Under One Sceptre or Mortimer's Mission: The Story of the Lord of the Marches, Page 2

  *THE LORD OF THE MARCHES.*

  *CHAPTER I.*

  *THE TWO BEGIN THEIR JOURNEY.*

  "O guide me through this life's uncertain wild! And for aught else beneath the circling sun, So Thou in Thine own bosom keep Thy child, Father! Thy will be done!"

  That every baby enters the world with a spoon of some metal in itsmouth, is an old saying which is easy of interpretation. And in theancient town of Usk, in Monmouthshire, on the first day of September,1373, were born two babies, not many yards apart, whose spoons were madeof exceedingly diverse metal.

  The baby who was born in the morning of that day, in the Castle of Usk,brought with him a spoon of gold, beautifully embossed, and exquisite inshape. He found the world--as represented by the mantle in which hisnurse enveloped him--soft, rich, velvety, and fur-lined. If he cried,the sound won immediate attention; and the faintest sign of illness onhis part struck despair into hearts which beat with the bluest blood.

  The baby who was born in the evening, in a squalid mud hovel, one of adozen which nestled close under the Castle wall, was accompanied by abattered old spoon of the very rustiest iron. His world was asheepskin, extremely dirty, and not particularly fragrant. His crieswere answered--when they were answered--by a rough toss in the arms ofhis eldest sister, a slipshod, shock-headed girl of eleven years; andthe possibility of his early death neither dismayed nor grieved any one,for even his mother was of opinion that he was one too many in thehovel, which could scarcely find room for the nine persons who occupiedit.

  Baby Number One was baptized in the chapel of the Castle, borne in hisvelvet wrapper by a lady of title, with the accompaniment of sweet musicand joyous bells. His sponsors were a bishop, an abbot, and a prioress.He received the family name of Roger; for a hundred and fifty yearsback, the heirs of that family had been Rogers and Edmunds alternately,and it was the turn for the former. Roger Mortimer--an ominous name!For this boy was the heir of the earldom of March, one of the proudestcoronets of England; and his mother, a fair girl of eighteen, was aPrincess of the Blood.

  Baby Number Two was christened in the parish church, one of a batch often, and might not have been christened at all if the curate had notbeen one who looked sharply after his baptismal fees. He received thename of Lawrence, which was the first that occurred to his parents.Very naturally protesting in his baby style against a sprinkling withcold water, he was tumbled with no particular care into the thin arms ofMariot, who rewarded him with a private shake for his vocal performance,the only music which accompanied the ceremony. As to surname, he couldnot be said to have any. What did the son of a serf want with asurname? As he grew older, however, some distinction between him andother Lawrences being felt desirable, his neighbours took to calling himLawrence Madison, or son of Maud,--his mother being a woman with atongue, and as such a more prominent character than her quiet and silenthusband.

  The family physician, Master Gilbert Besseford, carefully drew out thehoroscope of the young Lord. It appeared from this elaborate documentthat he was to be a highly accomplished and intellectual youth, sinceMercury was busy about him; that he would be most fortunate in wedlock,for Venus was doing something; that he would rise to the highest honoursof the State, and might possibly achieve a crown, as Jupiter was mostbenevolently disposed to him. At any rate, something was to happenabout his twenty-fifth birthday, which would place him in a positionthat none of his fathers had equalled. He would have a long life and ahappy one.

  Two items of the horoscope were true. He was to be indeed anintellectual and accomplished youth: and in his twenty-fifth year acrown was to be his, to which few of his fathers had attained. Butthose around him thought of a corruptible crown, and that which God hadprepared for him was an incorruptible. And the happy wedlock, and thelong life, and the rise to worldly honour, were not the portion of RogerMortimer, but of Lawrence Madison in the hovel below.

  That Roger should exercise in the future considerable influence over thefortunes of Lawrence, was extremely probable; since they would some daystand to each other in the relations of master and vassal, and theformer possessed absolute power over the latter. But the idea thatLawrence could in any sense sway the fortunes of Roger would have beenlaughed to scorn by the household at the Castle. Yet this was to be.

