Red and White: A Tale of the Wars of the Roses

  *CHAPTER XIII.*

  *THE LAST OF THE SILVER RING.*

  "Past the pearl-gates, through the golden-- When we meet His face who died, Each want full filled, new and olden, We, too, shall be satisfied."

  King Edward quitted England on the twentieth of June, 1475, for apersonal interview with the King of France. At this interview anagreement was entered into between the monarchs for the ransom of theroyal widow who for four years had been pining out her life in Englishprisons. What moved that inscrutable mortal, King Louis, to lay downtwenty thousand crowns in hard cash for the ransom of Marguerite, is oneof those puzzles in psychology which must ever remain perplexities. Itis true that her father, King Rene, was pressing him hard--as hard as itlay in his dreamy artist nature: and it is also true that Louis wasurged--or at any rate professed to be so--by considerations of theoutraged dignity of his own family, to which Marguerite belonged,through her continued imprisonment--a statement which might be true--andby feelings of compassion for a helpless woman--an assertion whichhardly can be so. One of the last men to be moved by sentiments ofpity, particularly towards a woman, was surely Louis XI.

  King Edward was more consistent with himself. He took care to have themoney in his pocket before he permitted Marguerite to escape hisfingers. And, with that intense smallness of soul which--with theexception of King John--was most remarkable in him of all thePlantagenet monarchs, he refused, in his diplomatic negotiations, tobestow upon Marguerite the regal title. Judging from his diction, hewas puzzled what to call her. He hit at last upon her title as aNeapolitan Princess, less than which it might seem impossible to giveher. On the thirteenth of November, 1475, Thomas Thwaytes, knight,received the royal command to deliver "the most serene Lady Margaret,daughter of the illustrious Prince King Rene," to Sir Thomas Montgomery;and the latter was ordered to convey the said lady to "the most serenePrince, Louis of France, our dearest cousin." The ingenious way inwhich King Louis is very civilly described, without admitting his titleto the crown of France, is worth notice. But when the actual deliverycame, it was found that a lower indignity yet was possible for poorMarguerite. She was required to sign a formal renunciation of all rightsand privileges in England which her marriage-settlements had secured toher. In this document no title whatever was given to her. She was noteven recognised as a foreign Princess. The opening words described heras "Margaret, sometime in England married." The words would have trulydescribed every cottager's wife in the kingdom who bore the name ofMargaret--then one of the commonest names in England. But when theinsulting document was laid down before the Queen, she calmly took upthe pen and signed it. What did titles signify to her now? There wasno husband, there was no son, whose rights could be invaded, and whosefeelings could be outraged, by any renunciation of name or dignity onher part. She felt with Valentina of Orleans--"Rien ne m' est plus:plus ne m' est rien!" So she quietly signed her regal "Marguerite,"[#]and by her own act laid down that queenly title which had been so heavyand blood-stained a burden.

  [#] In signing English documents, the Queen spelt her name "Margarete."

  Queen Marguerite survived this action six years, which she spent, solong as her father lived, with him at the Castle of Reculee, nearAngers, and afterwards at Chateau Dampierre, near Saumur. Her last yearswere burdened with the horrible disease of leprosy,[#] supposed to havebeen caused by intense grief. It was on the twenty-fifth of August,1482, at Chateau Dampierre, that she laid down the weary weight of life,and as we would fain believe and surely may be allowed to hope, went tokeep eternal holiday.

  [#] What was meant by leprosy in the Middle Ages is an unsettledquestion. It was evidently a cutaneous disease of some kind, but isgenerally supposed not to have been identical with the oriental leprosyof which we read in Scripture.

  Perhaps, for her, there was no other way into the Garden of God thanthrough that great and howling wilderness. If it were so, how glad asight must the lights of home have been to that storm-wearied voyager!

  This interview between the two Kings had a further pecuniary result--thepayment during some time of an annual sum of L11,000 by France toEngland--a sum which the King of France was careful to term a pension,and which the King of England took equal care to call a tribute. Edwardalso made a further effort to obtain the young Earl of Richmond, who wasthe fly in his ointment: but that wary youth, learning the fact, tookinstant sanctuary, and the effort was in vain.

