CHAPTER XI. THE TOWER IN COMMOTION.
On quitting the Tower, Alwyn regained the boat, and took his way to thecity; and here, whatever credit that worthy and excellent personage maylose in certain eyes, his historian is bound to confess that his anxietyfor Sibyll did not entirely distract his attention from interest orambition. To become the head of his class, to rise to the first honoursof his beloved city of London, had become to Nicholas Alwyn a hope andaspiration which made as much a part of his being as glory to a warrior,power to a king, a Eureka to a scholar; and, though more mechanicallythan with any sordid calculation or self-seeking, Nicholas Alwynrepaired to his ware in the Chepe. The streets, when he landed, alreadypresented a different appearance from the disorder and tumult noticeablewhen he had before passed them. The citizens now had decided what courseto adopt; and though the shops, or rather booths, were carefully closed,streamers of silk, cloth of arras and gold, were hung from the uppercasements; the balconies were crowded with holiday gazers; the ficklepopulace (the same herd that had hooted the meek Henry when led to theTower) were now shouting, "A Warwick!" "A Clarence!" and pouring throngafter throng, to gaze upon the army, which, with the mayor and aldermen,had already entered the city. Having seen to the security of his costlygoods, and praised his apprentices duly for their care of his interests,and their abstinence from joining the crowd, Nicholas then repairedto the upper story of his house, and set forth from his casements andbalcony the richest stuffs he possessed. However, there was his ownshrewd, sarcastic smile on his firm lips, as he said to his apprentices,"When these are done with, lay them carefully by against Edward ofYork's re-entry."
Meanwhile, preceded by trumpets, drums, and heralds, the Earl of Warwickand his royal son-in-law rode into the shouting city. Behind came thelitter of the Duchess of Clarence, attended by the Earl of Oxford, LordFitzhugh, the Lords Stanley and Shrewsbury, Sir Robert de Lytton, and aprincely cortege of knights, squires, and nobles; while, file upon file,rank upon rank, followed the long march of the unresisted armament.
Warwick, clad in complete armour of Milan steel,--save the helmet, whichwas borne behind him by his squire,--mounted on his own noble Saladin,preserved upon a countenance so well suited to command the admiration ofa populace the same character as heretofore of manly majesty and loftyfrankness. But to a nearer and more searching gaze than was likely to bebent upon him in such an hour, the dark, deep traces of care, anxiety,and passion might have been detected in the lines which now thicklyintersected the forehead, once so smooth and furrowless; and his kinglyeye, not looking, as of old, right forward as he moved, cast unquiet,searching glances about him and around, as he bowed his bare head fromside to side of the welcoming thousands.
A far greater change, to outward appearance, was visible in the fairyoung face of the Duke of Clarence. His complexion, usually sanguine andblooming, like his elder brother's, was now little less pale than thatof Richard. A sullen, moody, discontented expression, which not allthe heartiness of the greetings he received could dispel, contrastedforcibly with the good-humoured, laughing recklessness, which had oncedrawn a "God bless him!" from all on whom rested his light-blue joyouseye. He was unarmed, save by a corselet richly embossed with gold. Hisshort manteline of crimson velvet, his hosen of white cloth laced withgold, and his low horseman's boots of Spanish leather curiously carvedand broidered, with long golden spurs; his plumed and jewelled cap;his white charger with housings enriched with pearls and blazing withcloth-of-gold; his broad collar of precious stones, with the order ofSt. George; his general's truncheon raised aloft, and his Plantagenetbanner borne by the herald over his royal head, caught the eyes of thecrowd only the more to rivet them on an aspect ill fitting the triumphof a bloodless victory. At his left hand, where the breadth of thestreets permitted, rode Henry Lee, the mayor, uttering no word, unlessappealed to, and then answering but with chilling reverence and drymonosyllables.
A narrow winding in the streets, which left Warwick and Clarence aloneside by side, gave the former the opportunity he had desired.
"How, prince and son," he said in a hollow whisper, "is it with thisbrow of care that thou saddenest our conquest, and enterest the capitalwe gain without a blow?"
"By Saint George!" answered Clarence, sullenly, and in the same tone,"thinkest thou it chafes not the son of Richard of York, after suchtoils and bloodshed, to minister to the dethronement of his kin and therestoration of the foe of his race?"
"Thou shouldst have thought of that before," returned Warwick, but withsadness and pity in the reproach.
