radiating, like the beams of a star, in all directions 
 over the shivered plate : and when I looked at it more closely, 
 I observed that it was dashed in many places with large drops 
 of some dark purple fluid, which had hardened with time into 
 compact and solid gouts. 
 
 I thought little of this at the time, and only wondered why 
 people could be so mad as to abandon so beautiful a place ; 
 and why, since they had abandoned it, they did not remove 
 the furniture, of which even a boy's eye could detect the 
 value. 
 
 There was a centre-table of circular form, the pedestal of 
 which, curiously carved, had been wrought, like all the rest, 
 
390 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 in gold and azure, while the slat, when I had wiped away 
 with some fresh green leaves the thick layer of dust which 
 covered it, positively astonished my eyes, by the delicacy and 
 beauty of the designs with which it was adorned. Besides 
 this, there were divans and arm-chairs of the same fashion and 
 colors, with cushions which had been once of sky-blue damask, 
 though their brilliancy, and even their hues, had long been 
 defaced by the dust, the dampness, and the squalor of that ne- 
 glected place. 
 
 I should have mentioned, that on the beautiful table I dis- 
 covered gouts of tb,g same dark substance which I had pre- 
 viously observed on the broken mirror ; and that there were 
 still clearly perceptible on one of the divans, dark splashes, and 
 what must, when fluid, have been almost a pool of the same 
 deep, rusty hue. 
 
 At the time, it is true, I paid little attention to these things, 
 being busily employed in the boy-like idea of putting my 
 newly discovered palace of Armida into a complete state of 
 repair, and coming to pass all my leisure moments, even to the 
 studying my Prometheus Bound, and composing my weekly 
 hexameters and Alcaics, in this sweet sequestered spot. 
 
 And, in truth, within a week I had put the greater part of 
 my plan into execution ; purloined dusters from my dame's 
 boarding-house, green boughs of the old elms for brooms, and 
 water from the ditch, soon made things clean at least; and the 
 air, which I suffered so long as I was there, daily to blow 
 through it in all directions, soon rendered it, comparatively 
 speaking, dry and comfortable ; and when all its windows 
 were thrown wide, it would be scarcely possible to find a more 
 lightsome or delicious spot for summer musing than that old 
 English summer-house. 
 
 .Thus things went on for weeks — for months — unsuspected ; 
 
DITTON-IN-THE-DALE. 391 
 
 for 1 always latched the door, and secured the windows from 
 within, before leaving my fairy palace for the night ; and as all 
 looked just as usual without, no one so much as dreamed of 
 trying the lock, to ascertain if a door were still fastened, the 
 threshold of which, as men believed, no human foot had 
 crossed since the days of the second James. 
 
 I could often, it is true, discover the traces of recent labor 
 in the immediate neighborhood of my discovery ; I could 
 perceive at a glance where the grass had been newly shorn, 
 the yew hedges clipped, or the gravel -walks rolled, but never, 
 in the course of several months, during which I spent every 
 fine evening, either reading, or musing, or composing my boy 
 verses, in that my enchanted castle — for I began really to 
 consider it almost my own — did I see any human being on the 
 premises. 
 
 The cause of this, which I did not suspect until it was re- 
 vealed to me, after chance had discovered my visits to the 
 place, was simply this, that my intrusions were confined solely 
 to the evening ; whereas, so great was the awe of the servants 
 and the workmen for that lonely and terror-haunted spot, that 
 nothing short of absolute compulsion, or the strongest neces- 
 sity, would have induced them to go near the place after the 
 sun had turned downwards from the zenith. 
 
 In the meantime, gratified by the complete success of my 
 first inroad, and the possession of my first discovery, I felt no 
 inclination to push my advances further, or to make any incur- 
 sion into the body of the place. 
 
 Every evening, as soon as I could escape from the college 
 walls, I was at my post, and lingered there as late as college 
 hours would permit. It was a strange fancy in a boy, and 
 stranger yet than would at first appear in this, that there was 
 a very considerable admixture of something nearly approaching 
 
392 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 to fear, and that of a painful kind, in the feeling which made 
 me so assiduous in my visits to that old pavilion. 
 
 There was, it is true, nothing definite in my fancies. I knew 
 nothing — I cannot say even that I suspected anything — con- 
 cerning the mysterious closing of the place ; and often, since I 
 have been made acquainted with the tale, I have marvelled at 
 my own obtuseness, and wondered that a secret so transparent 
 should have escaped me. 
 
 So it was, however, that I suspected nothing, although I 
 felt sure that mystery there was ; and being of somewhat an 
 imaginative temper, I used to amuse myself by accounting for 
 it in my own mind, weaving all sorts of strange and wild 
 romances, and inventing the most horrible stories that can be 
 conceived, until, as the shadows would fall dark around me, 
 daunted by my own conceptions, I would make all secure and 
 fast with trembling fingers, swing myself back across over the 
 pool by my accustomed oak-branch, and run home as hard as 
 my legs could carry me, haunted by indistinct and almost 
 superstitious horror. 
 
 Thus things went on, until at the end of summer I was at 
 last detected in my stolen visits, and the whole mystery was 
 cleared up. 
 
 I remember as clearly as if I heard it now, the exclamation 
 of terror and dismay uttered by the old gardener, who, having 
 left some implement behind him on the lawn during the 
 morning labors, had been forced to bend his unwilling steps 
 back to the haunted ground to recover it. 
 
 I could not but smile afterwards, when he recounted to me 
 his astonishment and terror at seeing the old summer-house, 
 which never had been opened within the memory of man, 
 with all its windows wide to the free air and evening sunshine, 
 when he told me how often he turned back to seek aid from 
 
DITTON-IN-THE-DALE. 393 
 
 his fellows — how he almost believed that fiends or evil spirits 
 were holding their foul sabbath there, and how he started 
 aghast with horror, not now for himself, but for me, as he 
 beheld the young Etonian stretched tranquilly upon the blood- 
 stained couch — for those dark stains were of human gore — 
 conning his task for the morrow. 
 
 I rushed out of the place at his horrid outcry ; a few words 
 told my story, and pleaded my excuse — with the good, simple- 
 minded rustic little excuse was needed — but it was not till 
 after many sittings, and many a long afternoon's discourse, 
 that I learned all the details of the sad event which had con- 
 verted that fair pavilion into a place as terrible to the ideas of 
 the country folks as a dark charnel-vault. 
 
 "Ay," said the old man, as he gazed fearfully about 
 him, after I had persuaded him at length to cross the dreaded 
 threshold, " Ay ! it is all as they tell, though not a man of 
 them has ever seen it. There is the glass which the bullet 
 broke, after passing right through his brain ; and there is his 
 blood all spattared on the mirror. And look, young master, 
 those spots on the table came from her heart ; and that couch 
 you was lying on, is where they laid her when they took her 
 up. See, it's all dabbled yet ; and where your head was rest- 
 ing now, the dead girl's head lay more than a hundred years 
 since ! Come away, master ! come away ! I never thought to 
 have looked on these things, though I know all about them." 
 
 " Oh, tell me — tell me about them ! " I exclaimed ; " I am 
 not a bit afraid. Do tell me all about them." 
 
 " Not now — not now — nor not here," said the old man, 
 gazing about as if he expected to see a spirit stalk out of some 
 shady nook of the surrounding trees. " I would not tell you 
 here to be master of all Ditton-in-the-Dale ! But come up, if 
 you will, to the great house to-morrow, and ask for old Mat- 
 
 18 
 
394 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 thew Dawson, and I'll show you all the place — the family 
 never lives here now, nor hasn't since that deed was done — 
 and then I'll tell you all about it, if you must hear. But if 
 you're wise, you'll shun it ; for it will chill your young blood 
 to listen, and cling to your young heart with a gloom for 
 ever." 
 
 " Oh, I will come, be sure, Matthew ! I would not miss it 
 for the world. But it is getting late, so I'll fasten up the old 
 place and be going ; " and suiting the action to the word, I 
 soon secured the fastenings, while the old gardener stood by, 
 marvelling and muttering at the boldness of young blood, until 
 I had finished setting things in order, when I shook hands 
 with the old man, slipping my one half-crown into his horny 
 palm, and saying, 
 
 " Well, good-night, Matthew Dawson, and don't forget to- 
 morrow evening." 
 
 * That I wo'nt, master," he replied, greatly propitiated by my 
 offering. " But which way are you going ?" 
 
 " Oh, I'll soon show you," I replied ; and swinging myself up 
 my tree, I was beyond the precincts of the haunted ground 
 almost in a moment. 
 
 " The very way he came the time he did it," cried the old 
 gardener, with upturned hands and eyes aghast. But I tar- 
 ried then to ask no further questions, being quite sufficiently 
 terrified for one night ; although my pride forbade my display- 
 ing my terrors to the old rustic. 
 
 The next day I was punctual to my appointment ; and then, 
 for the first time, I heard the melancholy tale which, at length, 
 I purpose to relate. 
 
 It was a proud and noble Norman family which had held 
 the demesnes of Ditton-in-the-Dale since the reign of the last 
 Plantagenet ; a brave and loyal race, which had poured its 
 
DITTON-IN-THE-DALE. 395 
 
 blood, like water, on many a foreign — many a native battle- 
 field. At Evesham, a Fitz-Henry had fought beside Prince 
 Edward's bridle-rein, against the great De Montfort and his 
 confederate barons ; and afterwards, through all the long and 
 cruel wars of the Roses, on every field a Fitz-Henry had won 
 honor or lost blood, upholding the claims of the true sovereign 
 house — the house of York — until at fatal Bos worth the house 
 itself went down, and dragged down with it the fortunes of its 
 bold supporters. 
 
 Thereafter, during the reign of the Tudors, the name of Fitz- 
 Henry was heard rarely in the court or on the field ; impo- 
 verished in fortune by fines and sequestrations, suspected of dis- 
 loyalty to the now sovereign house, the heads of the family had 
 wisely held themselves aloof from intrigue and conspiracy, and 
 dwelt among their yeomen, who had in old times been their 
 fathers' vassals, staunch lovers of field-sports, true English coun- 
 try gentlemen, seeking the favor and fearing the ill-will of no 
 man — no, not of England's king. 
 
 Attached to the old religion, tnough neither bigots nor zea- 
 lots, they had escaped the violence of bluff Harry, when he 
 turned protestant for Bullen's eyes ; and had — though something 
 to leeward of her favor, as lukewarm romanists and no lovers 
 of the Spaniard — passed safely through the ordeal of Mary's 
 cruel reign. 
 
 But with the accession of the man-minded Elizabeth, the for- 
 tunes of the house revived for a while. It was the policy of that 
 great and gracious queen to gather around her all that were 
 brave, honest, and manly in her realm, without regard to family 
 creeds or family traditions. Claiming descent as much from 
 one as from the other of the rival houses of Lancaster and York, 
 loyalty to the one was no more offence to her clear eyes than 
 good faith to the other. While loyalty to what he honestly 
 
396 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 believed to be trie true sovereign house, was the strongest re- 
 commendation to her favor in each and every subject. 
 
