The Last of the Barons — Complete

  CHAPTER X. HOW THE GREAT LORDS COME TO THE KING-MAKER, AND WITH WHATPROFFERS.

  Mastering the emotions that swelled within him, Lord Warwick returnedwith his wonted cheerful courtesy the welcome of the crowd and theenthusiastic salutation of the king's guard; but as, at length, hemounted his steed, and attended but by the squire who had followed himfrom Dover, penetrated into the solitudes of the chase, the recollectionof the indignity he had suffered smote his proud heart so sorely thathe groaned aloud. His squire, fearing the fatigue he had undergone mighthave affected even that iron health, rode up at the sound of the groan,and Warwick's face was hueless as he said, with a forced smile, "It isnothing, Walter. But these heats are oppressive, and we have forgottenour morning draught, friend. Hark! I hear the brawl of a rivulet, anda drink of fresh water were more grateful now than the daintiesthippocras." So saying, he flung himself from his steed; following thesound of the rivulet, he gained its banks, and after quenching histhirst in the hollow of his hand, laid himself down upon the long grass,waving coolly over the margin, and fell into profound thought. From thisrevery he was aroused by a quick footstep, and as he lifted his gloomygaze, he beheld Marmaduke Nevile by his side.

  "Well, young man," said he, sternly, "with what messages art thoucharged?"

  "With none, my lord earl. I await now no commands but thine."

  "Thou knowest not, poor youth, that I can serve thee no more. Go back tothe court."

  "Oh, Warwick," said Marmaduke, with simple eloquence, "send me not fromthy side! This day I have been rejected by the maid I loved. I loved herwell, and my heart chafed sorely, and bled within! but now, methinks,it consoles me to have been so cast off,--to have no faith, no love,but that which is best of all, to a brave man,--love and faith for ahero-chief! Where thy fortunes, there be my humble fate,--to rise orfall with thee!"

  Warwick looked intently upon his young kinsman's face, and said, as tohimself, "Why, this is strange! I gave no throne to this man, and hedeserts me not! My friend," he added aloud, "have they told thee alreadythat I am disgraced?"

  "I heard the Lord Scales say to the young Lovell that thou wertdismissed from all thine offices; and I came hither; for I will serve nomore the king who forgets the arm and heart to which he owes a kingdom."

  "Man, I accept thy loyalty!" exclaimed Warwick, starting to his feet;"and know that thou hast done more to melt and yet to nerve my spiritthan--But complaints in one are idle, and praise were no reward tothee."

  "But see, my lord, if the first to join thee, I am not the sole one.See, brave Raoul de Fulke, the Lords of St. John, Bergavenny, andFitzhugh, ay, and fifty others of the best blood of England, are on thytrack."

  And as he spoke, plumes and tunics were seen gleaming up the forestpath, and in another moment a troop of knights and gentlemen, comprisingthe flower of such of the ancient nobility as yet lingered round thecourt, came up to Warwick, bareheaded.

  "Is it possible," cried Raoul de Fulke, "that we have heard aright,noble earl? And has Edward IV. suffered the base Woodvilles to triumphover the bulwark of his realm?"

  "Knights and gentles!" said Warwick, with a bitter smile, "is it souncommon a thing that men in peace should leave the battle-axe and brandto rust? I am but a useless weapon, to be suspended at rest amongst thetrophies of Towton in my hall of Middleham."

  "Return with us," said the Lord of St. John, "and we will make Edward dothee justice, or, one and all, we will abandon a court where knaves andvarlets have become mightier than English valour and nobler than Normanbirth."

  "My friends," said the earl, laying his hand on St. John's shoulder,"not even in my just wrath will I wrong my king. He is punished eno'in the choice he hath made. Poor Edward and poor England! What woes andwars await ye both, from the gold and the craft and the unsparing hateof Louis XI! No; if I leave Edward, he hath more need of you. Of mineown free will I have resigned mine offices."