  In a small, but very prettily furnished boudoir in one of the Castleturrets, sat the Countess Dowager of March. She was considered anelderly woman, though we should think her only middle-aged; for in thedays of our shorter-lived forefathers, who looked upon fifty as old age,and sixty as advanced senility, a woman of forty was some way down thehill. From a father whose character stood high both as warrior andstatesman, and a mother whose remarkable wisdom and good sense were aproverb among her contemporaries, Philippa Montacute had inherited acharacter of unusual power, moral and mental. Her energy was tempered byher prudence, while warm affections and shrewd common sense held swaytogether over her actions. The character was not transmitted, except inthe affections, to that handsome, eloquent, amiable young man ofone-and-twenty, who was the only one left living of her four children:but it was to be reproduced in every point save one, in the babygrandson for whose birth the chapel bells were ringing melodiously, andin whose honour all the thralls were to have a holiday the next day.Alas, that the omitted item was the one which should have been a girdleto all the rest! Warm-hearted, energetic to impulsiveness, with plentyof good sense and fine understanding, the gifts bestowed on little Rogerdid not include prudence.

  The Countess sat alone in her bower in the September twilight, and took"blind man's holiday," her imagination and memory scanning both thefuture and the past.

  It was not quite dark when the door of the bower opened, and a woman ofsome thirty years came forward, dropping a courtesy as she approachedher mistress.

  "Come in, Wenteline," said the Countess; for thus the medieval Englishpronounced the old British name, Guenllian. "Is David yet back from hiserrand?"

  "An't please your Ladyship, he came but now, and he brings tidings,agreeably to your Ladyship's pleasure, that among the thralls be twobabes to-day born. Maud, the wife of Nicholas in the huts, hath aman-child; and your Ladyship's god-daughter, Philippa, wife of Blumondthe fishmonger, a maid-child."

  "Good," answered the Countess, feeling for the gold and ivory tabletwhich hung by a silver chain from her girdle, that she might thereinenter the information for which she had sent. "Then, as born on thebirthday of the heir, they shall be allowed some privileges. What namesare the babes christened by?"

  "Please it your Ladyship, the little maid is Beatrice--so baptized byDan Robesart this afternoon. For the knave, being born but an hourback, he is not yet baptized; but they think to call him Lawrence."

  Both names went down on the Countess's tablet, after Guenllian hadlighted a candle for that purpose.

  "Did David give the thralls to wit of the games and rejoicings allowedto-morrow?"

  "Ay, my Lady: and he saith one and all were greatly gladded thereby. Myyoung Lord shall be right welcome to all his vassals some day to be."

  The Countess drew a long breath of semi-apprehension. "May he be nonethe less desired, God grant, when they shall lay his head beneath themould! O my maid, how great and awesome a thing is the life of a man onearth!"

  "Madam, I heard once the parson of Ludgarshal, Dan John, to say"----

  "Have on. A good man is Dan John. What said he?"

  "That our Lord bound Him to care for the childer of them that fearedHim; and that no prayer so made should ever be lost."

  "But how answered?" was the low-toned reply. "Wenteline, our prayers besometimes heard in a manner that crusheth the heart of him that prayedthem. If the babe were to die!"

  "Very dear Lady, it might be, elsewise, that a twenty years' spacehereafter, you should heartily wish that he had died the sooner. Surelyit can be no evil thing for a little child to go right to God, while heis yet
lapped about with the white robes of his chrisom."

  "I have buried three, Wenteline: and of them one went so. The otherwere pretty little childer that prattled at my knee. And it was likeburying a piece of mine own heart to part with every one."

  "Yet now, my Lady--would you have them back now?"

  "Know I what I would? Surely it is better for them. And may God's willbe done. Only to-night, Wenteline--to-night, holding that little babe,the thought came sorrowfully of my Roger, and how he faded from me likea white flower of the earth, or a star that goes out in the sky. Handme yonder French Bible, Wenteline. Let me read a little touching theCity where my childer dwell, and the King unto whose presence they begone. May be it shall still my yearning when I think of them as there,and not here."

  There were no Bibles at that date but in French or Latin; seven yearswere yet to elapse before John Wycliffe, to whom Guenllian had justreferred, was to begin the translation of the first English Bible. ButFrench Bibles and Latin Psalters were no unusual possession of noblefamilies. Those families who were not noble were expected to get toheaven without any; for one of the most singular medieval ideas was thatwhich restricted all intellect to those of noble blood. Blood andbrains went together. If a man had not the former, it was out of allcalculation that he should possess the latter.

  Guenllian reached down from a high shelf the French Bible, bound in darkgreen velvet, with golden rims and embossed corners, and amethystsgleaming from every corner. The Countess unfastened the clasps, andturned to the last chapters of the book. She read, to herself andGuenllian, of the Golden City and the River of Gladness and the Tree ofLife, until the world seemed to grow small and dim, and the world'sconventionalities to become very poor and worthless. And then, turninga little further back, she read of the Good Shepherd who calleth Hisflock by name, and leadeth them out; and they know His voice, and followHim. Then the golden clasps were closed, and the lady sat in silencefor a few moments.