  The winter of 1475-6 opened with rejoicings for the birth of thePrincess Anne--perhaps the best of the daughters of Edward IV. Shecertainly possessed two qualities enjoyed by few of theothers--lowliness and modesty. The rejoicings were increased a weekafter New Year's Day, when a second royal Anne was born--the only childof the Duchess of Exeter and Sir Thomas St. Leger. She lived to becomethe stock of the Dukes of Rutland: and she transmitted to them, not onlythe property of her mother, but also lands on which she had no equitableclaim--those of the hapless Duke of Exeter. Had there been any rightfeeling in the heart of his wretched widow, she would have bequeathedthose estates to the last of the Holands of Exeter, his sister Anne,Lady Douglas, and they would have descended to her posterity, theNevilles of Raby. She did it not: and she had little time to do it.The baby daughter had scarcely more than entered this troublesome world,ere the soul was required of the Princess Anne of Exeter. She died onthe twelfth or fourteenth of January, 1476. For her an awful accountwaited at the judgment bar.

  In the last month of that year, Isabel Duchess of Clarence was summonedbefore the same Divine tribunal. Her death was a signal misfortune toher husband. Her influence had not been altogether for good, by anymeans, yet such good as had been in it was sorely missed. Clarence hadloved her, and it is doubtful if he ever loved any other creature.After her death he became reckless even beyond his former unscrupulouscondition. Gloucester kept his sinister eyes upon him, ready to takeadvantage of the first political slip which he might make. It came twoyears after Isabel's death. Clarence, who had previously quarrelledwith his brother Edward, was present at a trial of some old women on thecharge of witchcraft, and took the liberty of remonstrating with thejudges on too much haste in condemning the prisoners, as it seemed tohim, without sufficient evidence. Gloucester took advantage of thiscircumstance. He adroitly represented to the King that Clarence hadinterfered with the course of justice, thus taking upon himself aprerogative of the Crown: that there was strong reason to think that hecontemplated a journey to Burgundy, with the view of assisting the Duke,then in hostility to King Edward: that he had many times tried tosupplant his brother. The intensely superstitious Edward was remindedof an old prediction that "G. shall reign after E.,"--and did not Georgebegin with the fated letter? So did Gloucester, but of course my LordDuke omitted that suggestion. He succeeded in frightening Edward into apanic. Clarence was arrested, placed before the Council, and condemnedunheard. He was sentenced to be hanged: but at the intercession of theDuchess Cicely, mother alike of the King and of the criminal, thesentence was commuted to imprisonment in the Tower. Ten days later, inhis dungeon, Clarence was found dead, his head hanging over an open buttof his favourite liquor, malvoisie. Hence arose the popular traditionthat he had been allowed to choose the manner of his death, and that hehad elected to be drowned in a butt of malmsey. In all probability theopen butt had been placed in his cell by order of the brother who sowell knew Clarence's weakness, and hoped by this means to get rid of himwithout any legal responsibility as to his end. So perished the falseand faithless Clarence,--destroyed, like many another, on a meretechnical pretext, when on other counts he had previously meritedexecution a hundred times over.

  The years went on, and after a very short illness, Edward IV. passed tohis own account. After him came the deluge. Events succeeded oneanother with startling rapidity. Only for two months was that grave andgentle boy styled King Edward V. Then came the sudden _coup d' etat_,prepared for during many years, by which Gloucester
seized the crown,and shut up the boy-King in prison. The Queen and Princesses once morefled to sanctuary; the old friends and adherents of Edward, some of whomhad sold their very souls for the White Rose, were sacrificed on themost trifling pretexts: and among them, the best of them all, theupright and honourable Rivers. The boy-King and his brother were putquietly out of the way. The new King made a progress throughout thecountry, from Windsor to York, joined by the Queen at Warwick. One ofthose strange gleams of tenderness which now and then flit across theconduct of Richard III., as though for an instant he paused to listen tothe whispers of his better angel, induced him to spare Anne Neville aroyal progress which would have led her through Tewkesbury. At theclose of the year King Richard was at Westminster, firmly seated on hisblood-stained throne. He might well think, like the Spanish Regent,that he had not a single enemy: for he had shot them all. But he forgotone, yet left on earth: and he forgot one Other, who remaineth for everin Heaven.