 The Fitz-Henry, therefore, of her day — a young and gallant 
 soldier, who visited the shores of the New World with Cavendish 
 and Raleigh, fought for his native land, although a catholic, 
 against the terrible armada of the Most Catholic King, with 
 Drake, and Frobisher, and Howard, waged war in the Low 
 Countries, and narrowly missed death at Zutphen by Philip 
 Sidney's side — stood as high in the favor of his queen as in the 
 estimation of all good and honorable men. It is true, when the 
 base and odious James succeeded to the throne of the lion- 
 queen, and substituted mean and loathsome king-craft for frank 
 and open English policy, the grey-haired soldier, navigator, 
 statesman — for he had shone in each capacity — retired, as his 
 ancestors had done before him, during the reigns of the seventh 
 and eighth Henries, to the peaceful shades and innocent plea- 
 sures of Ditton-in-the-Dale. 
 
 So true, however, was he to the time-honored principles of 
 his high race, so loyally did he bring up his son, so firmly did 
 he strengthen his youthful mind with all maxims and all laws 
 of honor, linking the loyal subject to the rightful king, that no 
 sooner had the troubles broken out between the misguided mo- 
 narch and his rebellious Parliament — although the veteran of 
 Elizabeth had fallen asleep long before, full of years and honors, 
 than his young heir, Osborn Fitz-Henry, displayed the cogni- 
 zance of his old house, mustered his tenantry, and set foot in 
 stirrup, well nigh the first, to withdraw it the very last, of the 
 adherents of the hapless Charles. So long did he resist in arms, 
 so pertinaciously did he uphold the authority of the first Charles, 
 so early did he rise again in behalf of the second, that he was 
 noted by the parliament as an incorrigible and most desperate 
 malignant ; and, had it not been that, by his gallantry in the 
 
DITTON-IN-THE-DALE. 39*7 
 
 field, and his humanity when the strife was ended, he had won 
 the personal good-will of Cromwell, it is most likely that it 
 would have gone hard with his fortunes if not with his life. 
 
 After the restoration, he was of course neglected by the 
 fiddling, gambling, wenching, royal buffoon, who succeeded the 
 royal martyr, and whose necessities he had supplied, when an 
 outcast pauper exile in a foreign land, from the proceeds of 
 those very estates which he had so nearly lost in fighting for 
 his crown. 
 
 Osborn Fitz-Henry, too, was gathered to his fathers. He 
 died little advanced beyond the prime of life, worn out with the 
 toil he had undergone in the camp, and shattered by the 
 wounds he had received on almost every battle-field from Edge- 
 Hill to Dunbar and "Worcester. 
 
 He had, however, married very young, before the breaking 
 out of the rebellion, and had lived to see not his son only a 
 noble and superior man, ready to fill his place when vacant, and 
 in it uphold the honor of his family, but his son's children also 
 advancing fast towards maturity. 
 
 Allan Fitz-Henry, the son of Charles's stout partisan, the grand- 
 son of Elizabeth's warrior, was the head of the house, when my 
 tale commences. 
 
 He, too, had married young — such, indeed, was the custom 
 of his house — and had survived his wife, by whom he had two 
 fair daughters, but no heir ; and this was a source of vexation 
 so constantly present to his mind, that in the end it altered the 
 whole disposition of the man, rendering him irritable, harsh, 
 stern, unreasonable, and unhappy. 
 
 Fondly attached to the memory of his lost wife, whom he 
 had loved devotedly while living, it never entered his mind to 
 marry a second time, even with the hope of begetting an heir 
 by whom to perpetuate the honors and principles of his house ; 
 
dUS PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 although he was continually on the fret — miserable himself, and 
 making others miserable, in consequence of the certainty that 
 he should be the last of his race. 
 
 His only hope was now centred in his daughters, or to speak 
 more correctly, in his eldest daughter — for her he had deter- 
 mined to constitute his heiress, endowing her with all his landed 
 property, all his heirlooms, all that could constitute her the 
 head of his house ; in return for which he had predetermined 
 that she should become the wife of some husband of his own 
 choosing, who should unite to a pedigree as noble as that of the 
 Howards, all qualifications which should fit him to represent 
 the house into which he should be adopted ; and who should 
 be willing to drop his own paternal name and bearings, how 
 ancient and noble soever, in order to adopt the style and the 
 arms of Fitz-Henry. 
 
 Proud by nature, by blood, and by education — though with 
 a clear and honorable pride — he had been rendered a thousand 
 times prouder and more haughty by the very circumstances 
 which seemed to threaten a downfall to the fortunes of his house 
 — his house, which had survived such desperate reverses ; which 
 had come out of every trial, like pure gold, the better and the 
 brighter from the furnace — his house, which neither the ruin of 
 friendly monarchs, nor the persecutions of hostile monarchs, nor 
 the neglect of ungrateful monarchs, had been able to shake, any 
 more than the autumnal blasts, or the frosts of winter, had 
 availed to uproot the oak trees of his park, coeval with his name. 
 
 In the midst of health and wealth, honor and good esteem, 
 with an affectionate family, and a devoted household around 
 him, Allan Fitz-Henry fancied himself a most unhappy man — 
 perhaps the most unhappy of mankind. 
 
 Alas ! was it to punish such vain, such sinful, such senseless, 
 and inordinate repinings ? 
 
DITTON-IN-THE-DALE. 399 
 
 Who shall presume to scrutinize the judgments, or pry into 
 the secrets of the Inscrutable ? 
 
 This much alone is certain, that ere he was gathered to his 
 fathers, Allan Fitz-Henry might, and that not unjustly, have 
 termed himself that, which now, in the very wantonness of pam- 
 pered and insatiate success he swore that he was 4aily — the 
 most unhappy of the sons of men. 
 
 For to calamities so dreadful as might have disturbed the 
 reason of the strongest minded, remorse was added, so just, so 
 terrible, so overwhelming, that men actually marvelled how he 
 lived on, and was not insane. 
 
 But I must not anticipate. 
 
 It was a short time after the failure of the Duke of Mon- 
 mouth's weak and ungrateful attempt at revolution, a short time 
 after the conclusion of the merciless and bloody butcheries of 
 that disgrace to the English ermine, the ferocious Jefferies, that 
 the incidents occurred, which I learned first on the evening sub- 
 sequent to my discovery in the fatal summer-house. 
 
 At this time Allan *Fitz-Henry — it was a singular proof, by 
 the way, of the hereditary pride of this old Norman race, that 
 having numbered among them so many friends and counsellors 
 of monarchs, no one of their number had been found willing to 
 accept titular honors, holding it a higher thing to be the pre- 
 mier gentleman than the junior peer of England — at this time, 
 I say, Allan Fitz-Henry was a man of some forty-five or fifty 
 years, well built and handsome, of courtly air and dignified pre- 
 sence ; nor must it be imagined that in his fancied grievances 
 he forgot to support the character of his family, or that he 
 carried his griefs abroad with him into the world. 
 
 At times, indeed, he might be a little grave and thoughtful, 
 especially at such times as he heard mention made of the pro- 
 mise or success of this or that scion of some noble house ; but 
 
400 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 it was only within his own family circle, and to his most fami- 
 liar friends, that he was wont to open his heart, and complain of 
 his ill-fortune, at being the first childless father of his race — for 
 so, in his contempt for the poor girls, whom he still, strange 
 contradiction! loved fondly and affectionately, he was accus- 
 tomed in his dark hours to style himself; as if forsooth an heir 
 male were the only offspring worthy to be called the child of 
 such a house. 
 
 Though he was fond, and gentle, and at times even tender to 
 his motherless daughters — for. to do him justice, he never suf- 
 fered a symptom of his disappointment and disgust to break out 
 to their annoyance, yet was there no gleam of paternal satis- 
 faction in his sad eye, no touch of paternal pride in his vexed 
 heart, as he looked upon their graceful forms, and noted their 
 growing beauties. 
 
 And yet they were a pair of whom the haughtiest potentate 
 on earth might have been proud, and with justice. 
 
 Blanche and Agnes Fitz-Henry were at this time in their 
 eighteenth and seventeenth years — but one summer having 
 passed between their births, and their mother having died within 
 a few hours after the latter saw the light. 
 
 They were, indeed, as lovely girls as the sun of merry Eng- 
 land shone upon ; and in those days it was still merry England, 
 and famous then as now for the rare beauty of its women, whe- 
 ther in the first dawn of girlhood, or in the full-blown flush of 
 feminine maturity. 
 
 Both tall, above the middle height of women, both exquisitely 
 formed, with figures delicate and slender, yet full withal, and 
 voluptuously rounded, with the long taper hands, the small and 
 shapely feet and ankles, the swan-like necks, and classic heads 
 gracefully set on, which are held to denote, in all countries, the 
 predominance of gentle blood ; when seen at a distance, and 
 
DITTON-IN-THE-DALE. 401 
 
 judged by the person only, it would have been almost impossible 
 to distinguish the elder from the younger sister. 
 
 But look upon them face to face, and never, in all respects, 
 were two girls of kindred race so entirely dissimilar. The elder, 
 Blanche, was, as her name denotes, though ladies' names are 
 oftentimes misnomers, a genuine English blond. Her abundant 
 and beautiful hair, trained to float down upon her snowy shoul- 
 ders in silky masses of unstudied curls, was of the lightest golden 
 brown. There was not a shade of red in its hues, although her 
 complexion was of that peculiarly dazzling character which is 
 common to red-haired persons ; yet when the sun shone on its 
 glistening waves, so brilliantly did the golden light flash from 
 it, that you might almost have imagined there was a circlet of 
 living glory above her clear white brow. 
 
 Her eyebrows and eyelashes were many shades darker than 
 her hair, relieving her face altogether from that charge of insi- 
 pidity which is so often, and for the most part so truly, brought 
 against fair-haired and fair-featured beauties. The eyes them- 
 selves, which those long lashes shrouded, were of the deepest 
 violet blue ; so deep, that at first sight you would have deemed 
 them black, but for the soft and humid languor which is never 
 seen in eyes of that color. The rest of her features were as near 
 as possible to the Grecian model, except that there was a slight 
 depression where the nose joins the brow, breaking that perfectly 
 straight line of the classical face, which, however beautiful to 
 the statue, is less attractive in life than the irregular outline of 
 the northern countenance. 
 
 Her mouth, with the exception of — perhaps I should rather 
 say in conjunction with — her eyes, was the most lovely and 
 expressive feature in her face. There were twin dimples at 
 its corners ; yet was not its expression one of habitual mirth, 
 but of tenderness and softness rather, unmixed, although an 
 
 18* . 
 
402 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 anchorite might have been pardoned the wish to press his lips 
 to its voluptuous curve with the slightest expression of sen- 
 suality. 
 
 Her complexion was, as I have said, dazzlingly brilliant; 
 but it was the brilliance of the lily rather than of the rose, 
 though at the least emotion, whether of pain or pleasure, the 
 eloquent blood would rush, like the morning's glow over some 
 snow-crowned x\lp, across cheek, brow, and neck, and bosom, 
 and vanish thence so rapidly, that ere you should have time to 
 say, nay, even to think, 
 
 " Look ! look how beautiful, 'twas fled." 
 
 Such was the elder beauty, the destined heiress of the 
 
 ancient house, the promised mother of a line of sons, who 
 
 should perpetuate the name and hand down the principles of 
 
 the Fitz-Henries to far distant ages. Such w r ere the musings 
 
 of her father, 
 
 Proh ! cceca mens mortalium ! 
 
 and at such times alone, if ever, a sort of doubtful pride would 
 come to swell his hope, whispering that for such a creature, 
 no man, however high or haughty, but would be willing to 
 renounce the pride of birth, even untempted by the demesnes 
 of Ditton-in-the-Dale, and many another lordly manor coupled 
 to the time-honored name of Fitz-Henry. 
 