"Ay, before Edward of Lancaster was made my lord and brother," retortedClarence, bitterly.
"Hush!" said the earl, "and calm thy brow. Not thus didst thou speak atAmboise; either thou wert then less frank or more generous. But regretsare vain: we have raised the whirlwind, and must rule it."
And with that, in the action of a man who would escape his own thoughts,Warwick made his black steed demivolte; and the crowd shouted againthe louder at the earl's gallant horsemanship, and Clarence's dazzlingcollar of jewels.
While thus the procession of the victors, the nominal object of all thismighty and sudden revolution--of this stir and uproar, of these shiningarms and flaunting banners, of this heaven or hell in the deep passionsof men--still remained in his prison-chamber of the Tower, a true typeof the thing factions contend for; absent, insignificant, unheeded,and, save by a few of the leaders and fanatical priests, absolutelyforgotten!
To this solitary chamber we are now transported; yet solitary is a wordof doubtful propriety; for though the royal captive was alone, so far asthe human species make up a man's companionship and solace, though thefaithful gentlemen, Manning, Bedle, and Allerton, had, on the news ofWarwick's landing, been thrust from his chamber, and were now in theranks of his new and strange defenders, yet power and jealousy had notleft his captivity all forsaken. There was still the starling in itscage, and the fat, asthmatic spaniel still wagged its tail at the soundof its master's voice, or the rustle of his long gown. And still fromthe ivory crucifix gleamed the sad and holy face of the God, presentalway, and who, by faith and patience, linketh evermore grief tojoy,--but earth to heaven.
The august prisoner had not been so utterly cut off from all knowledgeof the outer life as to be ignorant of some unwonted and important stirin the fortress and the city. The squire who had brought him his morningmeal had been so agitated as to excite the captive's attention, and hadthen owned that the Earl of Warwick had proclaimed Henry king, and wason his march to London. But neither the squire nor any of the officersof the Tower dared release the illustrious captive, or even remove himas yet to the state apartments vacated by Elizabeth. They knew not whatmight be the pleasure of the stout earl or the Duke of Clarence, andfeared over-officiousness might be their worst crime. But naturallyimagining that Henry's first command, at the new position of things,might be for liberty, and perplexed whether to yield or refuse, theyabsented themselves from his summons, and left the whole tower in whichhe was placed actually deserted.
From his casement the king could see, however, the commotion, and thecrowds upon the wharf and river, with the gleam of arms and banners;and hear the sounds of "A Warwick!" "A Clarence!" "Long live good HenryVI.!" A strange combination of names, which disturbed and amazed himmuch! But by degrees the unwonted excitement of perplexity and surprisesettled back into the calm serenity of his most gentle mind and temper.That trust in an all-directing Providence, to which he had schooledhimself, had (if we may so say with reverence) driven his beautiful soulinto the opposite error, so fatal to the affairs of life,--the errorthat deadens and benumbs the energy of free will and the noble alertnessof active duty. Why strain and strive for the things of this world? Godwould order all for the best. Alas! God hath placed us in this world,each, from king to peasant, with nerves and hearts and blood andpassions to struggle with our kind; and, no matter how heavenly thegoal, to labour with the million in the race!
"Forsooth," murmured the king, as, his hands c
lasped behind him,he paced slowly to and fro the floor, "this ill world seemeth buta feather, blown about by the winds, and never to be at rest. Hark!Warwick and King Henry,--the lion and the lamb! Alack, and we are fallenon no Paradise, where such union were not a miracle! Foolish bird!"--andwith a pitying smile upon that face whose holy sweetness might havedisarmed a fiend, he paused before the cage and contemplated hisfellow-captive--"foolish bird, the uneasiness and turmoil without havereached even to thee. Thou beatest thy wings against the wires, thouturnest thy bright eyes to mine restlessly. Why? Pantest thou to befree, silly one, that the hawk may swoop on its defenceless prey?Better, perhaps, the cage for thee, and the prison for thy master. Well,out if thou wilt! Here at least thou art safe!" and opening the cage,the starling flew to his bosom, and nestled there, with its small clearvoice mimicking the human sound,--
"Poor Henry, poor Henry! Wicked men, poor Henry!"
The king bowed his meek head over his favourite, and the fat spaniel,jealous of the monopolized caress, came waddling towards its master,with a fond whine, and looked up at him with eyes that expressed more offaith and love than Edward of York, the ever wooing and ever wooed, hadread in the gaze of woman.