  And then his Nemesis began to come upon him. His one cherished childdied "an unhappy death" at Middleham Castle. His wife, once ifselfishly, yet so passionately loved, faded away and died by inches,surviving her boy just twelve months. The terrors of God overwhelmedhim. He was tormented by perpetual apprehensions of conspiracy, anddistracted by nightly visions of horror. And then Richmond landed atMilford Haven, and the climax came. With that personal courage whichwas the best item of his bad character, Richard rushed into the field ofBosworth, "and, foremost fighting, fell."

  So ended the male line of the White Rose. The Red was uppermost atlast. The struggle, with all its untold agony, which had lasted throughthirty years, was over at length, and for ever.

  Some tardy justice was done now. To the poor old Countess of Warwick,starving in the north, her lands were given back, the iniquitous decreewhich had deprived her of them being stigmatised, as it deserved, as"against all reason, conscience, and course of nature, and contrary tothe law of God and man." But not only the pomps and vanities of thiswicked world, but also all covetous desires of the same, had long agofaded from that lonely and weary heart. All whom she had loved were inthe grave, and her heirs were grandchildren whom she had never known,whose father had been her worst enemy, and who were abundantly providedfor without a rood of any land of hers. Just a few pounds while shelived, just a shelter to cover her hoary head, was all that AnneBeauchamp craved for the little rest of life. She resigned all herproperty the same year to the Crown, receiving in exchange the manor ofSutton, in Warwickshire. It was probably there that she died, full ofyears and sorrows, in or shortly before 1493.

  To "Dame Bessy Grey" the Nemesis came too. It is customary to bestowgreat pity on the widow of Edward IV.; and it is true that few womenhave known more crushing sorrow than she. But I think it is toocommonly forgotten how much she had deserved it. She was a mostdesigning woman--the truth was not in her: and she was pitiless to thesorrows of others. In her last years she retired to BermondseyConvent--of her own motion; not, as has been represented, throughcoercion from her son-in-law--and there she died, on the 7th or 8th ofJune, 1493.

  Except in the form of witnessing sorrows borne by his friends, noNemesis ever came to Thomas Grey, now[#] Marquis of Dorset. That formis, to some natures, one of the very bitterest which pain can take: toothers it is absolutely painless. Judging from what is known of hischaracter, it may be surmised that the misfortunes of his friends wouldbe a sorrow borne very philosophically by him. Two years' exile, duringthe short reign of King Richard, was the worst he had to bear forhimself--that is, in this life.

  [#] Created Apr. 18th, 1475. He is said to have been previously madeEarl of Huntingdon, Aug. 4, 1471--the second title of the Duke ofExeter: but I never found one instance when he was so termed on theRolls.

  Notwithstanding his disappointment concerning Agnes, Master Rotherhamkept up his acquaintance with Lovell Tower. He was present when shetook the veil at Godstow, in the summer of 1476; and that she was notthe only attraction he found in the family was proved by the continuanceof his visits. About three years after her profession, Master Rotherhamcame to the conclusion, which he communicated to Lord Marnell, that hisgrief for the loss of Agnes would be considerably alleviated if he mighthave her sister Dorathie. Lord Marnell hesitated: for Dorathie's socialposition, as heiress presumptive to her mother's barony, was verydifferent from that of Agnes. But he consulted the elder ladies, andfound Lady Margery of opinion that a good, sensible man without title orlarge property would be a much better husband for Dorathie than a bad orfoolish man who brought her a coronet and a county.

  "Say you not so, Madam?" she concluded, turning to her mother.

  The Lady Idonia's reply was to call Dorathie to her. She took hergrand-daughter's face in both hands, and looked tenderly at the rosycheeks and the pretty blue eyes, which were those neither of father normother, but which reminded Idonia Marnell, how often no one knew, ofother blue eyes which were dust now in the Abbey of St. Albans.

  "Aye, Madge. It will do," was the short but distinct decision of theold lady.

  So Dorathie Marston became Dorathie Rotherham, and instead of departingto some strange place with her husband, he came to live with her.