  "Wenteline," she said, "we have tried to follow the Shepherd, thou andI, in the sunlit plains. Thinkest thou thy feet would fail if we comeby-and-by to the arid slopes of the stony hills?"

  Guenllian looked down, and nervously played with her chatelaine. "Icannot tell, an' it like my Lady. You look not for such troubles,Madam?"

  "They that be sure of Satan's enmity had best look for trouble," was thepithy answer. "It is not here--yet. But it may be."

  And it was to be. But it came not until Philippa Montacute was safe inthe shelter of the Golden City, and under the shade of the Tree of Life.Then it broke fiercely on the unsheltered heads of those on the stonyslope, and the baby that lay that day in the velvet wrapper came in forsome drops of the thunderstorm.

  The children in the Castle and in the hovel grew and thrived. They wereboth pretty, but had Lawrence Madison been kept as clean and dressed asnicely as the little Lord, he would have been the prettier of the two.As he grew old enough to take note of things, to tumble about on thesheepskin at the door, while his mother and Mariot attended to theirduties within, and to listen and talk, a great ambition arose in hisyoung heart. He did not envy the young heir at the Castle: an idea solofty and preposterous never suggested itself for an instant. Lawrencewould as soon have thought of grumbling because he was not an archangel,as because he was not my Lord Roger of March. But he did indescribablyadmire and envy the fishmonger across the street. He had a whole coat,and a clean apron; he looked like a man who always had plenty of nicethings to eat, and a fire to warm himself by in cold weather. And thefishes were so beautiful! Lawrence had crept across the street andlooked up at their lovely prismatic scales, as they lay in the basketslevel with his head. He had seen Blumond's wife as she came to the doorwith her child in her arms. Little Beatrice was kept cleaner and nicerthan he was. Why did not Mother give him nice things to wear like hers?And why, that evening when she and Father were talking aboutsomething--what were they talking about?--did Father look across atLawrence, and say, with a lowered brow and a sulky tone quite unusualwith him, something about letting a freeman manage for himself, and notbe beholden to a villein? Now that he thought about it--and Lawrencewas given to thinking about things--Father did seem more cross with himthan the others. What had he done?

  After many long cogitations on this and other puzzles, of which nobodyknew, since he kept them all to himself, Lawrence finished by astoundinghis world.

  Lawrence's world was very small, for it was bounded by a few yards ofthe street at its widest extent. The inner circle of this sphere,namely, the hovel, was built of mud and wooden laths, and was aboutfifteen feet in longitude. Separate rooms were an unimaginable luxury.Nine persons--Lawrence's father, mother, and grandmother, his twobrothers, three sisters, and himself--ate, slept, and mostly worked, inthe one chamber which formed the whole of the hut. There were alsoadditional inhabitants in the shape of two cats, three hens, and a smalland lively pig. It was not easy to move without falling over somebody orsomething which was apt to resent it in a way not suggestive of polishedsociety. Perhaps it was quite as well, considering these circumstances,that the space was not cumbered with much furniture. Alike of bedsteads,chairs, and tables, the hut was entirely guiltless, and the inhabitantswould scarcely have known what to do with them. A bundle of strawlittered down in a corner, with a sheepskin thrown over it, was theiridea of the utmost luxury in the way of sleeping accommodation--a luxurywhich they could rarely attain: and the ordinary bed was one of dryleaves from the neighbouring forest, which, when they were able to reachsuch a pitch of comfort, were stuffed into a sack. A long form, setagainst the wall, represented the chair element, and was reserved forthe elders, the children squatting on the mud floor with the pig, cats,and hens. The minds of the inhabitants had not reached the table idea.

  Nicholas, the father of Lawrence, was by trade a tanner--not amaster-tanner by any means. He worked for a man who in his turn workedunder another, and all were serfs, at the Earl's tan-pits, a mile fromthe city. Maud, his wife, was the daughter of another serf, theblacksmith who shoed the Earl's horses. To all these the Lord of Uskwas a sort of minor divinity, almost too far above them to be thought ofas a human creature like themselves, and much too inaccessible for anycomplaints or requests to reach him, except through the medium of adozen persons at least. People of this kind were not expected to haveany manners, beyond the indispensable one of making the most obsequiousreverences to the meanest dweller in the Castle, or to a priest. Thesailor's pithy description of the savages with whom he met--"Manners,none; customs, nasty"--were in most cases only too descriptive of themedieval villein.

