“long since we parted!
i to life’s stormy wave—
thou to thy quiet grave,
leal and true-hearted!”
the first regnal act of henry the eighth was to strip the loyal lords of the titles conferred upon them just two years before. once more, aumerle became earl of rutland; surrey, earl of kent exeter, earl of huntingdon; wiltshire, sir william le scrope; and gloucester, lord le despenser.
hitherto, king richard had been imprisoned in the tower, a lonely captive. but now, possessed by jealous fears of insurrection and restoration, the usurper hurried his royal prisoner from dungeon to dungeon:—to leeds castle, pickering, knaresborough, and lastly, about the middle of december, to pomfret, which he was never to leave alive.
the guilty fears of henry were not unfounded; but perhaps the judicial murder of lord wiltshire at bristol quickened the action of the little band, now again reduced to six. they met quietly at oxford in december, to concert measures for king richard’s release and restoration, resolving that in case of his death they would support the title of march. but there was a seventh person present, whom it is incomprehensible that any of the six should have been willing to trust. this was aumerle, vexed with the loss of his title, and always as ready to join a conspiracy at the outset as he was to play the traitor at the close. the extraordinary manner in which this man was always trusted afresh by the friends whom he perpetually betrayed, is one of the mysteries of psychological history. his plausibility and powers of fascination must have been marvellous. an agreement was drawn up, signed by the six, and entrusted to aumerle (who cleverly slipped out of the inconvenience of signing it himself), containing promises to raise among them a force estimated at 8,000 archers and 300 lance-men, to meet on the fourth of january at kingston, and thence march to colnbrook, where aumerle was to join them.
on the day appointed for the meeting at kingston, aumerle, attired in a handsome furred gown, went to dine with his father. the duchess appears to have been absent. aumerle carried the perilous agreement in his bosom, and when he sat down to dinner, he pulled it forth, and ostentatiously placed it by the side of his silver plate. the six seals caught the old duke’s eye, as his son intended they should; and his curiosity was not unnaturally aroused.
“what is that, fair son?” inquired his father.
aumerle ceremoniously took off his hat—then always worn at dinner—and bowed low.
“monseigneur,” said he obsequiously, “it is not for you.”
of course, after that, york was determined to see it.
“show it me!” he said impatiently; “i will know what it is.”
aumerle must have laughed in his traitor heart, as with feigned reluctance he handed the document to his father. york read it through; and then rose from the table with one of his stormy bursts of anger.
“saddle the horses!” he shouted forth to the grooms at the lower end of the hall. and, turning to his son,—“ha, thou thief! false traitor! thou wert false to king richard; well might it be looked for that thou shouldst be false to thy cousin king henry. and thou well knowest, rascal! that i am pledged for thee in parliament, and have put my body and mine heritage to pawn for thy fidelity. i see thou wouldst fain have me hanged; but, by saint george! i had liefer thou wert hanged than i!”
york strode out of the hall, calling to the grooms to hasten. aumerle gave him time to mount the stairs to assume his riding-suit, and then himself went quietly to the stable, saddled a fleet barb, and rode for his life to windsor.
“who goes there?” rang the royal warder’s challenge.
“the lord of rutland, to have instant speech of the king. is my gracious lord of york here?”
york had not arrived, and his son was safe. the warder had pushed to the great gates, and was leading the way to the court-yard, when to his astounded dismay, aumerle’s dagger was at his throat.
“how have i offended, my lord?” faltered the poor man.