 Her sister Agnes, though not less beautiful than Blanche — 
 and there were those who insisted that she was more so — was 
 as different from her, in all but the general resemblance of 
 figure and carriage, as night is from morning, or autumn from 
 early summer-time. 
 
 Her ringlets, not less profuse than Blanche's, and clustering 
 in closer and more mazy curls, were as black as the raven's 
 wing, and, like the feathers of the wild bird, were lighted up 
 
DITTON-IN-THE-DALE. 403 
 
 when the sun played on them with a sort of purplish and 
 metallic gloss, that defies alike the pen of the writer and the 
 painter's pencil to depict to the eye. 
 
 Her complexion, though soft and delicate, was of the very 
 darkest hue that is ever seen in persons of unmixed European 
 blood ; so dark that the very blood which would mantle to her 
 cheek at times in burning blushes, was shaded, as it were, with 
 a darker hue, like damask roses seen through the medium of a 
 gold-tinted window-pane. 
 
 Her brows and lashes were as black as night, but, strange 
 to say, the eyes that flashed from beneath them with an almost 
 painful splendor, were of a clear, deep azure, less dark than 
 those of the fairer sister, giving a singular and wild character 
 to her whole face, and affecting the style of her beauty, but 
 whether for the better or the worse it was for those who ad- 
 mired or shunned — and there were who took both parts — to 
 determine. Her face was rounder and fuller than her sister's, 
 and in fact this was true of her whole person — so much so, 
 that she was often mistaken for the elder — her features were 
 less regular, her nose having a slight tendency to that form 
 which has no name in our language, but which charmed all 
 beholders in Roxana, as retrousse. Her mouth was as warm, 
 as soft, as sweetly dimpled, but it was not free from that ex- 
 pression which Blanche's lacked altogether, and might have 
 been blamed as too wooing and luxurious. 
 
 Such were the various characters of the sisters' personal 
 appearance — the characters of their mental attributes were as 
 distinctly marked and as widely different. 
 
 Blanche was all gentleness and moderation from her very 
 cradle — a delicate and tender child, smiling always but rarely 
 laughing ; never boisterous or loud even in her childish plays. 
 And as she grew older this character became more definite, 
 
404 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 and was more strongly observed ; she was a pensive, tranquil 
 creature, not melancholy, much less sad — for she was awake 
 to all that was beautiful or grand, all that was sweet or gentle 
 in the face of nature, or in the history of man ; and there was, 
 perhaps, more real happiness concealed under her calm ex- 
 terior, than is often to be found under the wilder mirth of 
 merrier beings. Ever ready to yield her wishes to those of 
 her friends or companions, many persons imagined that she 
 had little will, and no fixed wishes or deliberate aspirations ; 
 passionless and pure as the lily of the vale, many supposed 
 that she was cold and heartless. Oh ! ignorant ! not to re- 
 member that the hearts of the fiercest volcanoes boil still be- 
 neath a head of snow ; and that it is even in the calmest 
 and most moderate characters that passion once enkindled 
 burns fierce, perennial, and unquenchable ! Thus far, however, 
 had she advanced into the flower of fair maidenhood, un- 
 disturbed by any warmer dream than devoted affection 
 towards her parent, whose wayward grief she could understand 
 if she could not appreciate, and whom she strove by every 
 gentle wile to wean from his morbid fancies ; and earnest love 
 towards her sister, whom she, indeed, almost adored — perhaps 
 adored the more from the very difference of their minds, and 
 for her very imperfections. 
 
 For Agnes was all gay vivacity, and petulance, and fire ; 
 so that her young companions, who sportively named Blanche 
 the icicle, had christened her the sunbeam ; and, in truth, if 
 the first name were ill chosen, the second seemed to be an 
 inspiration ; for like a sunbeam that touched nothing but to 
 illuminate it, like a sunbeam she played with all things, smiled 
 on all things in their turn — like a sunbeam she brought mirth 
 with her presence, and after her departure left a double gloom 
 behind her. 
 
DITTON-JN-THE-DALE. 405 
 
 More dazzling than Blanche, she made her impression at 
 first sight, and so long as the skies were clear and the atmo- 
 sphere unruffled, the sunbeam would continue to gild, to charm, 
 to be worshipped. But if the time of darkness and affliction 
 came, the gay sunbeam held aloof, while the poor icicle, melted 
 from its seeming coldness, was ever ready to weep for the sor- 
 rows of those who had neglected her in the days of their 
 happiness. 
 
 Unused to yield, high-spirited when crossed, yet carrying off 
 even her stubbornness and quick temper by the brilliancy, the 
 wit, the lively and bold audacity which she cast around them, 
 Agnes ruled in her circle an imperious and despotic queen ; 
 while her slaves, even as they trembled before her half sportive 
 but emphatic frown, did not suspect the sceptre of the tyrant 
 beneath the spell of the enchantress. 
 
 Agnes, in one word, was the idol of the rich and gay; 
 Blanche was the saint of the poor, the lowly, the sick, and 
 those who mourn. 
 
 It may be that the peculiarity of her position, the neglect 
 which she had always experienced from her father, and me- 
 diately from the hirelings of the household, ever prompt to 
 pander to the worst feelings of their superiors — the conscious- 
 ness that born co-heiress with her sister, she was doomed to 
 sink into the insignificance of an undowered and uncared-for 
 girl, had tended in some degree to form the character which 
 Agnes had ever borne, and which alone she had displayed, 
 until the period when my tale commences. 
 
 It may be that the consciousness of wrong endured, had 
 hardened a heart naturally soft and tender, and rendered it 
 unyielding and rebellious ; it may be that injustice, endured 
 at the hands of hirelings in early years, had engendered a 
 spirit of resistance, and armed her mind and quickened her 
 
406 • PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 tongue against the world, which, as she fancied, wronged her. 
 It may be, more than all, that a secret, perhaps an uncon- 
 scious jealousy of her sister's superior advantages, not in the 
 wretched sense of worldly wealth and position, but of the love 
 and reverence of friends and kindred, had embittered her 
 young soul, and caused her to cast over it a veil of light and 
 wild demeanor, of free speech and daring mirth, which had by 
 degrees grown into habits, and become part and parcel of her 
 nature. 
 
 If it were so, however, there were no outward indications 
 that such was the case ; for never were there seen two sisters 
 more united and affectionate — nor would it have been easy to 
 say on which side the balance of kindness preponderated. For 
 if Blanche was ever the first to cede to her sister's wishes, and 
 the last in any momentary disappointment or annoyance to 
 speak one quick or unkind word, so was Agnes, with her ex- 
 pressive features and flashing eye, and ready, tameless wit, 
 prompt as light to avenge the slightest reflection cast on 
 Blanche's tranquillity and coldness ; and if at times a quick 
 word or sharp retort broke from her lips, and called a tear to 
 the eye of her calmer sister, not a moment would elapse before 
 she would cast herself upon her neck and weep her sincere 
 contrition, and be for hours an altered being ; until her natural 
 spirit would prevail, and she would be again the wild mirth- 
 ful madcap, whose very faults could call forth no keener re- 
 proach than a grave and thoughtful smile from the lips of those 
 who loved her the most dearly. 
 
 Sad were the daughters of Allan Fitz-Henry — daughters 
 whom not a peer in England but would have regarded as the 
 brightest gems of his coronet, as the pride and ornament of 
 his house ; but whom, by a strange anomaly, their own father, 
 full as he was of warm affections and kindly inclinations, never 
 
DITTON-IN-TIIE-DALE. 407 
 
 looked upon but with a secret feeling of discontent and dis- 
 appointment, that they were not other than they were; and 
 with a half-confessed conviction that fair as they were, tender 
 and loving, graceful, accomplished, delicate, and noble-minded, 
 he could have borne to lay them both in the cold grave, so 
 that a son could be given to the house in exchange for their 
 lost loveliness. 
 
 In outward demeanor, however, he was to his children all 
 that a father should be ; a little querulous at" times, perhaps, 
 and irritable, but fond, though not doting, and considerate ; 
 and I have wandered greatly from my intention, if anything 
 that I have said has been construed to signify that there 
 existed the slightest estrangement between the father and his 
 children ; for had Allan Fitz-Henry but suspected the possi- 
 bility of such a thing, he had torn the false pride like a 
 venomous weed from his heart, and had been a wiser and a 
 happier man. In his case it was the blindness of the heart 
 that caused its partial hardness ; but events were at hand that 
 should flood it with the clearest light, and melt it to more than 
 woman's tenderness. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 A lovely summer's evening, in the year 16 8-, was drawing 
 towards its close, when many a gay and brilliant cavalcade of 
 both sexes, many of the huge gilded coaches of that day, and 
 many a train of liveried attendants, winding through the green 
 lane as they arrived, some in this direction from Eton, some 
 in that, across Datchet-mead from Windsor and its royal 
 castle, came thronging towards Ditton-in-the-Dale. 
 
408 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 Lights were beginning to twinkle as the shadows fell thick 
 among the arcades of the trim gardens, and the wilder forest- 
 walks which extended their circuitous course for many a mile 
 along the stately hall of the Fitz-Henries ; loud bursts of 
 festive or of martial music came pealing down the wind, mixed 
 with the hum of a gay and happy concourse, causing the 
 nightingales to hold their peace, not in despair of rivalling the 
 melody, but that the mirth jarred unpleasantly on the souls of 
 the melancholy birds. 
 
 The gates of Ditton-in-the-Dale were flung wide open, for it 
 was gala night, and never had the old hall put on a gayer or 
 more sumptuous show than it had donned that evening. 
 
 From far and near the gentry and the nobles of Buckingham 
 and Berkshire had gathered to the birth-day ball — for such 
 was the occasion of the festive meeting. 
 
 Yes ! it was Blanche Fitz-Henry's birth-day ; and on this 
 gay and glad anniversary was the fair heiress of that noble 
 house to be introduced to the great world as the future owner 
 of those beautiful demesnes. 
 
 From the roof to the foundation the old manor-house — it 
 was a stately red brick mansion of the latter period of Eliza- 
 bethan architecture, with mullioned windows and stacks of 
 curiously wreathed chimneys — was one blaze of light ; and as 
 group after group of gay and high-born riders came caracoling 
 up to the hospitable porch, and coach after coach, with its 
 running footmen or mounted outriders, lumbered slowdy in 
 their train, thes aloons and corridors began to fill up rapidly 
 with a joyous and splendid company. 
 
 The entrance-hall, a vast square apartment, wainscoted with 
 old English oak, brighter and richer in its dark hues than 
 mahogany, received the entering guests ; and what with the 
 profusion of wax-lights, pendent in gorgeous chandeliers from 
 
DITTON-IN-THEDALE. 409 
 
 the carved roof, or fixed in silver sconces to the walls, the gay 
 festoons of green wreaths and fresh summer flowers mixed 
 quaintly with old armor, blazoned shields, and rustling ban- 
 ners, some of which had waved over the thirsty plains of Syria, 
 and been fanned by the shouts of triumph that pealed so high 
 at Cressy and Poitiers, it presented a not. unapt picture of that 
 midway period — that halting-place, as it were, between the 
 old world and the new — when chivalry and feudalism had 
 ceased already to exist among the nations, but before the rude- 
 ness of reform had banished the last remnants of courtesy, and 
 the reverence for all things that were high and noble — for all 
 things that were fair and graceful — for all things, in one word, 
 except the golden calf, the mob-worshipped mammon. 
 