  Does not this manner of life among the lower orders, five hundred yearsago, account for much of the power obtained by the priesthood, and theblind obedience with which the people followed the clergy? The priestwas something more to the masses than he was to the aristocracy. To thelatter, he was the man who stood between them and God: to the former, hewas also the mediator between man and man. He was the only person amongthe upper ranks who treated these poor down-trodden creatures, not asmachines out of which so much profit was to be ground, but as men andwomen with human sins and sorrows.

  The children saw very little of their father. He went to work as soonas it was light, and often did not return before they were fast asleepon the leaves. They saw only too much of their mother, whose tongue wasnever still when awake, and was governed by a cross temper and adiscontented mind. The grandmother was an old woman bent by rheumatism,and enfeebled by years of hard work and hard usage. The girls, Mariot,Emmot, and Joan, had nothing to look forward to but similar lives, andafter them--they hardly knew what. They had a dim notion that there wasa pleasant place where some people went at death, and where nobody didany work: this was derived from the priests. They had also a notion,dug up out of the natural soil of the human heart, that having met withvery little comfort in this life, it was sure to be waiting for them inthe next. Of God their principal idea was that He was a very great andrich man, above even my L
ord, and was in some mysterious mannerconnected with hearing mass. The boys might expect the serf's usuallife--hard work and many blows, with such intervals of pleasure as ananimal would be capable of appreciating, chiefly connected with eatingand drinking, an occasional dance or game on the village green onsaints' days, and any rough horse-play among themselves.

  They were not badly off in respect of food, for their master fed them,and it was to his profit that they should be in good bodily condition.They had therefore, plenty of food of the coarsest kind, and sufficientclothing of the same quality, which they had about as much notion ofkeeping clean as a monkey has of writing letters. Wages, of course,were never heard of between master and serf. Whatever they needed had tobe reported to their superior in office, and they received it if andwhen he found it convenient.

  Is it not a singular fact that the less a man has, the more contented heis often found to be? The majority of these serfs, thus comfortlesslysituated, were more contented men than their descendants, who haveprivileges and possessions of which they never dreamed, and many of whomare never satisfied with them.

  These were the circumstances in which Lawrence was placed, and such werethe persons whom he astonished when his time came to do so.

  "Get out of the way, childer!" said Mariot one night, not crossly, butlike the tired girl she was, as she came and threw herself down on thesheepskin among them at the door. "I am weary as a dog. There never isany pleasure in life--our lives, anywise. Simon, have done!--and Emmot,give o'er pushing. Let a body have a bit of rest, do!"

  And rolling one corner of the sheepskin into a bolster, Mariot madeherself comfortable--as much so, that is, as the circumstances admitted.

  "Mariot, what is a villein?"

  "What's _what_?" exclaimed Mariot, her head coming up in astonishment."Lo' you now, if Slow-o'-Words hasn't found his tongue!"

  "What's a villein, Mariot?"

  "What we all are--saving thee, little plague o' my life."

  "Why amn't I like you?" said Lawrence, opening his eyes wide.

  "The deer knows!" replied Simon grumpily.

  "Well, but I know beside the deer," said Mariot. "Well, what for but byreason thou wert born on the same day as the young Lord up yonder,--thouand Blumond's Beattie--and ye were both made free therefor."

  "What's _free_, Mariot?"

  "It means, do what you will."

  "Does it so? May I have one of those fishes, then?"

  "Oh, well--it means not, do ill and thieve. Wait a bit, Lolly, tillthou art grown bigger, and thou wilt know what free means--better thanever we are like to know it."

  "Why isn't everybody free, Mariot?"

  "What wot I? They aren't."

  "Is Beattie free too?"

  "Ay."

  "But we were _made_ free. Is nobody free that isn't made?"

  "Lots of folks."

  "Then why isn't everybody?" repeated little Lawrence meditatively.

  "Oh, give o'er, and reive not my head!" cried Mariot. "Loll, if thougoest about to ask questions that none can answer, I shall want theedumb again I promise thee."

  "Can't nobody answer them? Couldn't the parson?"

  "The parson, in good sooth! The like of thee to ask questions at theparson! Shut thine eyes, and go to sleep: I'm as sleepy as a squirrelin winter."

  Lawrence crept on his hands and knees to the edge of the sheepskin,avoiding his brother Simon, who lay on his face in the middle of it,amusing himself by kicks up at the atmosphere: and looking out into thestill summer evening, saw Blumond's wife Philippa carrying in thebaskets of fish, and little Beatrice trotting beside her. Prettiest ofthe three children was Beatrice, with dainty little ways which wokeLawrence's admiration, and made her a perpetual attraction to him. Infact, he hardly knew which he liked best, Beatrice or the fishes!