  The years went on, until the autumn leaves of 1537 were carpeting thegreen sward, and the wind was blowing keenly through the glades ofWoodstock, and waving the willows that congregate round the Abbey ofGodstow. The period was one which we look back upon as lively andtumultuous: yet to the few aged men and women who could look backfurther yet, to the terrible days of the Roses, it seemed very quiet.Matters had changed greatly since that time. The little printing-pressset up by William Caxton the mercer in the Westminster Cloisters, hadspread its wide wings over all the land: and the monk who, in hisisolated courage, had posted his theses on the door of the church atWittemburg, had spread his skirts over all the world. Men talked busilynow on subjects which they had hardly thought about, fifty years before.Men, aye, and women too, dared to think for themselves. And one of theearliest results of these phenomena was the conclusion that theso-called religious houses had generally ceased to be houses ofreligion, and that the sooner they were done away with the better.

  The state of many of these religious houses was of a kind that simplycannot be described. In them Satan and his angels reigned supreme. Butthere were a few--alas! they were very few--where the vows were reallykept, where learning still had scope, and charity still held sway. Andof female communities, the best of all these was the Abbey of Godstow.

  The smaller houses, of the value of three hundred marks and under, werefirst suppressed. The larger, of which Godstow was one, followed later.Undoubtedly the motives for this proceeding were not pure and unmixed.Every person who joined in it was not actuated by exclusive regard formorality, nor was everybody quite innocent of some respect for thoseconfiscated lands--not to speak of silver vases, gemmed reliquaries, andgold pieces--which, in the general up-breaking, might fall in hisdirection. Perhaps, when we have satisfied ourselves that our ownmotives are on all occasions absolutely unadulterated, we shall be in amore advantageous position to cast stones at the Reformers.

  The suppression of the Abbey of Godstow was close at hand, and the nunshad made arrangements for the lives they meant to lead in future. Suchof them as had relatives living commonly returned to them. A few of theelder ones, who had none, took refuge in the one or two convents oftheir Order which were, reasonably and charitably, allowed to remainuntil the death of the last surviving member. Those who married werevery few, and were decidedly independent of public opinion.

  On a small, but comfortable, pallet-bed in the infirmary of the Abbeylay one nun who needed to make no such provision for future life. Shehad received her invitation to the King's Palace, and she lay waitingfor His messengers to bring His chariot for her. She had otherinvitations too: loving entreaties from the distant wolds of Yorkshire,where Dorathie Rotherham, Baroness Marnell of Lymington, herself an oldwoman of eighty years, was longing to cheer the last
days of her agedand only sister; and scarcely less urgent pressure from far Devonshire,where the Lady Combe, of Combe Abbas, was affectionately desirous tominister to her husband's saintly and venerable aunt. But none of allthese moved Mother Agnes, as she lay in the pallet-bed, waiting for theKing's messengers. Life's fitful fever was over, and the eventide hadcome. For her there was a longer journey, to a better home.

  Outside the infirmary two nuns, an old woman and a middle-aged one, werediscussing some point which evidently disturbed their serenity.

  "Well, it must be, I count," said the younger, who was the Abbessherself. "I am sore afeared it shall be diseaseful to Mother Agnes.Good lack, can they not do the King's gracious pleasure without pokinginto every corner, and counting the threads in every spider's web!Howbeit--Well! go, Sister Katherine, and say that my Lords the King'sCommissioners can ascend now. But I would have thee say to the chief ofthem, whoso it be, that in the infirmary is a very aged and holy sisterthat is nigh to death, and that I pray them of their grace to tread inthat chamber as quiet as may be."

  Sister Katherine departed on her errand, and the Abbess went forwardinto the sick chamber. A few minutes later her messenger rejoined her.

  "My Lords Commissioners speak very fair," said she. "I told the eldestgentleman as you bade me, holy Mother: and he promiseth that only thethree chiefest of them shall come into this chamber, and that they shalltread and speak so quiet as may be."

  "'Tis the best we may look for," responded the Abbess: "but I would itwere well over."

  In about half an hour the footsteps were heard approaching. They rousedthe dying nun, who had been in a dozing condition for some time.

  "What is it, holy Mother?" she said nervously.