  "Warwick," interrupted Raoul de Fulke, "this deceives us not; and indisgrace to you the ancient barons of England behold the first blow attheir own state. We have wrongs we endured in silence while thou wertthe shield and sword of yon merchant-king. We have seen the ancientpeers of England set aside for men of yesterday; we have seenour daughters, sisters,--nay, our very mothers, if widowed anddowered,--forced into disreputable and base wedlock with creaturesdressed in titles, and gilded with wealth stolen from ourselves.Merchants and artificers tread upon our knightly heels, and the avariceof trade eats up our chivalry as a rust. We nobles, in our greater day,have had the crown at our disposal, and William the Norman dared notthink what Edward Earl of March hath been permitted with impunity to do.We, Sir Earl--we knights and barons--would a king simple in his manhoodand princely in his truth. Richard Earl of Warwick, thou art of royalblood, the descendant of old John of Gaunt. In thee we behold the true,the living likeness of the Third Edward, and the Hero-Prince of Cressy.Speak but the word, and we make thee king!"

  The descendant of the Norman, the representative of the mighty factionthat no English monarch had ever braved in vain, looked round as he saidthese last words, and a choral murmur was heard through the whole ofthat august nobility, "We make thee king!"

  "Richard, descendant of the Plantagenet, [By the female side, throughJoan Beaufort, or Plantagenet, Warwick was third in descent from Johnof Gaunt, as Henry VII., through the male line, was fourth in descent.]speak the word," repeated Raoul de Fulke.

  "I speak it not," interrupted Warwick; "nor shalt thou continue, braveRaoul de Fulke. What, my lords and gentlemen," he added, drawing himselfup, and with his countenance animated with feelings it is scarcelypossible in our times to sympathize with or make clear--"what! think youthat Ambition limits itself to the narrow circlet of a crown Greater,and more in the spirit of our mighty fathers, is the condition of menlike us, THE BARONS who make and unmake kings. What! who of us would notrather descend from the chiefs of Runnymede than from the royal cravenwhom they controlled and chid? By Heaven, my lords, Richard Nevile hastoo proud a soul to be a king! A king--a puppet of state and form; aking--a holiday show for the crowd, to hiss or hurrah, as the humourseizes; a king--a beggar to the nation, wrangling with his parliamentfor gold! A king!--Richard II. was a king, and Lancaster dethroned him.Ye would debase me to a Henry of Lancaster. Mort Dieu! I thank ye. TheCommons and the Lords raised him, forsooth,--for what? To hold him asthe creature they had made, to rate him, to chafe him, to pry into hisvery household, and quarrel with his wife's chamberlains and lavourers.[Laundresses. The parliamentary rolls, in the reign of Henry IV.,abound in curious specimens of the interference of the Commons with thehousehold of Henry's wife, Queen Joan.] What! dear Raoul de Fulke, isthy friend fallen now so low, that he--Earl of Salisbury and of Warwick,chief of the threefold race of Montagu, Monthermer, and Nevile, lord ofa hundred baronies, leader of sixty thousand followers--is not greaterthan Edward of March, to whom we will deign still, with your permission,to vouchsafe the name and pageant of a king?"

  This extraordinary address, strange to say, so thoroughly expressedthe peculiar pride of the old barons, that when it ceased a sound ofadmiration and applause circled through that haughty audience, and Raoulde Fulke, kneeling suddenly, kissed the earl's hand. "Oh, noble earl,"he said, "ever live as one of us, to maintain our order, and teach kingsand nations what WE are."

  "Fear it not, Raoul! fear it not,--we will have our rights yet. Return,I beseech ye. Let me feel I have such friends about the king. Even atMiddleham my eye shall watch over our common cause; and till seven feetof earth suffice him, your brother baron, Richard Nevile, is not a manwhom kings and courts can forget, much less dishonour. Sirs, our honouris in our bosoms,--and there is the only throne armies cannot shake, norcozeners undermine."

  With these words he gently waved his hand, motioned to his squire, whostood out of hearing with the steeds, to approach, and mounting, gravelyrode on. Ere he had got many paces, he called to Marmaduke, who wason foot, and bade him follow him to London that night. "I have strangetidings to tell the
French envoys, and for England's sake I must soothetheir anger, if I can,--then to Middleham."

  The nobles returned slowly to the pavilions. And as they gained the openspace, where the gaudy tents still shone against the setting sun, theybeheld the mob of that day, whom Shakspeare hath painted with suchcontempt, gathering, laughing and loud, around the mountebank and theconjurer, who had already replaced in their thoughts (as Gloucester hadforeseen) the hero-idol of their worship.