  As to the magnificent people in the Castle, Lawrence barely presumed tolift his eyes to them. Now and then, as he sat on the sheepskin, somesquire on horseback or messenger on foot would flash past in the Earl'slivery--blue and gold, guarded with white--who was to the children inthe huts as good as a show at Whitsuntide Fair. But before Lawrence wasquite two years old, the Castle was deserted, and the Earl and all hisfamily had removed to Ludlow. Thence came rumours from time to time oftheir doings. A daughter was born, in honour of whom a holiday wasgiven to the villeins; and two years later, a son, for whom they had agreat feast. But immediately after that came sadder news, for the royalmother, yet only twenty-two, survived her boy's birth scarcely sixweeks. All the bells of Usk tolled in mourning, catafalques of blackand silver were in every church, and the chant of doleful litanies forthe dead floated through the perfumed aisles. And after the death ofthe young Countess, the Earl and Countess Dowager returned no more toUsk; for two years later, the Earl was made Viceroy of Ireland, andremoved thither, while his mother and children remained at Wigmore.

  The connection between England and Ireland had hitherto been disastrousto both parties. Had the Pope intended by his gift of that island topunish all the royal dynasty for their sins, past and future, he couldnot have succeeded better; and had he desired to visit on the Green Islethe penalty for all her crimes, he could scarcely have devised a sorerpunishment than the infliction of such rulers as England sent her forseveral hundred years. The conquerors and the conquered understood eachother as little as Celt and Teuton commonly do: and what was stillworse, they did not try to do so. The English notion of governing wasfirst to kill off the Irish chieftains, and then to divide the landamong a quantity of Norman adventurers whose capacity for "land-hunger"was something remarkable. When Earl Edmund of March assumed thegovernment, it was only seventeen years since the passing of the Statuteof Kilkenny, which forbade marriage between the English and the Irish,and commanded the use of the English language and customs on pain ofdeath. Even Lionel, Duke of Clarence, who was considered one of thegentlest of men, had, as his first step on landing in Ireland, forbiddenany Irishman to approach his camp. His son-in-law was a wiser man.There was Irish blood in his own veins--in small proportion to theEnglish, it is true; still, he was the descendant of an Irish King, andthe pedigree-loving Celts were not likely to forget it. He began byshowing a strong hand upon the reins, and in six months had Ireland athis feet. Then he laid aside whip and spur, and permitted his naturalcharacter to take its course. The result was that he became exceedinglypopular, as a ruler usually is in Celtic nations who ordinarily exhibitshimself in an amiable light, and yet shows that he has power, and canuse it when required. Earl Edmund shut himself up from no one. AnyIrishman who pleased could have access to him at any time, and hisnative eloquence recommended him strongly to their easily touchedfeelings. But his beneficent reign did not last long, and perhaps hisshort tenure of power was quite as well for his popularity. Humannature, in all countries, is apt to become accustomed to kindness, andto take advantage of it. And doubtless the Earl's popularity was partlydue to the fact that he succeeded rulers harsher and less attractivethan himself.

  One great disadvantage on the part of England was that while sherealised to the full the inferior civilisation of the Irish, she failedto discover that they possessed a faith purer than her own. The trueold and Catholic religion implanted by St. Patrick and others of histype had received far less corruption from Rome than the religion ofEngland. But the English were much more concerned in improving themanners of the Irish nobles than in improving their own spirituality.That an Irish king wore no trousers, and that his attendant minstrelshared his plate and glass, struck them infinitely more than thecondition of his morals. When once they had satisfied themselves thatthe Irish believed in the Triune God, and had heard of the existence ofa Bishop at Rome who was the Pontiff of Western Christendom--pointsapparently of equal importance to them--they gave themselves no furthertrouble on the religious question. Political and social questions camenearer and pressed more heavily.

  With the usual individuality of our race, they resented the use of aseparate language, to which t
he Irish, as individual in their way, clungas for very life. If, instead of trying to suppress the venerable andbeloved tongue, England had given Ireland an open Bible in it--if shehad insisted on the study of Holy Writ, and had left the manners to takecare of themselves under its influence, what a different future theremight have been!

  Are we still as blind as five hundred years ago, or shall we some daysee that peace for Ireland, as for every other land and soul, must comethrough the teaching of the Spirit, and the blood of the Cross?