  "Dear heart, 'tis but those weary companions, the King's Highness' nobleCommissioners, that must needs see with their own evil eyes how manycandlesticks and phials of physic be of the mantel-shelf," said theAbbess rather irritably. "They know their own business, trow: butverily I would have thought, after reckoning every aglet[#] in thetreasury, and every stick of firewood in the yard, they might have leftus poor nuns be to drink our senna in peace. Dear heart, what work ishere to drive out an handful of old women into this wicked world! Well,well! we shall soon have done therewith, most of us."

  [#] The little silver ring which surrounds lace-holes in boots, stays,&c.

  She ceased her diatribe, for my Lords Commissioners were entering, andstanding up, gave them her blessing--with how much sincerity she was notcareful to state. The three gentlemen bowed low to the mitred Abbess,and seemed half alarmed at their own temerity.

  "Methinks we need not tarry hither," said the chief Commissioner."May-be, holy Sister"--addressing Sister Katherine--"it should standwith your conveniency, under leave of my Lady Abbess, to take note ofsuch furnishings as be in this chamber, and we will accept thesame.--Lead forth, my Lord of Dorset."

  Before this could be done, the further progress of the Commissioners wasintercepted by a weak voice from the pallet bed.

  "My Lord of Dorset!" said Mother Agnes faintly.

  The youngest of the party, a fair-haired, good-looking young man ofabout five-and-twenty, paused and turned to her, as if the name belongedto him.

  "Pray you, of your grace, come one moment hither," she said, speakingwith some difficulty.

  The young Marquis came forward at once, and knelt by the bed of thedying nun, who looked earnestly for some seconds into his face.

  "What kin are you," she asked, "to sometime Queen Elizabeth, whose sonwas Lord of Dorset?"

  "That son was my father's father," answered the young man.

  "So long ago!" said the dying woman. "Young Lord, 'tis but likeyesterday that your father's father was a young man like you. 'Past, asa watch in the night!'"

  Her eyes ran feebly over the handsome features, the clear grey eyes, thenervous twitching of the brow, the good-natured fulness of the lowerlip, the weak, vacillating indecision of the retreating chin. In thosefew seconds, she seemed to read his character.

  "The good Lord's grace be with thee!" said the faint voice at last. "Bethou strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might!"

  Did Henry Grey think of those words, twenty years later, when after alife spent in bondage through fear of death, God gave him grace to breakthrough the trammels of Satan, and to stand bravely out upon Tower Hillto die for Him?

  The Commissioners were gone, to the relief of the Abbess, who mutteredsomething as the door closed after them, which was not the same form ofwords as the benediction with which she had greeted them. The nextmoment she bent down to listen to the weak tones of Mother Agnes.

  "Holy Mother, may I crave a boon of you?"

  "Surely, good my sister," said the testy yet kind-hearted Abbess.

  "Mother, among the gear that came hither with me, must be in thetreasury "--

  Agnes paused for breath.

  "Well, good sister?"

  "A silver ring, set with little rubies in form of a cresset."

  "Aye. What so?"

  "Good Mother, of your grace, give me leave to bear that ring upon myfinger until I go hence."

  The Abbess was sorely exercised by this request. It must imply eitherstrong vanity in the dying nun, or else a most undue attachment toearthly things. Nay, probably, it meant what was still worse--anattachment to earthly persons: a most improper thing in a professed nun!The Abbess hesitated, but the woman's heart in her prevailed, as shelooked into the wistful, dying eyes.

  "My sister, shall I do well if I say aye? Thou wist no holy nun musthave affinity with the world. Who gave thee the ring?"

  "One that hath been dust these sixty years."

  "Well, well! be it so. I trust thee, Sister Agnes. Only remember, thythoughts should be above, not below."

  "Below is the dust only," said Agnes. "What I loved is above."

  The old nun who kept the keys of the treasury found the silver ring, andbrought it to the Abbess. A faint smile greeted the remembered token asit was slipped on the thin hand.

  "Remove it not, I pray," she said, "until I am not here to care for it.And now suffer me to keep silence, for I would commune with God."

  The hand that bore the ring was laid upon her breast, with the otherhand crossed over it. Two hours passed, and she never stirred.

  "She must lack food now," whispered the Abbess to Sister Katherine.

  Sister Katherine shook her more experienced head.

  "She will eat no more, save of the angels' manna."

  That night, Sister Margaret unlocked the treasury, and restored the rubyring to its place. Agnes Marston cared for it no more.