“no hast,” was the response; “but if thou lock not up the gates incontinent, and give the keys to me—”
the keys were in aumerle’s pocket the next minute. an hour later, when his story was told, and his pardon solemnly promised, york and his train came lumbering to the gate, to find his news forestalled. when henry had read the agreement, which york brought with him, he set out immediately for london, while aumerle calmly repaired to his tryst at colnbrook. here exeter was the first to join him. aumerle informed his friends that henry was coming to meet them with a large army, but they determined nevertheless to advance. they passed maidenhead bridge in safety, but as soon as they crossed it, the vanguard of henry’s army was visible. to the amazement of his colleagues, aumerle, on whom they had counted as staunch and loyal, doffed his bonnet with a laugh, and, spurring forward, was received by the enemy as an expected ally. there could be no doubt now that he had betrayed his too trusting friends. yet even then, the little band held the bridge till midnight. but by midnight all hope was over. there was left only one alternative—flight or death. the loyal six set spurs to their horses; and surrey’s steed being fleetest, he soon outdistanced the others. all that night surrey rode at a breathless gallop, and when morning broke he was dashing past osney abbey into the gates of oxford. exeter came up an hour or two later; the rest followed afterwards. but they did not mean to stop at oxford for more than a few hours’ rest. then they spurred on to cirencester. on reaching the city gate, surrey, with his usual impulsive eagerness, shouted to the constable, “arm for king richard!” the constable, supposing that “the luck had turned,” obeyed; but the next morning brought an archer from henry, who must have discovered or guessed whither the fugitives had gone. surrey received henry’s message and messenger with sovereign contempt; but the constable, finding that henry was still in power, immediately went over to the winning side, and there was a town riot. the peers had taken up their temporary abode in an inn, which was surrounded and besieged by the mob. surrey, impetuous as usual, rushed to the window to address the mob. he was received with a shower of arrows. his friends sprang forward to rescue him; but time and the things of time were over for the young, dauntless, gallant surrey. they could only lay him gently down on the rushes to breathe out his life. it was a sad end. fairest and almost highest of the nobles of england, of royal blood, of unblemished character, of great wealth, and only twenty-five—to die on the floor of an inn, in a mob riot!
but what was to become of the rest? exeter’s fertile brain suggested a way of escape.
“quick—fire the rushes! and then ope the back windows, and drop down into the fosse.”
it is manifest from the circumstances, that the back windows of the inn opened from the town wall upon the ditch which ran round it, and which in all probability was filled with water. john maudeleyn gathered a handful of the rushes, with which he set fire to the room in two or three places. the five who remained—exeter, salisbury, le despenser, and the two maudeleyns,—then dropped down from the window, swam across the fosse, and fled into the fields, where the scattered relics of their own army were advancing to join them. but exeter’s idea had been a shade too brilliant. he frightened by the fire not only his foes, but his friends.
his troops fancied that henry had come up, and was burning cirencester; and, panic-stricken, they dispersed in all directions. the five parted into three divisions, and fled themselves.
they fled to death.
exeter set out alone. his destination was pleshy, whence he meant to escape to france. but the angel of death met him there in the guise of a woman, joan countess of hereford, mother-in-law of henry, and sister of archbishop arundel. she had never forgiven exeter for sitting in judgment on her brother the earl of arundel, and she rested not now till she saw him stretched before her, a headless corpse.
the two maudeleyns went towards scotland. richard was apprehended, and executed. there is good reason to believe that john, escaped, and that it was he who, in after years, personated king richard at the scottish court.
the lollard friends, salisbury and le despenser, determined to attempt their escape together.
for a minute they waited, looking regretfully after exeter: then le despenser said to his squire—
“haste, lyngern!—for cardiff!”
they rode hard all that day—wearily all that night. over hill and dale, fording rivers, pushing through dense forests, threading mountain passes, wading across trackless swamps. town after town was left behind; river after river was followed or crossed; till at last, as the sun was setting, they cantered along the banks of the broad severn, with the towers of berkeley castle rising in the distance.
it was here that salisbury drew bridle.
“’tis no good!” he said. “i can no more. my lord, mine heart misgiveth me that you be wending but to death. had it been the pleasure of the lord that we should escape our enemies, well: but if we be to meet death, let me meet it at home. go you on to your home, an’ it like you; but for me, i rest this night at berkeley, and with the morrow i turn back to bisham.”
le despenser looked sadly in his face. it seemed as though his last friend were leaving him.