With those companions, and with thoughts growing more and more composedand rapt from all that had roused and vexed his interest in theforenoon, Henry remained till the hour had long passed for his eveningmeal. Surprised at last by a negligence which (to do his jailersjustice) had never before occurred, and finding no response to hishand-bell, no attendant in the anteroom, the outer doors locked asusual, but the sentinel's tread in the court below hushed and still,a cold thrill for a moment shot through his blood.--"Was he left forhunger to do its silent work?" Slowly he bent his way from the outerrooms back to his chamber; and, as he passed the casement again, heheard, though far in the distance, through the dim air of the deepeningtwilight, the cry of "Long live King Henry!"
This devotion without, this neglect within, was a wondrous contrast!Meanwhile the spaniel, with that instinct of fidelity which divines thewants of the master, had moved snuffling and smelling round and roundthe chambers, till it stopped and scratched at a cupboard in theanteroom, and then with a joyful bark flew back to the king, and takingthe hem of his gown between its teeth, led him towards the spot it haddiscovered; and there, in truth, a few of those small cakes, usuallyserved up for the night's livery, had been carelessly left. Theysufficed for the day's food, and the king, the dog, and the starlingshared them peacefully together. This done, Henry carefully replaced hisbird in its cage, bade the dog creep to the hearth and lie still; passedon to his little oratory, with the relics of cross and saint strewedaround the solemn image,--and in prayer forgot the world! Meanwhiledarkness set in: the streets had grown deserted, save where in somenooks and by-lanes gathered groups of the soldiery; but for the mostpart the discipline in which Warwick held his army had dismissed thosestern loiterers to the various quarters provided for them, and littleremained to remind the peaceful citizens that a throne had beenuprooted, and a revolution consummated, that eventful day.
It was at this time that a tall man, closely wrapped in his largehorseman's cloak, passed alone through the streets and gained the Tower.At the sound of his voice by the great gate, the sentinel started inalarm; a few moments more, and all left to guard the fortress weregathered round him. From these he singled out one of the squires whousually attended Henry, and bade him light his steps to the king'schamber. As in that chamber Henry rose from his knees, he saw the broadred light of a torch flickering under the chinks of the threshold; heheard the slow tread of approaching footsteps; the spaniel uttered a lowgrowl, its eyes sparkling; the door opened, and the torch borne behindby the squire, and raised aloft so that its glare threw a broad lightover the whole chamber, brought into full view the dark and haughtycountenance of the Earl of Warwick.
The squire, at a gesture from the earl, lighted the sconces on the wall,the tapers on the table, and quickly vanished. King-maker and king werealone! At the first sight of Warwick, Henry had turned pale, and recededa few paces, with one hand uplifted in adjuration or command, while withthe other he veiled his eyes,--whether that this startled movementcame from the weakness of bodily nerves, much shattered by sickness andconfinement, or from the sudden emotions called forth by the aspect ofone who had wrought him calamities so dire. But the craven's terror inthe presence of a living foe was, with all his meekness, all his holyabhorrence of wrath and warfare, as unknown to that royal heart as tothe high blood of his hero-sire. And so, after a brief pause, and athought that took the shape of prayer, not for safety from peril, butfor grace to forgive the past, Henry VI. advanced to Warwick, whostill stood dumb by the threshold, combating with his own mingled andturbulent emotions of pride and shame, and said, in a voice majesticeven from its very mildness,--
"What tale of new woe and evil hath the Earl of Salisbury and Warwickcome to announce to the poor captive who was once a king?"
"Forgive me! Forgiveness, Henry, my lord,--forgiveness!" exclaimedWarwick, falling on his knee. The meek reproach; the touching words; themien and visage altered, since last beheld, from manhood into age;the gray hairs and bended form of the king, went at once to that proudheart; and as the earl bent over the wan, thin hand resigned to hislips, a tear upon its surface out-sparkled all the jewels that it wore.
"Yet no," continued the earl (impatient, as proud men are, to hurry fromrepentance to atonement, for the one is of humiliation and the other ofpride),--"yet no, my liege, not now do I crave thy pardon. No; but whenbegirt, in the halls of thine ancestors, with the peers of England,the victorious banner of Saint George waving above the throne which thyservant hath rebuilt,--then, when the trumpets are sounding thy rightswithout the answer of a foe; then, when from shore to shore of fairEngland the shout of thy people echoes to the vault of heaven,--thenwill Warwick kneel again to King Henry, and sue for the pardon he hathnot ignobly won!