 Within this stately hall was drawn up in glittering array 
 the splendid band, of the Life Guards, for royalty himself was 
 present, and all the officers of that superb regiment quartered 
 at Windsor had followed in his train ; and as an ordinary 
 courtesy to their well-proved and loyal host, the services of 
 those chosen musicians had been tendered and accepted. 
 
 Through many a dazzling corridor, glittering with lights, 
 and redolent of choicest perfumes, through many a fair saloon 
 the guests were marshalled to the great drawing-room, where, 
 beneath a canopy of state, the ill-advised and imbecile mo- 
 narch, soon to be deserted by the very princes and princesses 
 who now clustered round his throne, sat, with his host and his 
 lovely daughters at his right hand, accepting the homage of 
 the fickle crowd, who were within a little year to bow obse- 
 quiously to the cold-blooded Hollander. 
 
 That was a day of singular, and what would now be termed 
 hideous costumes — a day of hair-powder and patches, of hoops 
 and trains, of stiff brocades and tight-laced stomachers, and 
 high-heeled shoes among the ladies — of flowing periwigs and 
 
410 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 coats with huge cuffs and no collars, and voluminous skirts, 
 of diamond, hilted rapiers and diamond buckles, ruffles of 
 Valenciennes and Mechlin lace, among the ruder sex. And 
 though the individual might be metamorphosed strangely from 
 the fair form which nature gave him, it cannot be denied that 
 the concourse of highly-bred and graceful persons, when viewed 
 as a whole, was infinitely more picturesque, infinitely more like 
 what the fancy paints a meeting of the great and noble, than 
 any assemblage nowadays, however courtly or refined, in 
 which the stiff dress coats and white neckcloths of the men 
 are not to be redeemed by the Parisian finery — how much 
 more natural, let critics tell, than the hoop and train — of the 
 fair portion of the company. 
 
 The rich materials, the gay colors, the glittering jewelry, 
 and waving plumes, all contributed their part to the splendor 
 of the show ; and in those days a gentleman possessed at least 
 this advantage, lost to him in these practical utilitarian times, 
 that he could not by any possibility be mistaken for his own 
 valet de chambre — a misfortune which has befallen many a one, 
 the most aristocratic not excepted, of modern nobility. 
 
 A truly graceful person will be graceful, and look well in 
 every garb, however strange or outre; and there is, moreover, 
 undoubtedly something, apart from any paltry love of finery 
 or mere vanity of person, which elevates the thoughts, and 
 stamps a statelier demeanor on the man who is clad highly 
 for some high occasion. The custom, too, of wearing arms, 
 peculiar to the gentlemen of that day, had its effect, and that 
 not a slight one, as well on the character as on the bearing of 
 the individual sodistinguished. 
 
 As for the ladies, loveliness will still be loveliness, disguise 
 it as you may ; and if the beauties of King James's court lost 
 much by the travesty of their natural ringlets, they gained, 
 
DITTON-IN-THE-DALE. 411 
 
 perhaps, yet more from the increased lustre of their complexions 
 and brilliancy of their eyes. 
 
 So that it is far from being the case, as is commonly sup- 
 posed, that it was owing to fashion alone, and the influence of 
 all powerful custom, that the costume of that day was not 
 tolerated only, but admired by its wearers. 
 
 At this time, however, the use of hair-powder, though gene- 
 ral, was by no means universal ; and many beauties who fan- 
 cied that it did not suit their complexions, dispensed with it 
 altogether, or wore it in some modified shape, and tinged with 
 some coloring matter, which assimilated it more closely to the 
 natural tints of the hair. 
 
 At all events, it must have been a dull eye, and a cold heart, 
 that could have looked undelighted on the assemblage that 
 night gathered in the ball-room of Ditton-in-the-Dale. 
 
 But now the reception was finished ; the royal party moved 
 into the ball-room, from which they shortly afterwards retired, 
 leaving the company at liberty from the restraint which their 
 presence had imposed upon them. The concourse broke up 
 into little groups ; the stately minuet was performed, and 
 livelier dances followed it ; and gentlemen sighed tender sighs, 
 and looked unutterable things; and ladies listened to soft non- 
 sense, and smiled gentle approbation ; and melting glances 
 were exchanged, and warm hands were pressed warmly ; and 
 fans were flirted angrily, and flippant jokes were interchanged 
 — for human nature, whether in the seventeenth or the nine- 
 teenth century, w T hether arrayed in brocade or simply dressed 
 in broadcloth, is human nature still; and, perhaps, not one' 
 feeling or one passion that actuated man's or woman's heart 
 five hundred years ago, but dwells within it now, and shall 
 dwell unchanged for ever.- 
 
 It needs not to say that, on such an occasion, in their own 
 
414 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 fair beauty's cold, my lord. Give me that Italian complexion, 
 and that coal-black hair ! Gad zooks ! I honor the girl's spirit 
 for not disguising it with starch and pomatum. There's more 
 passion in her little finger, than in the whole soul of the 
 other." 
 
 "You're out there,' George Delawarr," returned the peer. 
 " Trust me, it is not always the quickest flame that burns the 
 strongest ; nor the liveliest girl that feels the most deeply. 
 There's an old saying, and a true one, that still water aye runs 
 deep. And, trust me, if I know anything of the dear, delicious, 
 devilish sex, as methinks I am not altogether a novice at the 
 trade, if ever Blanche Fitz-Henry love at all, she will love with 
 her whole soul, and heart, and spirit. That gay, laughing bru- 
 nette will love you with her tongue, her eyes, her head, and 
 perhaps her fancy — the other, if, as I say, she ever love at all, 
 will love with her whole being." 
 
 " The broad acres ! my lord ! all the broad acres !" replied 
 the cornet, laughing more merrily than before. " Fore God ! I 
 think it the very thing for you. For the first Lord St. George 
 was, I believe, in the ark with Noah, so that you will pass cur- 
 rent with the first gentleman of England. I prithee, my lord, 
 push your suit, and help me on a little with my dark Dulcinea." 
 
 " Faith ! George, I've no objection ; and see, this dance is 
 over. Let us go up and ask their fair hands. You'll have no 
 trouble in ousting that shallow-pated puppy Jack, and I think 
 I can put the pass on Mr. privy-counsellor there, although he is 
 simpering so prettily. But, hold a moment, have you been 
 duly and in form presented to your black-eyed beauty !" 
 
 " Upon my soul ! I hope so, my lord. It were very wrong 
 else ; for I have danced with her three times to-night already." 
 
 " The devil ! Well, come along, quick. I see that they are 
 going to announce supper, so soon as this next dance shall be 
 
DITTON-IN-THE-DALE. 415 
 
 ended ; and if we can engage them now, we shall have their 
 fair company for an hour at least." 
 
 " I am with you, my lord !" 
 
 And away they sauntered through the crowd, and ere long- 
 were coupled for a little space each to the lady of his choice. 
 
 The dance was soon over, and then, as Lord St. George had 
 surmised, supper was announced, and the cavaliers led their 
 ladies to the sumptuous board, and there attended them with all 
 that courtly and respectful service, which, like many another 
 good thing, has passed away and been forgotten with the dia- 
 mond-hilted sword and the full bottomed periwig. 
 
 George Delawarr w T as full as ever of gay quips and merry 
 repartees ; his wit was as sparkling as the champagne which in 
 some degree inspired it, and as innocent. There was no touch 
 of bitterness or satire in his polished and gentle humor ; no envy 
 or dislike pointed his quick, epigrammatic speech ; but all was 
 clear, light, and transparent, as the sunny air at noonday. Nor 
 was his conversation altogether light and mirthful. There were 
 at times bursts of high enthusiasm, at which he would himself 
 laugh heartily a moment afterwards — there were touches of pass- 
 ing romance and poetry blending in an under-current with his 
 fluent mirth ; and, above all, there was an evident strain of right 
 feeling, of appreciation of all that was great, and generous, and 
 good, predominant above romance and wit, perceptible in every 
 word he uttered. 
 
 And Agnes listened, and laughed, and flung back skilfully 
 and cleverly the ball of conversation, as he tossed it to her. 
 She was pleased, it was evident, and amused. But she was 
 pleased only as with a clever actor, a brilliant performer on 
 some new instrument now heard for the first time. The gay, 
 wild humor of the young man hit her fancy ; his mad wit struck 
 a kindred chord in her mind ; but the latent poetry and romance 
 
416 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 passed unheeded, and the noblest point of all, the good and 
 gracious feelings, made no impression on the polished but hard 
 surface of the bright maiden's heart. 
 
 Meantime, how fared the peer with the calmer and gentler 
 sister ? Less brilliant than George Delawarr, he had travelled 
 much, had seen more of men and things, had a more cultivated 
 mind, was more of a scholar, and no less of a gentleman, scarce 
 less perhaps of a soldier; for he had served a campaign or two 
 in his early youth in the Low Countries. 
 
 He was a noble and honorable man, clever, and eloquent, and 
 well esteemed — a little, perhaps, spoiled by that good esteem, a 
 little too confident of himself, too conscious of his own good 
 mien and good parts, and a little hardened, if very much 
 polished, by continual contact with the world. 
 
 He was, however, an easy and agreeable talker, accustomed to 
 the society of ladies, in which he was held to shine, and fond of 
 shining. He exerted himself also that night, partly because he 
 was really struck with Blanche's grace and beauty, partly be- 
 cause Delawarr's liveliness and wit excited him to a sort of play- 
 ful rivalry. 
 
 Still, he was not successful ; for though Blanche listened gra- 
 ciously, and smiled in the right places, and spoke in answer 
 pleasantly and well, when she did speak, and evidently wished 
 to appear and to be amused ; her mind was at times absent and 
 distracted, and it could not long escape the observation of so 
 thorough a man of the world as Lord St. George, that he had 
 not made that impression on the young country damsel which 
 he was wont to make, with one half the effort, on what might 
 be supposed more difficult ladies. 
 
 But though he saw this plainly, he was too much of a gen- 
 tleman to be either piqued or annoyed ; and if anything he 
 exerted himself the more to please, when he believed exertion 
 
DITTON-IN-THE-DALE. 41 7 
 
 useless ; and by degrees his gentle partner laid aside her ab- 
 straction, and entered into the spirit of the hour with something 
 of her sister's mirth, though with a quieter and more chastened 
 tone. 
 
 It was a pleasant party, and a merry evening ; but like all 
 other things, merry or sad, it had its end, and passed away, and 
 by many was forgotten; but there were two persons present 
 there who never while they lived forgot that evening — for there 
 were other two, to whom it was indeed the commencement of 
 the end. 
 
 But the hour for parting had arrived, and with the ceremo- 
 nious greetings of those days, deep bows and stately courtesies, 
 and kissing of fair hands, and humble requests to be permitted 
 to pay their duty on the following day, the cavaliers and ladies 
 parted. 
 
 When the two gallants stood together in the great hall, 
 George Delawarr turned suddenly to the peer — 
 
 " Where the deuce are you going to sleep to-night, St. George ? 
 You came down hither all the way from London, did you not ? 
 You surely do not mean to return to-night." 
 