“be it as you list, my lord of salisbury,” he said. “only god go with both of us!”
who shall say that he did not, though the road lay through the dark river? for on the other side was paradise.
so the lollard friends parted: and so went salisbury to his death. for he never reached bisham; he only crept back to cirencester, and there he was recognised and taken, and beheaded by the mob.
a weary way lay still before le despenser and bertram. they journeyed over land; and many a welsh mountain had to be scaled, and many a brook forded, before—when men and horses were so exhausted that another day of such toil felt like a physical impossibility—spread before them lay the silver sea, and the sun shone on the grim square towers of cardiff.
“home!” whispered the noble fugitive, slackening his pace an instant, as the beloved panorama broke upon his sight. “now forward, lyngern—home!”
down they galloped wearily to the gates, walked through the town—stopped every moment by demands for news—till at last the castle was reached, and in the base court they alighted from their exhausted steeds. and then up-stairs, to constance’s bower, occupied by herself, the dowager, little richard, and maude. bertram hurriedly preceded his master into the room. the ladies, who were quietly seated at work, and were evidently ignorant of any cause for excitement, looked up in surprise at his entrance.
“please it the lady,—the lord!”
constance rose quickly, with a more decided welcome than she usually vouchsafed to her husband.
“why, my lord! i thought you were in london.”
“what ill hath happed, son?” was the more penetrating remark of the dowager.
“well nigh all such as could hap, madam,” said le despenser wearily. “i am escaped with life—if i have so ’scaped!—but with nought else. and i come now, only to look on your beloved faces, and to bid farewell.—maybe a last farewell, my lady!”
he stood looking into her face with his dark, sad eyes,—looking as if he believed indeed that it would be a last farewell. constance was startled; and his mother’s theories broke down at once, and she sobbed out in an agony—
“o tom, tom! my lad, my last one!”
“you mean it, my lord?” asked constance, in a tone which showed that she was not wholly indifferent to the question.
“i mean it right sadly, my lady.”
“but you go not hence this moment?”
le despenser sank down on the settle like the exhausted man he was.
“this moment!” he repeated. “nay, not so, even for life. i am weary and worn beyond measure. and to part so soon! one night to rest; and then!—”
“my lord, are you well assured of your peril?” suggested constance. “this your castle is strong and good, and your serving-men and retainers many, and the townsmen leal—”
she stopped, tacitly answered by her husband’s sorrowful smile, which so plainly replied, “cui bono?”
“my lady!” he said quietly, “think ye there is this moment a tower, or a noble, or a rood of land, that the duke of lancaster will leave unto us? i cast no doubt that all our lands and goods be forfeit, some days ere now.”
he judged truly enough. on the day of the fugitives’ flight from oxford to cirencester, a writ of confiscation was issued in parliament against every one of them. that was the 5th of january; and this was the evening of the 10th. there was a mournful rear-supper at cardiff castle that night; and no member of the household, except the wearied bertram lyngern, thought of sleep. maude was busied in making up money and jewels into numberless small packages, under the orders of the dowager, to be concealed on the persons of le despenser and his attendant squire. the intention of her master was to take passage on some boat bound for ireland, and thence to escape into scotland or france.
le despenser slept late into the morning—no wonder for a man who had scarcely been out of his saddle for six days and nights. the preparations for the continuation of his flight were nearly completed; but he had not yet been disturbed, when a strange horn was heard outside the fosse of the castle. constance, who had risen early, and was in an excited state of mind, hastily opened a lattice to hear who was the visitor.
“who goes there?” demanded the warder’s deep voice.
“sir william hankeford, justice of the king’s bench, bearing his highness’ warrant. open quickly!”
there could be no question as to his object—the arrest of le despenser. constance breathlessly shut the window, bade maude sweep the little packets of jewellery and coin into her pocket, dashed into her bower, and awoke her still slumbering husband.
“rise, my lord, this instant! harry of bolingbroke hath sent to take you. we must hide you some whither.”
le despenser was almost too tired and depressed to care for apprehension.
“whither, my lady?” he asked hopelessly. “better yield, maybe.”
“niñerias!” (nonsense!—literally, childishness) cried constance hastily, using a word of her mother’s tongue, which she had frequently heard from the lips of doña juana. and springing to the wardrobe in the ante-chamber, she was back in a second, with a thick furred winter gown.
“lo’ you, my lord! lap you in this, and—”
and constance glanced round the room for a safe hiding-place.