"Alack, sir," said the king, with accents of mournful yet half-reprovingkindness, "it was not amidst trump and banners that the Son of Godset mankind the exemplar and pattern of charity to foes. When thy handstruck the spurs from my heel, when thou didst parade me through thebooting crowd to this solitary cell, then, Warwick, I forgave thee,and prayed to Heaven for pardon for thee, if thou didst wrong me,--formyself, if a king's fault had deserved a subject's harshness. Rise, SirEarl; our God is a jealous God, and the attitude of worship is for Himalone."
Warwick rose from his knee; and the king, perceiving and compassionatingthe struggle which shook the strong man's breast, laid his hand on theearl's shoulder, and said, "Peace be with thee!--thou hast done me noreal harm. I have been as happy in these walls as in the green parks ofWindsor; happier than in the halls of state or in the midst of wranglingarmies. What tidings now?"
"My liege, is it possible that you know not that Edward is a fugitiveand a beggar, and that Heaven hath permitted me to avenge at once yourinjuries and my own? This day, without a blow, I have regained yourcity of London; its streets are manned with my army. From the councilof peers and warriors and prelates assembled at my house, I have stolenhither alone and in secret, that I might be the first to hail yourGrace's restoration to the throne of Henry V."
The king's face so little changed at this intelligence, that its calmsadness almost enraged the impetuous Warwick, and with difficulty herestrained from giving utterance to the thought, "He is not worthy of athrone who cares so little to possess it!"
"Well-a-day!" said Henry, sighing, "Heaven then hath sore trials yet instore for mine old age! Tray, Tray!" and stooping, he gently patted hisdog, who kept watch at his feet, still glaring suspiciously at Warwick,"we are both too old for the chase now!--Will you be seated, my lord?"
"Trust me," said the earl, as he obeyed the command, having first setchair and footstool for the king, who listened to him with downcasteyes and his head drooping on his bosom--"trust me, your later days,my liege, will be free from the storms of your youth. All chance ofEdward's hostility
is expired. Your alliance, though I seem boastfulso to speak,--your alliance with one in whom the people can confide forsome skill in war, and some more profound experience of the habits andtempers of your subjects than your former councillors could possess,will leave your honoured leisure free for the holy meditations itaffects; and your glory, as your safety, shall be the care of men whocan awe this rebellious world."
"Alliance!" said the king, who had caught but that one word; "of whatspeakest thou, Sir Earl?"
"These missives will explain all, my liege; this letter from my lady theQueen Margaret, and this from your gracious son, the Prince of Wales."
"Edward! my Edward!" exclaimed the king, with a father's burst ofemotion. "Thou hast seen him, then,--bears he his health well, is he ofcheer and heart?"
"He is strong and fair, and full of promise, and brave as hisgrandsire's sword."
"And knows he--knows he well--that we all are the potter's clay in thehands of God?"
"My liege," said Warwick, embarrassed, "he has as much devotion asbefits a Christian knight and a goodly prince."
"Ah," sighed the king, "ye men of arms have strange thoughts on thesematters;" and cutting the silk of the letters, he turned from thewarrior. Shading his face with his hand, the earl darted his keen glanceon the features of the king, as, drawing near to the table, the latterread the communications which announced his new connection with hisancient foe.
But Henry was at first so affected by the sight of Margaret's well-knownhand, that he thrice put down her letter and wiped the moisture from hiseyes.
"My poor Margaret, how thou hast suffered!" he murmured; "these verycharacters are less firm and bold than they were. Well, well!" andat last he betook himself resolutely to the task. Once or twice hiscountenance changed, and he uttered an exclamation of surprise. But theproposition of a marriage between Prince Edward and the Lady Anne didnot revolt his forgiving mind, as it had the haughty and stern temperof his consort. And when he had concluded his son's epistle, full of theardour of his love and the spirit of his youth, the king passed his lefthand over his brow, and then extending his right to Warwick, said, inaccents which trembled with emotion, "Serve my son, since he is thine,too; give peace to this distracted kingdom, repair my errors, press nothard upon those who contend against us, and Jesu and His saints willbless this bond!"