 " I surely do not wish it, you mean, George. No, truly. But 
 I do mean it. For my fellows tell me that there is not a bed to 
 be had for love, which does not at all surprise me, or for money, 
 which I confess does somewhat, in Eton, Slough, or Windsor. 
 And if I must go back to Brentford or to Hounslow, as well at 
 once to London." 
 
 " Come with me ! Come with me, St. George. I can give 
 you quarters in the barracks, and a good breakfast, and a game 
 of tennis if you will ; and afterward, if you like, we'll ride over 
 and see how these bright-eyed beauties look by daylight, after 
 all this night-work." 
 
 "A good offer, George, and I'll take it as it is offered." 
 
 19 , 
 
418 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 " How are you here ? In a great lumbering coach I suppose. 
 Well, look you, I have got two horses here; you shall take 
 mine, and I'll ride on my fellow's, who shall go with your people 
 and pilot them on the road, else they'll be getting that great 
 gilded Noah's ark into Datchet-ditch. Have you got any tools ? 
 Ay ! ay ! I see you travel well equipped, if you do ride in your 
 coach. Now your riding-cloak, the nights are damp here, by 
 the river-side, even in summer ; oh ! never mind your pistols, 
 you'll find a brace in my holsters, genuine Kuchenreuters. I 
 can hit a crown piece with them, for a hundred guineas, at fifty 
 paces." 
 
 " Heaven send that you never shoot at me with them, if that's 
 the case, George." 
 
 " Heaven send that I never shoot at any one, my lord, unless 
 it be an enemy of my king and country, and in open warfare ; 
 for so certainly as I do shoot I shall kill." 
 
 "I do not doubt you, George. But let's be off. The lights 
 are burning low in the sockets, and these good fellows are evi- 
 dently tired out with their share of our festivity. Fore God ! I 
 believe we are the last of the guests." 
 
 And with the word, the young men mounted joyously, and 
 galloped away at the top of their horses' speed to the quarters 
 of the life-guards in Windsor. 
 
 Half an hour after their departure, the two sisters sat above 
 stairs in a pleasant chamber, disrobing themselves, with the 
 assistance of their maidens, of the cumbrous and stiff costumes 
 of the ball-room, and jesting merrily over the events of the 
 evening. 
 
 " Well, Blanche," said Agnes, archly, " confess, siss, who is 
 the lord paramount, the beau par excellence, of the ball ? I 
 know, you demure puss ! After all, it is ever the quiet cat that 
 licks the cream. But to think that on your very first night 
 
DITTON-IN-THE-DALE. 419 
 
 you should have made such a conquest. So difficult, too, 
 to please, they say, and all the great court ladies dying for 
 him." 
 
 " Hush ! madcap. I don't know who you mean. At all 
 events, I have not danced four dances in one evening with one 
 cavalier. Ah ! have I caught you, pretty mistress I" 
 
 " Oh ! that was only poor George Delawarr. A paltry cornet 
 in the guards. He will do well enough to have dangling after 
 one, to play with, while he amuses one — but fancy, being proud 
 of conquering poor George ! His namesake with the Saint 
 before it were worth a score of such." 
 
 " Fie, sister !" said Blanche, gravely. " I do not love to hear 
 you talk so. I am sure he's a very pretty gentleman, and has 
 twice as much head as my lord, if I'm not mistaken ; and three 
 times as much heart." 
 
 " Heart, indeed, siss ! Much you know about hearts, I fancy. 
 But, now that you speak of it, I will try if he has got a heart. 
 If he has, he will do well to pique some more eligible — " 
 
 " Oh ! Agnes, Agnes ! I cannot hear you — " 
 
 " Pshaw !" interrupted the younger sister,^ery bitterly, " this 
 affectation of sentiment and disinterestedness sits very prettily 
 on the heiress of Ditton-in-the-Dale, Long Netherby, and Wal- 
 tham Ferrers, three manors, and ten thousand pounds a year to 
 buy a bridegroom ! Poor I, with my face for my fortune, must 
 needs make my wit eke out my want of dowry. And I'm not 
 one, I promise you, siss, to choose love in a cottage. No, no ! 
 Give me your Lord St. George, and I'll make over all my right 
 and title to poor George Delawarr this minute. Heigho ! I 
 believe the fellow is smitten with me after all. Well, well ! I'll 
 have some fun with him before I have done yet." 
 
 " Again," said Blanche, gravely, but reproachfully, " I have 
 long seen that you are light, and careless whom you wound 
 
420 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 with your wild words, but I never thought before that you were 
 bad-hearted." 
 
 "Bad-hearted, sister !" 
 
 "Yes! bad-hearted! To speak to me of manors, or of 
 money, as if for fifty wills, or five hundred fathers, I would ever 
 profit by a parent's whim to rob my sister of her portion. As 
 if I would not rather lie in the cold grave, than that my sister 
 should have a wish ungratified, which I had power to gratify, 
 much less that she should narrow down the standard of her 
 choice — the holiest and most sacred thing on earth — to the 
 miserable scale of wealth and title. Out upon it ! Never, while 
 you live, speak so to me again !" 
 
 " Sister, I never will. I did not mean it, sister, dear," cried 
 Agnes, now much affected, as she saw how vehemently Blanche 
 was moved. " You should not heed me. You know my wild, 
 rash way, and how I speak whatever words come first." 
 
 " Those were very meaning words, Agnes — and very bitter, 
 too. They cut me to the heart," cried the fair girl, bursting 
 into a flood of passionate tears. 
 
 " Oh ! do not — ck> not, Blanche. Forgive me, dearest ! Indeed, 
 indeed, I meant nothing !" 
 
 " Forgive you, Agnes ! I have nothing to forgive. I was not 
 even angry, but pained, but sorry for you, sister ; for sure I am, 
 that if you give way to this bitter, jealous spirit, you will work 
 much anguish to yourself, and to all those who love you." 
 
 " Jealous, Blanche !" / 
 
 " Yes, Agnes, jealous ! But let us say no more. Let this 
 pass, and be forgotten ; but never, dear girl, if you love me, as 
 I think you do, never so speak to me again." 
 
 "I never, never will." And she fell upon her neck, and 
 kissed her fondly, as her heart relented, and she felt some- 
 thing of sincere repentance for the harsh words which she 
 
DITTON-IN-TIIE-DALE. 421 
 
 had spoken, and the hard, bitter feelings which suggested 
 them. 
 
 Another hour, and, clasped in each other's arms, they were 
 sleeping as sweetly as though no breath of this world's bitter- 
 ness had ever blown upon their hearts, or stirred them into 
 momentary strife. 
 
 Peace to their slumbers, and sweet dreams ! 
 
 It was, perhaps, an hour or two after noon, and the early 
 dinner of the time was already over, when the two sisters 
 strolled out into the gardens, unaccompanied, except by a tall 
 old greyhound, Blanche's peculiar friend and guardian, and 
 some two or three beautiful silky-haired King Charles spaniels. 
 
 After loitering for a little while among the trim parterres 
 and box-edged terraces, and gathering a few sweet summer 
 flowers, they turned to avoid the heat, which was excessive, 
 into the dark elm avenue, and wandered along between the tall 
 black yew hedges, linked arm-in-arm, indeed, but both silent 
 and abstracted, and neither of them conscious of the rich melan- 
 choly music of the nightingale, which was ringing all around 
 them in that pleasant solitude. 
 
 Both, indeed, were buried in deep thought; and each, 
 perhaps, for the first time in her life, felt that her thought was 
 such that she could not, dared not, communicate it to her 
 sister. 
 
 For Blanche Fitz-Henry had, on the previous night, begun, 
 for the first time in her life, to suspect that she was the owner, 
 for the time being, of a commodity called a heart, although it 
 may be that the very suspicion proved in some degree that the 
 possession was about to pass, if it were not already passing, 
 from her. 
 
 In sober seriousness, it must be confessed that the young 
 cornet of the Life Guards, although he had made so little im- 
 
422 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 pression on her to whom he had devoted his attentions, had 
 produced an effect different from anything which she had 
 ever felt before on the mind of the elder sister. It was not his 
 good mien, nor his noble air that had struck her ; for though 
 he was a well-made, fine-looking man, of graceful manners and 
 high-born carriage, there were twenty men in the room with 
 whom he could not for five minutes have sustained a compari- 
 son in point of personal appearance. 
 
 His friend, the Viscount St. George, to whom she had lent 
 but a cold ear, was a far handsomer man. Nor was it his wit 
 and gay humor, and easy flow of conversation, that had cap- 
 tivated her fancy ; although she certainly did think him the 
 most agreeable man she had ever listened to. lS T o, it was the 
 under-current of delicate and poetical thought, the glimpses of 
 a high and noble spirit, which flashed out at times through the 
 light veil of reckless merriment, which, partly in compliance 
 with the spirit of the day, and partly because his was a gay 
 and mirthful nature, he had superinduced over the deeper and 
 grander points of his character. No ; it was a certain origi- 
 nality of mind, which assured her that, though he might talk 
 lightly, he was one to feel fervently and deeply — it was the 
 impress of truth, and candor, and high independence, which 
 was stamped on his every word and action, that first riveted 
 her attention, and, in spite of her resistance, half fascinated her 
 imagination. 
 
 This it was that had held her abstracted and apparently in- 
 different, while Lord St. George was exerting all his powers of 
 entertainment in her behalf ; this it was that had roused her 
 indignation at hearing her sister speak so slightingly, and, as 
 it seemed to her, so ungenerously of one whom she felt intui- 
 tively to be good and noble. 
 
 This it was which now held her mute and thoughtful, and 
 
DITTON-IN THE-DALE. 423 
 
 almost sad ; for she felt conscious that she was on the verge of 
 loving — loving one who, for aught that he had shown as yet, 
 cared not for her, perhaps even preferred another — and that 
 other her own sister. 
 
 Thereupon her maiden modesty rallied tumultuous to th< 
 rescue, and suggested the shame of giving love unasked, giving 
 it, perchance, to be scorned — and almost she resolved to stifle 
 the infant feeling in its birth, and rise superior to the weakness. 
 But when was ever love vanquished by cold argument, or 
 bound at the chariot-wheels of reason ? 
 
 The thought would still rise up prominent, turn her mind to 
 whatever subject she would, coupled with something of pity at 
 the treatment which he was like to meet from Agnes, something 
 of vague, unconfessed pleasure that it was so, and something of 
 secret hope that his eyes would ere long be opened, and that she 
 might prove, in the end, herself his consoler. 
 
 And what, meanwhile, were the dreams of Agnes ? Bitter — 
 bitter, and black, and hateful. Oh ! it is a terrible considera- 
 tion, how swiftly evil thoughts, once admitted to the heart, 
 take root and flourish, and grow up into a rank and poisonous 
 crop, choking the good grain utterly, and corrupting the very 
 soil of which they have taken hold. There is but one hope — 
 but one ! To tear them from the root forcibly, though the 
 heart-strings crack, and the soul trembles, as with a spiritual 
 earthquake. To nerve the mind firmly and resolutely, yet 
 humbly withal, and contritely, and with prayer against temp- 
 tation, prayer for support from on high — to resist the Evil One 
 with the whole force of the intellect, the whole truth of the 
 heart, and to stop the ears steadfastly against the voice of the 
 charmer, charm he never so wisely. 
 