“and!”—said le despenser, smiling sadly, but doing as he was requested.
“go up the chimney!” said constance hurriedly. “they will never look there, and there is little warmth in yon ashes.”
she caught up the shovel, and flung a quantity of cinders on the almost extinct fire. the idea was not a bad one. the chimney was as wide as a small closet; there were several rests for the sweep; and at one side was a little chamber hollowed out, specially intended for some such emergency as the present. with the help of the two ladies and maude, le despenser climbed up into his hiding-place.
ten minutes later, sir william hankeford was bowing low in the banquet-hall before the royal lady of the castle, who gravely and very courteously assured him of her deep regret that her lord was not at home to receive him.
“an’ it like you, madam,” returned the acute old judge, “i am bidden of the king’s grace to ensure me thereof.”
“oh, certes,” said constance accommodatingly. “maude! call hither master giles, and bid him to lead my learned and worshipful lord into every chamber of the castle.”
the judge, a little disarmed by her perfect coolness, instituted the search on which he was bound. he turned up beds, opened closets, shook gowns, pinched cushions, and looked behind tapestry. so determined was he to secure his intended prisoner, that he went through the whole process in person. but he was forced to confess at last that, so far as he could discover, cardiff castle was devoid of its master. the baffled judge and his subordinates took their departure, after putting a series of questions to various persons, which were answered without the slightest regard to truth, the replicants being ignorant of any penalty attached to lying beyond confession and penance; and considering, indeed, that in an instance like the present it was rather a virtue than a sin. when they were fairly out of sight, constance went leisurely back to her bower, and called up the chimney.
“now, my good lord, you may descend in safety.”
le despenser obeyed; but he came down looking so like a chimney-sweep that constance, whose versatile moods changed with the rapidity of lightning, flung herself on the bed in fits of laughter. the interrupted preparations were quickly resumed and completed; and when all was ready, and the boatman waiting at the castle pier, le despenser went into the hall to bid farewell to his mother. she was sitting on the settle with an anxious, care-worn look. maude stood in the window; and at the lower end three or four servants were hurrying about, rather restlessly than necessarily.
the old lady rose when her son entered, and her often-repressed love flowed out in unwonted fervour, as she clasped him in her arms, knowing that it might be for the last time.
“our lord be thine aid, my lad, my lad! be true to thy king; but whatso shall befall thee, be truest to thy god!”
“god helping me, so will i!” replied he solemnly.
“and—tom, dearest lad!—is there aught i can do to pleasure thee?”
the tears sprang to his eyes at such words from her.
“mother dear, have a care of my lady!”
“i will, so!” answered the dowager; but she added, with a pang of jealous love which she would have rebuked sorely in another—“i would she held thee more in regard.”
“she may, one day,” he said, mournfully, as if quietly accepting the incontrovertible fact. “i told you once, and i yet trust, that the day may dawn wherein my lady’s heart shall come home to god and me.”
maude remembered those words five years later.
“and now, mother, farewell! i trust to be other-whither ere wednesday set in.”
his mother kissed him, and blessed him, and let him go.
le despenser took his usual leave of the household, with a kind word, as was his wont, even to the meanest drudge; and then he went back to his lady’s bower for that last, and to him saddest farewell of all.
his grave, tender manner touched constance’s impressible heart. she took her leave of him more affectionately than usual.
“farewell, my lady!” he faltered, holding her to his breast. “we meet again—where god will, and when.”
“and that will be in france, ere long,” said constance, sanguinely. “you will send me speedy word of your landing, my lord?”