The earl's object, perhaps, in seeking a meeting with Henry so privateand unwitnessed, had been that none, not even his brother, might hearkento the reproaches he anticipated to receive, or say hereafter thathe heard Warwick, returned as victor and avenger to his nativeland, descend, in the hour of triumph, to extenuation and excuse. Soaffronted, imperilled, or to use his own strong word, "so despaired,"had he been in the former rule of Henry, that his intellect, which,however vigorous in his calmer moods, was liable to be obscured anddulled by his passions, had half confounded the gentle king with hisferocious wife and stern councillors, and he had thought he never couldhave humbled himself to the man, even so far as knighthood's submissionto Margaret's sex had allowed him to the woman. But the sweetness ofHenry's manners and disposition, the saint-like dignity which he hadmanifested throughout this painful interview, and the touching graceand trustful generosity of his last words,--words which consummated theearl's large projects of ambition and revenge,--had that effect uponWarwick which the preaching of some holy man, dwelling upon the patientsanctity of the Saviour, had of old on a grim Crusader, all incapablehimself of practising such meek excellence, and yet all moved andpenetrated by its loveliness in another; and, like such Crusader, therepresentation of all mildest and most forgiving singularly stirred upin the warrior's mind images precisely the reverse,--images of armedvalour and stern vindication, as if where the Cross was planted sprangfrom the earth the standard and the war-horse!
"Perish your foes! May war and storm scatter them as the chaff! Myliege, my royal master," continued the earl, in a deep, low, falteringvoice, "why knew I not thy holy and princely heart before? Why stood somany between Warwick's devotion and a king so worthy to command it?How poor, beside thy great-hearted fortitude and thy Christian heroism,seems the savage valour of false Edward! Shame upon one who can betraythe trust thou hast placed in him! Never will I!--Never! I swear it!No! though all England desert thee, I will stand alone with my breast ofmail before thy throne! Oh, would that my triumph had been less peacefuland less bloodless! would that a hundred battlefields were yet leftto prove how deeply--deeply in his heart of hearts--Warwick feels theforgiveness of his king!"
"Not so, not so, not so! not battlefields, Warwick!" said Henry. "Asknot to serve the king by shedding one subject's blood."
"Your pious will be obeyed!" replied Warwick. "We will see if mercy caneffect in others what thy pardon effects in me. And now, my liege, nolonger must these walls confine thee. The chambers of the palace awaittheir sovereign. What ho, there!" and going to the door he threw itopen, and agreeably to the orders he had given below, all the officersleft in the fortress stood crowded together in the small anteroom,bareheaded, with tapers in their hands, to conduct the monarch to thehalls of his conquered foe.
At the sudden sight of the earl, these men, struck involuntarily and atonce by the grandeur of his person and his animated aspect, burst forthwith the rude retainer's cry, "A Warwick! a Warwick!"
"Silence!" thundered the earl's deep voice. "Who names the subject inthe sovereign's presence? Behold your king!" The men, abashed by thereproof, bowed their heads and sank on their knees, as Warwick took ataper from the table, to lead the way from the prison.
Then Henry turned slowly, and gazed with a lingering eye upon the wallswhich even sorrow and solitude had endeared. The little oratory, thecrucifix, the relics, the embers burning low on the hearth, the rudetime-piece,--all took to his thoughtful eye an almost human aspect ofmelancholy and omen; and the bird, roused, whether by the glare of thelights, or the recent shout of the men, opened its bright eyes, andfluttering restlessly to and fro, shrilled out its favourite sentence,"Poor Henry! poor Henry!--wicked men!--who would be a king?"
"Thou hearest it, Warwick?" said Henry, shaking his head.
"Could an eagle speak, it would have another cry than the starling,"returned the earl, with a proud smile.
"Why, look you," said the king, once more releasing the bird, whichsettled on his wrist, "the eagle had broken his heart in the narrowcage, the eagle had been no comforter for a captive; it is these gentlerones that love and soothe us best in our adversities. Tray, Tray, fawnnot now, sirrah, or I shall think thou hast been false in thy fondnessheretofore! Cousin, I attend you."
And with his bird on his wrist, his dog at his heels, Henry VI. followedthe earl to the illuminated hall of Edward, where the table was spreadfor the royal repast, and where his old friends, Manning, Bedle, andAllerton, stood weeping for joy; while from the gallery raised aloft,the musicians gave forth the rough and stirring melody which hadgradually fallen out of usage, but which was once the Norman'snational air, and which the warlike Margaret of Anjou had retaught herminstrels,--"THE BATTLE HYMN OF ROLLO."
BOOK XI. THE NEW POSITION OF THE KING-MAKER