 But so did not Agnes Fitz-Henry. It is true that on the 
 preceding night her better feelings had been touched, her 
 
424 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 heart had relented, and she had banished, as she thought, the 
 evil counsellors, ambition, envy, jealousy, and distrust, from her 
 spirit. 
 
 But with the night the better influence passed away, and ere 
 the morning had well come, the evil spirit had returned to his 
 dwelling-place, and brought with him other spirits, worse and 
 more wicked than himself. 
 
 The festive scene of the previous evening had, for the. first 
 time, opened her eyes fairly to her own position ; she read it in 
 the demeanor of all present; she heard it in the whispers which 
 unintentionally reached her ears ; she felt it intuitively in the 
 shade — it was scarcely a shade, yet she observed it — of difference 
 perceptible in the degree of deference and courtesy paid to her- 
 self and to her sister. 
 
 She felt, for the first time, that Blanche was everything, her- 
 self a mere cipher — that Blanche was the lady of the manor, 
 the cynosure of all eyes, the queen of all hearts ; herself but the 
 lady's poor relation, the dependent on her bounty, and at the 
 best a creature to be played with, and petted for her beauty 
 and her wit, without regard to her feelings, or sympathy for 
 her heart. 
 
 And prepared as she was at all times to resist even just au- 
 thority with insolent rebellion ; ready as she was always to 
 assume the defensive, and from that the offensive against all 
 whom she fancied offenders, how angrily did her heart now boil 
 up, how almost fiercely did she muster her faculties to resist, to 
 attack, to conquer, to annihilate all whom she deemed her 
 enemies — and that, for the moment, was the world. 
 
 Conscious of her own beauty, of her own wit, of her own 
 high and powerful intellect, perhaps over-confident in her re- 
 sources, she determined on that instant that she would devote 
 them all, all to one purpose, to which she would bend every 
 
DITTON-IN-THE-DALE. 425 
 
 energy, direct every thought of her mind — to her own aggran- 
 dizement, 'by means of some great and splendid marriage, 
 which should set her as far above the heiress of Ditton-in-the- 
 Dale, as the rich heiress now stood in the world's eye above 
 the portionless and dependent sister. 
 
 Nor was this all — there was a sterner, harder, and more 
 wicked feeling yet, springing up in her heart, and whispering 
 the sweetness of revenge — revenge on that amiable and gentle 
 sister, who, so far from wronging her, had loved her ever with 
 the tenderest and most affectionate love, who would have sacri- 
 ficed her dearest wishes, to her welfare — but whom, in the hard- 
 ness of her embittered spirit, she could now see only as an 
 intruder upon her own just rights, a rival on the stage of 
 fashion, perhaps in the interests of the heart — whom she already 
 envied, suspected, almost hated. 
 
 And Blanche, at that self-same moment, had resolved to keep 
 watch on her own heart narrowly, and to observe her sister's 
 bearing towards George Delawarr, that in case she should per- 
 ceive her favoring his suit, she might at once crush down the 
 germ of rising passion, and sacrifice her own to her dear sister's 
 happiness. 
 
 Alas ! Blanche ! Alas ! Agnes ! 
 
 Thus they strolled onward, silently and slowly, until they 
 reached the little green before the summer-house, which was 
 then the gayest and most lightsome place that can be imagined, 
 with its rare paintings glowing in their undimmed hues,' its 
 gilding bright and burnished, its furniture all sumptuous and 
 new, and instead of the dark funereal ivy, covered with wood- 
 bine and rich clustered roses. The windows were all thrown 
 wide open to the perfumed summer air, and the warm light 
 poured in through the gaps in the tree-tops, and above the sum- 
 mits of the then carefully trimmed hedgerows, blithe and golden. 
 
 19* 
 
426 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 They entered and sat down, still pensive and abstracted ; but 
 ere long the pleasant and happy influences of the time and place 
 appeared to operate in some degree on the feelings of both, 
 but especially on the tranquil and well-ordered mind of the 
 elder sister. She raised her head suddenly, and was about to 
 speak, when the rapid sound of horses' feet, unheard on the soft 
 sand until they were hard by, turned her attention to the win- 
 dow, and the next moment the two young cavaliers, who were 
 even then uppermost in her mind, came into view, cantering 
 along slowly on their well-managed chargers. 
 
 Her eye was not quicker than those of the gallant riders, 
 who, seeing the ladies, whom they had ridden over to visit, 
 sitting by the windows of the summer-house, checked their 
 horses on the instant, and doffed their plumed hats. 
 
 " Good faith, fair ladies, we are in fortune's graces to-daj 7 ," 
 said the young peer, gracefully, " since having ridden thus far 
 on our way to pay you our humble devoirs, we meet you thus 
 short of our journey's end." 
 
 " But how are we to win our way to you," cried Delawarr, 
 " as you sit there bright jchatelaines of your enchanted bower — 
 for I see neither fairy skiff, piloted by grim-visaged dwarfs, to 
 waft us over, nor even a stray dragon, by aid of whose broad 
 wings to fly across this mimic moat, which seems to be some- 
 thing of the deepest?" 
 
 " Oh ! gallop on, gay knights," said Agnes, smiling on Lord 
 St. George, but averting her face somewhat from the cornet, 
 " gallop on to the lodges, and leaving there your coursers, take 
 the first path on the left hand, and that will lead you to our 
 presence; and should you peradventure get entangled in the 
 hornbeam maze, why, one of us two will bring you the clue, 
 like a second Ariadne. Ride on and we will meet you. Come, 
 sister, let us walk." 
 
D1TT0N-IN-THE-DALE. 427 
 
 Blanche bad as yet scarcely found words to reply to trie greet- 
 ing of the gallants, for the coincidence of their arrival with her 
 own thoughts had embarrassed her a little, and she had blushed 
 crimson as she caught the eye of George Delawarr fixed on her 
 with a marked expression, beneath which her own dropped 
 timidly. But now she arose, and bowing with an easy smile, 
 and a few pleasant words, expressed her willingness to abide by 
 her sister's plan. 
 
 In a few minutes the ladies met their gallants in the green 
 labyrinth of which Agnes had spoken, and falling into pairs, 
 for the walk was too narrow to allow them all four to walk 
 abreast, they strolled in company toward the Hall. 
 
 What words they said I am not about to relate — for such 
 conversations, though infinitely pleasant to the parties, are for 
 the most part infinitely dull to third persons — but it so fell 
 out, not without something of forwardness and marked ma- 
 nagement, which did not escape the young soldier's rapid eye, 
 on the part of Agnes, that the order of things which had been 
 on the previous evening was reversed ; the gay, rattling girl 
 attaching herself perforce to the viscount, not without a sharp 
 and half-sarcastic jest at the expense of her former partner, 
 and the mild heiress falling to his charge. 
 
 George Delawarr had been smitten, it is true, the night 
 before by the gaiety and rapid intellect of Agnes, as well as 
 by the wild and peculiar style of her beauty ; and it might 
 well have been that the temporary fascination might have 
 ripened into love. But he w r as hurt, and disgusted even more 
 than hurt by her manner, and observing her with a watchful 
 eye as she coquetted with his friend, he speedily came to the 
 conclusion that St. George was right in his estimate of her 
 character at least, although he now seemed to be flattered and 
 amused by her evident prepossession in his favor. 
 
426 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 They entered and sat down, still pensive and abstracted ; but 
 ere long the pleasant and happy influences of the time and place 
 appeared to operate in some degree on the feelings of both, 
 but especially on the tranquil and well-ordered mind of the 
 elder sister. She raised her head suddenly, and was about to 
 speak, when the rapid sound of horses' feet, unheard on the soft 
 sand until they were hard by, turned her attention to the win- 
 dow, and the next moment the two young cavaliers, who were 
 even then uppermost in her mind, came into view, cantering 
 along slowly on their well-managed chargers. 
 
 Her eye was not quicker than those of the gallant riders, 
 who, seeing the ladies, whom they had ridden over to visit, 
 sitting by the windows of the summer-house, checked their 
 horses on the instant, and doffed their plumed hats. 
 
 " Good faith, fair ladies, we are in fortune's graces to-da} r ," 
 said the young peer, gracefully, " since having ridden thus far 
 on our way to pay you our humble devoirs, we meet you thus 
 short of our journey's end." 
 
 " But how are we to win our way to you," cried Delawarr, 
 " as you sit there bright chatelaines of your enchanted bower — 
 for I see neither fairy skiff, piloted by grim-visaged dwarfs, to 
 waft us over, nor even a stray dragon, by aid of whose broad 
 wings to fly across this mimic moat, which seems to be some- 
 thing of the deepest?" 
 
 " Oh ! gallop on, gay knights," said Agnes, smiling on Lord 
 St. George, but averting her face somewhat from the cornet, 
 " gallop on to the lodges, and leaving there your coursers, take 
 the first path on the left hand, and that will lead you to our 
 presence; and should you peradventure get entangled in the 
 hornbeam maze, why, one of us two will bring you the clue, 
 like a second Ariadne. Ride on and we will meet you. Come, 
 sister, let us walk." 
 
D1TT0N-IN-THE-DALE. 42*7 
 
 Blanche bad as yet scarcely found words to reply to the greet- 
 ing of the gallants, for the coincidence of their arrival with her 
 own thoughts had embarrassed her a little, and she had blushed 
 crimson as she caught the eye of George Delawarr fixed on her 
 with a marked expression, beneath which her own dropped 
 timidly. But now she arose, and bowing with an easy smile, 
 and a few pleasant words, expressed her willingness to abide by 
 her sister's plan. 
 
 In a few minutes the ladies met their gallants in the green 
 labyrinth of which Agnes had spoken, and falling into pairs, 
 for the walk was too narrow to allow them all four to walk 
 abreast, they strolled in company toward the Hall. 
 
 What words they said I am not about to relate — for such 
 conversations, though infinitely pleasant to the parties, are for 
 the most part infinitely dull to third persons — but it so fell 
 out, not without something of forwardness and marked ma- 
 nagement, which did not escape the young soldier's rapid eye, 
 on the part of Agnes, that the order of things which had been 
 on the previous evening was reversed ; the gay, rattling girl 
 attaching herself perforce to the viscount, not without a sharp 
 and half-sarcastic jest at the expense of her former partner, 
 and the mild heiress falling to his charge. 
 
 George Delawarr had been smitten, it is true, the night 
 before by the gaiety and rapid intellect of Agnes, as well as 
 by the wild and peculiar style of her beauty ; and it might 
 well have been that the temporary fascination might have 
 ripened into love. But he w T as hurt, and disgusted even more 
 than hurt by her manner, and observing her with a watchful 
 eye as she coquetted with his friend, he speedily came to the 
 conclusion that St. George was right in his estimate of her 
 character at least, although he now seemed to be flattered and 
 amused by her evident prepossession in his favor. 
 
428 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 He had not, it is true, been deeply enough touched to feel 
 either pique or melancholy at this discovery, but was so far 
 heart-whole as to be rather inclined to laugh at the fickleness 
 of the merry jilt than either to repine or to be angry. 
 
 He was by no means the man, however, to cast away the 
 occasion of pleasure ; and walking with so beautiful and soft 
 a creature as Blanche, he naturally abandoned himself to the 
 tide of the hour, and in a little while found himself engaged 
 in a conversation which, if less sparkling and brilliant, was a 
 thousand times more charming than that which he had yes- 
 terday held with her sister. 
 