“you will learn it, my lady.”
why did he speak so vaguely? had he some dim presentiment that his “other-whither” might be jerusalem the golden?
no such hidden meaning occurred to constance. she was almost startled by the sudden flood of pent-up, passionate feeling, which swept all the usual conventionalities out of his way, and made him whisper in accents of inexpressible love—
“my darling! my darling! god keep and bless thee! farewell once more—custance!”
they had never come so near to each other’s hearts as in that moment of parting. and the moment after, he was gone.
in the court-yard little richard was running and dancing about under maude’s supervision; and his father stayed an instant, to take the child again into his arms and bless him once more. and then he left his castle by the little postern gate which led down to the jetty. there were barges passing up and down the channel, and le despenser’s intention was to row out to one of those bound for ireland, and so prosecute his voyage. he wore, we are told, a coat of furred damask; and carried with him a cloak of motley velvet. the term “motley” was applied to any combination of colours, from the simplest black and white to the showiest red, blue, and yellow. in the one portrait occurring in creton’s life-like illuminations, which i am disposed to identify with that of le despenser, he wears a grey gown, relieved by very narrow stripes of red. perhaps it was that identical cloak or gown which hung upon the arm of bertram lyngern, just outside the postern gate.
“nay, good friend!” objected le despenser, with his customary kindly consideration. “i have wearied thee enough these six days. master giles shall go with me now.”
“my lord,” replied bertram, deferentially, yet firmly, “your especial command except, we part not, by your leave.”
le despenser acquiesced with a smile, and both entered the boat. when davy the ferryman returned, an hour later, he reported that his master had embarked safely on a barge bound for ireland.
“then all will be well,” said constance lightly.
“god allowing!” gravely interposed the old lady. “there be winds and waves atween cardiff and ireland, fair daughter.”
did she think only of winds and waves?
no news reached them until the evening of the following thursday. they had sat down to supper, about four o’clock, when the blast of a horn outside broke the stillness. the lady le despenser, whom the basin of rose-water had just reached for the opening washing of hands, dropped the towel and grew white as death.
“jesu have mercy! yonder is master lyngern’s horn!”
“he is maybe returned with a message, lady,” suggested father ademar, the chaplain; but all eyes were fixed on the door of the hall until bertram entered.
the worst apprehensions which each imagination could form took vivid shape in the minds of all, when they saw his face. so white and woe-begone he looked—so weary and unutterably sorrowful, that all anticipated the news of some heavy and irreparable calamity, from which he only had escaped alone to tell them.
“where left you your lord, master lyngern?”
it was the dowager who was the first to break the spell of silence.
“madam,” said bertram, in a husky, faltering voice, “i left him not at all—till he left me.”
he evidently had some secret meaning, and he was afraid to tell the awful truth at once. constance had risen, and stood nervously grasping the arm of her state chair, with a white, excited face; but she did not ask a question.
“speak the worst, bertram lyngern!” cried the old lady. “thy lord—”
it seemed to bertram as if the only words that would come to his lips in reply were two lines of an inscription set up in many a church, and as familiar to all present as any hackneyed proverb to us.
“‘pur ta pité, jésu, regarde, et met cest alme en sauve garde.’”
there was an instant’s dead silence. it was broken by the mother’s cry of anguish—
“tom, tom! my lad, my last lad!”
“drowned, master lyngern?” asked a score of voices.
bertram tacitly ignored the question. he walked languidly up the hall, and dropping on one knee before the princess, presented to her a sapphire signet-ring—the last token sent by her dead husband. constance took it mechanically; and bertram, going back to his usual seat, filled a goblet with gascon wine, and drank it like a man who was faint and exhausted.
“sit, master lyngern, and rest you,” pursued the dowager; “but when you be refreshed, give us to wit the rest.”
the tone of her voice seemed to say that the worst which could come, had come; and the dreadful fact known, the details mattered little.
bertram attempted to eat, but almost immediately he pushed away his trencher, and regardless of etiquette, laid his forehead upon his arm on the table.
“i cannot eat! and how shall i speak what i must say? i would have died for him.” then, suddenly lifting his head, he spoke quickly, as if he wished to come at once to the end of his miserable task. “noble ladies, my lord of salisbury is beheaden of the rabble at cirencester, and my lord of exeter at pleshy; and men say that lord richard the king lieth dead at pomfret, and that god wot how.”
constance spoke at last, but in a voice not like her own.