 In a short time he had made the discovery that with regard 
 to the elder sister, too, his friend's penetration had exceeded 
 his own ; and that beneath that calm and tranquil exterior 
 there lay a deep and powerful mind, stored with a treasury of 
 the richest gems of thought and feeling. He learned in that 
 long woodland walk that she was, indeed, a creature both to 
 adore and to be adored ; and he, too, like St. George, was 
 certain that the happy man whom she should love would be 
 loved for himself alone, with the whole fervor, the whole truth, 
 the whole concentrated passion of a heart, the flow of which 
 once unloosed, would be but the stronger for the restraint 
 which had hitherto confined it. 
 
 Ere long, as they reached the wider avenue, the two parties 
 united, and then more than ever he perceived the immense 
 superiority in all loveable, all feminine points, of the elder to 
 the younger sister ; for Agnes, though brilliant and seemingly 
 thoughtless and spirit-free as ever, let fall full many a bitter 
 word, many a covert taunt and hidden sneer, which, with his 
 eyes now opened as they were, he readily detected, and which 
 Blanche, as he could discover, even through her graceful 
 quietude, felt, and felt painfully. 
 
DITTON-IN-THE-DALE. 429 
 
 They readied the Hall at length, and were duly welcomed 
 by its master ; refreshments were offered and accepted ; and 
 the young men were invited to return often, and a day was 
 fixed on which they should partake the hospitalities of Ditton 
 at least as temporary residents. 
 
 The night was already closing in when they mounted their 
 horses and withdrew, both well pleased with their visit ; for 
 the young lord was in pursuit of amusement only, and seeing 
 at a glance the coyness of the heiress and the somewhat for- 
 ward coquetry of her sister, he had accommodated himself to 
 circumstances, and determined that a passing flirtation with so 
 pretty a girl, and a short sejour at a house so well appointed 
 as Ditton, would be no unpleasant substitute for London in 
 the dog-days; and George Delaware, like Romeo, had dis- 
 carded the imaginary love the moment he found the true 
 Juliet. If not in love he certainly was fascinated — charmed ; 
 he certainly thought Blanche the sweetest and most lovely girl 
 he had ever met, and was well inclined to believe that she was 
 the best and most admirable. He trembled on the verge of 
 his fate. 
 
 And she — her destiny was fixed already, and for ever ! 
 And when she saw her sister delighted with the attentions of 
 the youthful nobleman, she smiled to herself and dreamed a 
 pleasant dream, and gave herself up to the sweet delusion. 
 She had already asked her own heart u does he love me P and 
 though it fluttered sorely and hesitated for a while, it did not 
 answer "JSTo!" 
 
 But as the gentlemen rode homeward, St. George turned 
 shortly on his companion, and ^aid, gravely, 
 
 "You have changed your mind, Delaware, and found out 
 that I am right. Nevertheless, beware ! do not, for God's 
 sake, fall in love with her, or make her love you !" 
 
430 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 The blood flushed fiery-red to the ingenuous brow of George 
 Delawarr, and he was embarrassed for a moment. Then he 
 tried to turn off his confusion with a jest. 
 
 " What, jealous, my lord ! jealous of a poor cornet with no 
 other fortune than an honorable name and a bright sword ! I 
 thought you, too, had changed your mind when I saw you 
 flirting so merrily with that merry brunette." 
 
 " You did see me flirting, George — nothing more ; and I 
 have changed my mind since the beginning, if not since the 
 end of last evening — for I thought at first that fair Blanche 
 Fitz-Henry would make me a charming wife ; and now I am 
 sure that she would not — " 
 
 " Why so, my lord ? For God's sake ! why say you so ?" 
 
 " Because she never would love me, George ; and / would 
 never marry any woman unless I were sure that she both 
 could and did. So you see that I am not the least jealous ; 
 but still I say, don't fall in love w T ith her — " 
 
 " Faith ! St. George, but your admonition comes somewhat 
 late ; for I believe I am half in love with her already." 
 
 " Then stop where you are and go no deeper ; for if I err 
 not, she is more than half in love with you, too." 
 
 " A strange reason, St. George, wherefore to bid me stop I" 
 
 " A most excellent good one !" replied the other, gravely, 
 and almost sadly, " for mutual love between you two can only 
 lead to mutual misery. Her father never would consent to 
 her marrying you more than he would to her marrying a 
 peasant — the man is perfectly insane on the subject of title- 
 deeds and heraldry, and will accept no one for his son-in-law 
 who cannot show as many quarterings as a Spanish grandee 
 or a German noble. But, of course, it is of no use talking 
 about it. Love never yet listened to reason ; and, moreover, I 
 suppose what is to be is to be — come what may." 
 
DITTON-IN-THE-DALE. 431 
 
 " And what will you do, St. George, about Agnes ? I think 
 you are touched there a little !" 
 
 " Not a whit I — honor bright ! And for what I will do — 
 amuse myself, George — amuse myself, and that pretty coquette 
 too ; and if I find her less of a coquette, with more of a heart 
 than I fancy she has — " he stopped short and laughed. 
 
 " Well, what then — what then ?" cried George Delawarr. 
 
 " It will be time enough to decide then" 
 
 " And so say I, St. George. Meanwhile, I, too, will amuse 
 myself." 
 
 " Ay ! but observe this special difference — what is fun to 
 you may be death to her, for she has a heart, and a fine, and 
 true, and deep one ; may be death to yourself, for you, too, 
 are honorable, and true, and noble ; and that is why I love 
 you, George, and why I speak to you thus, at the risk of being 
 held meddlesome or impertinent." 
 
 " Oh, never, never !" exclaimed Delawarr, moving his horse 
 closer up to him, and grasping his hand warmly, " never ! 
 You meddlesome or impertinent ! Let me hear no man call 
 you so. But I will think of this. On my honor, J will think 
 of this that you have said !" 
 
 And he did think of it. Thought of it often, deeply — and 
 the more he thought, the more he loved Blanche Fitz-Henry. 
 
 Days, weeks, and months rolled on, and still those two 
 young cavaliers were constant visitors, sometimes alone, some- 
 times with other gallants in their company, at Ditton-in-the- 
 Dale. And ever still, despite his companion's warning, Dela- 
 warr lingered by the fair heiress's side, until both were as deeply 
 enamored as it is possible for two persons to be, both single- 
 hearted, both endowed with powerful intellect and powerful 
 imagination ; both of that strong and energetic temperament 
 which renders all impressions permanent, all strong passions 
 
432 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 immortal. It was strange that there should have been two 
 persons, and there were but two, who discovered nothing of 
 what was passing — suspected nothing of the deep feelings 
 which possessed the hearts of the young lovers ; while all else 
 marked the growth of liking- into love, of love into that abso- 
 lute and overwhelming idolatry which but few souls can com- 
 prehend, and which to those few is the mightiest of blessings 
 or the blackest of curses. 
 
 And those two, as is oftentimes the case, were the very two 
 whom it most concerned to perceive, and who imagined them- 
 selves the quickest and the clearest sighted — Allan Fitz-Henry 
 and the envious Agnes. 
 
 But so true is it that the hope is oft parent to the thought, 
 and the thought again to security and conviction, that, having 
 in the first instance made up his mind that Lord St. George 
 would be a most suitable successor to the name of the family, 
 and secondly, that he was engaged in prosecuting his suit to 
 the elder daughter, her father gave himself no further trouble 
 in the matter, but suffered things to take their own course 
 without interference. 
 
 He saw, indeed, that in public the viscount was more fre- 
 quently the companion of Agnes than of Blanche ; that there 
 seemed to be a better and more rapid intelligence between 
 them ; and that Blanche appeared better pleased with George 
 Delawarr's than with the viscount's company. 
 
 But, to a man blinded by his own wishes and prejudices, 
 such evidences went as nothing. He set it down at once to 
 the score of timidity on Blanche's part, and to the desire of 
 avoiding unnecessary notoriety on St. George's ; and saw 
 nothing but what was perfectly natural and comprehensible in 
 the fact that the younger sister and the familiar friend should 
 be the mutual confidants, perhaps the go-betweens, of the two 
 acknowledged lovers. 
 
DITTON-IN-THE-DALE. 433 
 
 He was in high good humor, therefore ; and as he fancied 
 himself on the high-road to the full fruition of his schemes, 
 nothing could exceed his courtesy and kindness to the young 
 cornet, whom he almost overpowered with those tokens of 
 affection and regard which he did not choose to lavish on the 
 peer, lest he should be thought to be courting his alliance. 
 
 Agnes, in the meantime, was so busy in the prosecution of 
 her assault on Lord St. George's heart, on which she began to 
 believe that she had made some permanent impression, that, 
 she was perfectly contented with her own position, and was 
 well disposed to let other people enjoy themselves, provided 
 they did not interfere with her proceedings. It is true, that 
 at times, in the very spirit of coquetry, she would resume her 
 flirtation with George Delawarr, for the double purpose of 
 piquing the viscount and playing with the cornet's affections, 
 which, blinded by self-love, she still believed to be devoted to 
 her pretty self. 
 
 But Delawarr was so happy in himself, that, without any 
 intention of playing with Agnes, or deceiving her, he joked 
 and rattled with her as he would with a sister, and believing 
 that she must understand their mutual situation, at times 
 treated her with a sort of quiet fondness, as a man naturally 
 does the sister of his betrothed or his bride, which effectually 
 c ompleted her hallucination. 
 
 The consequence of all this was, that, while they were unin- 
 tentionally deceiving others, they were fatally deceiving them- 
 selves likewise ; and of this, it is probable that no one was 
 aware, with the exception of St. George, who, seeing that his 
 warnings w r ere neglected, did not choose to meddle further in 
 the matter, although keeping himself ready to aid the lovers 
 to the utmost of his ability by any means that should offer. 
 
 In the innocence of their hearts, and the purity of their young 
 love, they fancied that what was so clear to themselves, must be 
 
434 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 apparent to the eyes of others ; and they flattered themselves 
 that the lady's father not only saw, but approved their affection, 
 and that when the fitting time should arrive, there would be no 
 obstacle to the accomplishment of their happiness. 
 
 It is true that Blanche spoke not of her love to her sister, for, 
 apart from the aversion which a refined and delicate girl must 
 ever feel to touching on that subject, unless the secret be teased 
 or coaxed out of her by some near and affectionate friend, there 
 had grown up a sort of distance, not coldness, nor dislike, nor 
 distrust, but simply distaste, and lack of communication be- 
 tween the sisters since the night of the birth-day ball. Still 
 Blanche doubted not that her sister saw and knew all that was 
 passing in her mind, in the same manner as she read her heart ; 
 and it was to her evident liking for Lord St. George, and the 
 engrossing claim of her own affections on all her thoughts, and 
 all her time, that she attributed her carelessness of herself. 
 
 Deeply, however, did she err, and cruelly was she destined to 
 be undeceived. 
 
 The early days of autumn had arrived, and the woods had 
 donned their many-colored garments, when on a calm, sweet 
 evening — one of those quiet and delicious evenings peculiar to 
 that season — Blanche and George Delawarr had wandered away 
 from the gay concourse which filled the gardens, and unseen, as 
 they believed, and unsuspected, had turned into the old laby- 
 rinth, where first they had begun to love, and were wrapped in 
 soft dreams of the near approach of more perfect happiness. 
 