“god doom henry of bolingbroke!”
the words, if repeated, might have doomed her; but she feared no man.
that evening, bertram told the details of that woeful story.
the barge-master whom they had accosted was sailing westwards, and he readily agreed to take le despenser and his suite over to ireland. somewhat too readily, bertram thought; and he feared treachery from the first. when the boat had pulled off to some distance, the barge-master asked to what port his passengers wished to go. he was told that any irish port on the eastern coast would suit them; and he then altered his tone, and roughly refused to carry them anywhere but to bristol. the man’s evil intentions were manifest now; and le despenser, drawing his sword, sternly commanded him to continue his voyage to ireland, if he valued his life. the barge-master’s only reply was a low signal-whistle, in answer to which twenty men, concealed in the hold, sprang on deck and overwhelmed the little band of fugitives. the barge then put about for bristol, and on landing, the noble captive was delivered by the treacherous barge-master into the custody of the mayor. that officer put him in close prison, and despatched a fleet messenger to henry to inquire what should be done with him. but before the answer arrived, the capture became known in bristol, and a clamorous mob assembled before the castle. the mayor, to his credit, did his best to resist the rabble, and to save his prisoner; but the mob were stronger than authority. they carried the gates, rushed pell-mell into the castle, and dragged the captive forth into the market-place. and then bertram saw his master again—a helpless prisoner, in the hands of a furious mob, among whom several priests were active. as he appeared, there was a great shout of “traitor!” and a few cries, lower yet more terrible, of “heretic!” they dragged him to the block erected in the midst of the market-place, by which stood the public executioner. le despenser saw unmistakably that his last hour had come; and he had not been so far from anticipating that closing scene, that he was unprepared for its coming.
“sir,” he said, turning to the executioner with his ordinary courtesy, “i pray you of your grace to grant me time for prayer, and strike not ere”—touching his handkerchief—“i shall let this fall.”
the executioner, a quiet, practical man, unpossessed by the fury of the mob, promised what was asked of him. meantime bertram lyngern contrived to squeeze himself inch by inch through the crowd, until at last he stood beside his master.
“ah, my trusty squire!” was the prisoner’s greeting. “look you—have here my signet, which with master mayor’s gentle allowing, you shall bear unto my lady.”
the mayor nodded permission. he was vexed and ashamed.
“farewell, good friend,” resumed le despenser, with a parting grasp of his squire’s hand. “be sure to tell madam my mother that i died true to god and the king—and say unto my lady that my last thought was of her.”
then he knelt down to commune with god. but he asked for no priest; and when they saw it, the cries of the mob became fiercer than ever.
“traitor!” and “heretic!” were roared from every part of the vast square.
le despenser rose, and faced his enemies.
“i am no traitor to my true king, and no heretic to the living god!” he cried earnestly. “i was ever a true man to god, and to the king, and to my lady: touching which ye are not my judge, but god.”
his voice was drowned by another roar of execration. then he knelt again—and the handkerchief fell. but just as the executioner raised his arm—
“just ere the falling axe did part
the burning brain from the true heart—”
one word trembled on the dying lips—“custance!”
in another minute, lifting the severed head by its dark auburn hair, the executioner shouted to the sovereign mob—“this is the head of a traitor!”
“thou liest!” broke in a low fierce whisper from bertram lyngern.
“i wis that, master!” returned the poor executioner.
he was not the first man, nor the last, who has been required to pronounce officially what his conscience individually refused to sanction.
the severed head was sent to london, a ghastly gift to the usurper. it was set up on london bridge, beside that of exeter. the body was carried into the castle, saved by the mayor from insult; and a few days afterwards they bore it by slow stages to tewkesbury abbey, and laid him in his father’s grave.
surrey and exeter died for their king alone. but it was only half for king richard that salisbury and le despenser died; and the other half was for the word of god, and for the testimony of jesus christ. they were both hereditary lollards and chiefs of the lollard party; and they were both beheaded, not by henry’s authority, but by a priest-ridden mob. and at that bar where the cup of cold water shall in no wise lose its reward, surely such semi-martyrdom as that day beheld at bristol will not be forgotten before god.
note 1.
“jesu, in thy dear love behold,
and set this soul in thy safe fold.”
these lines were spoken by the figure called “pity,” in the painting termed the “five wells” or wounds of christ.