 But a quick, hard eye was upon them — the eye of Agnes ; 
 for, by chance, Lord St. George was absent, having been sum- 
 moned to attend the king at Windsor ; and being left to herself, 
 her busy mind, too busy to rest for a moment idle, plunged into 
 mischief and malevolence. 
 
 No sooner did she see them turn aside from the broad walk 
 than the cloud was withdrawn, as if by magic, from her eyes ; 
 
DITTON-IN-THE-DALE. 435 
 
 and she saw almost intuitively all that had previously escaped 
 her. 
 
 Not a second did she lose, but stealing after the unsuspectino- 
 pair with a noiseless and treacherous step, she followed them, 
 foot by foot, through the mazes of the clipped hornbeam laby- 
 rinth, divided from them only by the verdant screen, listening 
 to every half-breathed word of love, and drinking in with greedy 
 ears every passionate sigh. 
 
 Delawarr's left arm was around Blanche's slender waist, and 
 her right hand rested on his shoulder ; the fingers of their other 
 hands were entwined lovingly together, as they wandered on- 
 ward, wrapped each in the other, unconscious of wrong on their 
 own part, and unsuspicious of injury from any other. 
 
 Meanwhile, with rage in her eyes, with hell in her heart, 
 Agnes followed and listened. 
 
 So deadly was her hatred, at that moment, of her sister, so fierce 
 and overmastering her rage, that it was only by the utmost exer- 
 tion of self-control that she could refrain from rushing forward and 
 loading them with reproaches, with contumely, and with scorn. 
 
 But biting her lips till the blood sprang beneath her pearly teeth, 
 and clenching her hands so hard that the nails wounded their 
 tender palms, she did refrain, did subdue the swelling fury of her 
 rebellious heart, and awaited the hour of more deadly vengeance. 
 
 Vengeance for what ? She had not loved George Delawarr — 
 nay, she had scorned him ! Blanche had not robbed her of her 
 lover — nay, in her own thoughts, she had carried off the admirer, 
 perhaps the future lover, from the heiress. 
 
 She was the wronger, not the wronged ! Then wherefore 
 vengeance ? 
 
 Even, therefore, reader, because she had wronged her, and 
 knew it ; because her own conscience smote her, and she would 
 fain avenge on the innocent cause, the pangs which at times rent 
 her own bosom. 
 
436 PERSONS AKD PICTURES. 
 
 Envious and bitter, she could not endure that Blanche should 
 be loved, as she felt she was not loved herself, purely, devotedly, 
 for ever, and for herself alone. 
 
 Ambitious, and insatiate of admiration, she could not endure 
 that George Delaware, once her captive, whom she still thought 
 her slave, should shake off his allegiance to herself, much less 
 that he should dare to love her sister. 
 
 Even while she listened, she suddenly heard Blanche reply to 
 some words of her lover, which had escaped her watchful ears. 
 
 " Never fear, dearest George ; I am sure that he has seen and 
 knows all — he is the kindest and the best of fathers. I will tell 
 him all to-morrow, and will have good news for you when you 
 come to see me in the evening." 
 
 " Never !" exclaimed the fury, stamping upon the ground 
 violently — " by all my hopes of heaven never !" 
 
 And with the words she darted away in the direction of the 
 hall as fast as her feet could carry her over the level green- 
 sward ; rage seeming literally to lend her wings, so rapidly did 
 her fiery passions spur her on the road to impotent revenge. 
 
 Ten minutes afterward, with his face inflamed with fury, his 
 periwig awry, his dress disordered by the haste with which he 
 had come up, Allan Fitz-Henry broke upon the unsuspecting- 
 lovers. 
 
 Snatching his daughter rudely from the young man's half 
 embrace, he broke out into a torrent of terrible and furious 
 invective, far more disgraceful to him who used it, than to those 
 on whom it was vented. 
 
 There was no check to his violence, no moderation on his 
 tongue. Traitor, and knave, and low-born beggar, were the 
 mildest epithets which he applied to the high-bred and gallant 
 soldier ; while on his sweet and shrinking child he heaped terms 
 the most opprobrious, the most unworthy of himself, whether as 
 a father or as a man. 
 
DITTON-IN-THE-DALE. 437 
 
 The blood rushed crimson to the brow of George Delawarr, 
 and his hand fell, as if by instinct, upon the hilt of his rapier ; 
 but the next moment he withdrew it, and was cool by a mighty 
 effort. 
 
 " From you, sir, anything ! You will be sorry for this to- 
 morrow !" 
 
 " Never, sir, never ! Get you gone ! base domestic traitor ! 
 Get you gone, lest I call my servants, and bid them spurn you 
 from my premises !" 
 
 "I go, sir — "he began calmly; but at this moment St. 
 George came upon the scene, having just returned from Windsor, 
 eager, but, alas ! too late, to anticipate the shameful scene — and 
 to him did George Delawarr turn with unutterable anguish in 
 his eyes. " Bid my men bring my horses after me, St. George," 
 said he, firmly, but mournfully ; " for me, this is no place any 
 longer. Farewell, sir ! you will repent of this. Adieu, Blanche, 
 we shall meet again, sweet one." 
 
 " Never ! dog, never ! or with my own hands — " 
 
 " Hush ! hush ! for shame. Peace, Mister Fitz-Henry, these 
 words are not such as may pass between gentlemen. Go, 
 George, for God's sake ! Go, and prevent worse scandal," cried 
 the viscount. 
 
 And miserable beyond all comprehension, his dream of bliss 
 thus cruelly cut short, the young man went his way, leaving his 
 mistress hanging in a deep swoon, happy to be for a while 
 unconscious of her misery, upon her father's arm. 
 
 Three days had passed — three dark, dismal, hopeless days. 
 Delawarr did his duty with his regiment, nay, did it well — but 
 he was utterly unconscious, his mind was afar off, as of a man 
 walking in a dream. Late on the third night a small note was 
 put into his hands, blistered and soiled with tears. A w T an smile 
 crossed his face, he ordered his horses at daybreak, drained a 
 deep draught of wine, sauntered away to his own chamber, 
 
438 . PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 stopping at every two or three paces in deep meditation ; threw 
 himself on his bed, for the first time in his life without praying, 
 and slept, or seemed to sleep, till daybreak. 
 
 Three days had passed — three dark, dismal, hopeless days ! 
 Blanche was half dead — for she now despaired. All methods 
 had been tried with the fierce and prejudiced old man, secretly 
 prompted by that demon-girl — and all tried in vain. Poor 
 Blanche had implored him to suffer her to resign her birthright 
 in favor of her sister, who would wed to suit his wishes, but in 
 vain. The generous St. George had offered to purchase for his 
 friend, as speedily as possible, every step to the very highest in 
 the service; nay, he had obtained from the easy monarch a 
 promise to raise him to the peerage, but in vain. 
 
 And Blanche despaired ; and St. George left the Hall in 
 sorrow and disgust that he could effect nothing. 
 
 That evening Blanche's maid, a true and honest girl, delivered 
 to her mistress a small note, brought by a peasant lad ; and 
 within an hour the boy went thence, the bearer of a billet, 
 blistered and wet with tears. 
 
 And Blanche crept away unheeded to her chamber, and 
 threw herself upon her knees, and prayed fervently and long ; and 
 casting herself upon her painful bed. at last wept herself to sleep. 
 
 The morning dawned, merry, and clear, and lightsome ; and 
 all the face of nature smiled gladly in the merry sunbeams. 
 
 At the first peep of dawn Blanche started from her restless 
 slumbers, dressed herself hastily, and creeping down the stairs 
 with a cautious step, unbarred a postern door, darted out into 
 the free air, without casting a glance behind her, and fled, with 
 all the speed of mingled love and terror, down the green avenue 
 toward the gay pavilion — scene of so many happy hours. 
 
 But again she was watched by an envious eye, and followed 
 by a jealous foot. 
 
 For scarce ten minutes had elapsed from the time when she 
 
DITTO N-IN-THE-D ALE. 439 
 
 issued from the postern, before Agnes appeared on the threshold, 
 with her dark face livid and convulsed with passion ; and after 
 pausing a moment, as if in hesitation, followed rapidly in the 
 footsteps of her sister. 
 
 When Blanche reached the summer-house, it was closed and 
 untenanted ; but scarcely had she entered and cast open the 
 blinds of one window toward the road, before a hard horse-tramp 
 was heard coming up at full gallop, and in an instant George 
 Delawarr pulled up his panting charger in the lane, leaped to 
 the ground, swung himself up into the branches of the great 
 oak-tree, and climbing rapidly along its gnarled limbs, sprang 
 down on the other side, rushed into the building, and cast him- 
 self at his mistress's feet. 
 
 Agnes was entering the far end of the elm-tree walk as he 
 sprang down into the little coplanade, but he was too dreadfully 
 preoccupied with hope and anguish, and almost despair, to 
 observe anything around him. 
 
 But she saw him, and fearful that she should be too late to 
 arrest what she supposed to be the lovers' flight, she ran like 
 the wind. 
 
 She neared the doorway — loud voices reached her ears, but 
 whether in anger, or in supplication, or in sorrow, she could not 
 distinguish. 
 
 Then came a sound that rooted her to the ground on which 
 her flying foot was planted, in mute terror. 
 
 The round ringing report of a pistol-shot ! and ere its echo 
 had begun to die away, another ! • 
 
 No. shriek, no wail, no word succeeded — all was as silent as 
 the grave. 
 
 Then terror gave her courage, and she rushed madly forward 
 a few steps, then stood on the threshold horror-stricken. 
 
 Both those young souls, but a few days before so happy, so 
 loving, had taken their flight — whither ? 
 
440 PERSONS AND PICTURES. 
 
 Both lay there dead, as they had fallen, but unconvulsed, and 
 graceful even in death. Neither had groaned or struggled, hut 
 as they had fallen, so they lay, a few feet asunder — her heart 
 and his brain pierced by the deadly bullets, sped with the accu- 
 racy of his never-erring aim. 
 
 While she stood gazing, in the very stupor of dread, scarce 
 conscious yet of what had fallen out, a deep voice smote her ear. 
 
 " Base, base girl, this is all your doing !" Then, as if wa- 
 kening from a trance, she uttered a long, piercing shriek, darted 
 into the pavilion between the gory corpses, and flung herself 
 headlong out of the open window into the pool beneath. 
 
 But she was not fated so to die. A strong hand dragged her 
 out — the hand of St. George, who, learning that his friend had 
 ridden forth towards Ditton, had followed him, and arrived too 
 late by scarce a minute. 
 
 From that day forth Agnes Fitz-Henry was a dull, melan- 
 choly maniac. Never one gleam of momentary light dispersed 
 the shadows of her insane horror — never one smile crossed her 
 lip, one pleasant thought relieved her life-long sorrow. Thus 
 lived she ; and when death at length came to restore her spirit's 
 light, she died, and made no sign. 
 
 Allan Fitz-Henry lived — a moody misanthropic man, and 
 shunned of all. In truth, the saddest and most wretched of the 
 sons of men. 
 
 How that catastrophe fell out none ever knew, and it were 
 useless to conjecture. 
 
 •They were beautiful, they were young, they were happy. 
 The evil days arrived— and they were wretched, and lacked 
 strength to bear their wretchedness. They are gone where One 
 alone must judge them — may He have pity on their weakness. 
 Bequiescant ! 
 
 THE END. 
 
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