"Fair Uncle, I am sure he will repay me!" was the response of the warm-hearted Richard.

"Ha!" said John of Gaunt, and sipped his ipocras with a grim smile. "Sans doute, Monseigneur, sans doute!"

Westminster Hall beheld a grand and imposing ceremony on the Michaelmas Day of 1397. The King sat in state upon his throne at the further end, the little Queen beside him, and the various members of the royal line on either side—Princes on the right, Princesses on the left. The Duchess of Lancaster had the first place; then the Duchess of York, particularly complacent and resplendent; the Duchess of Gloucester, who should have sat third, was closely secluded (of her free will) in the Convent of Bermondsey. Next sat the Countess of March, the elder sister of the Duchess Joan, and wife of the Lollard heir of England. The daughters of the Princes followed her. Elizabeth, Countess of Huntingdon, daughter of the Duke of Lancaster, whom that day was to make a duchess, and who bore away the palm from the rest as "the best singer and the best dancer" of all the royal ladies, held her place, beaming with smiles, and radiant with rubies and crimson velvet. Next, arrayed in blue velvet, sat the only daughter of York, Constance Lady Le Despenser. Round the hall sat the nobles of England in their "Parliament robes," each of the married peers with his lady at his side; while below came the House of Commons, and lower yet, outside the railing, the people of England, in the shape of an eager, sight-seeing mob. There was to be a great creation of peers, and one by one the names were called. As each of the candidates heard his name, he rose from his seat, and was led up to the throne by two nobles of the order to which he was about to be raised.

"Sir Henry of Bolingbroke, Earl of Derby!" The gentleman whose unswerving loyalty was about to be recompensed by the gift of a coronet (!) rose with his customary grace from his seat, third on the right hand of the King, and was led up by his father of Lancaster and his uncle of York. He knelt, bareheaded, before the throne. A sword was girt to his side, a ducal coronet set on his head by the royal hand, and he rose Duke of Hereford. As old Lancaster resumed his seat, he smiled grimly under his white beard, and muttered to himself—"Sans doute!"

"Sir Edward of Langley, Earl of Rutland!"

Constance's brother was similarly led up by his father and his cousin, the newly-created Duke, and he resumed his princely seat, Duke of Aumerle, or Albemarle.

"Sir Thomas de Holand, Earl of Kent, Baron Wake!"

Hereford and Aumerle were the two to lead up the candidate. He was the son of the King's half-brother, and was reputed the handsomest of the nobles: a tall, finely-developed man, with the shining golden hair of his Plantagenet ancestors. He was created Duke of Surrey.

Hereford sat down, and Surrey and Aumerle conducted John Earl of Huntingdon to the throne. He was half-brother of the King, uncle of Surrey, and husband of the royal songstress who sat and smiled in crimson velvet. He had stepped out of the family ranks; for instead of being tall, fair, and good-looking, like the rest of his house, he was a little dark-haired man, whom no artist would have selected as a model of beauty. A strong anti-Lollard was this nobleman, a good hater, a prejudiced, violent, unprincipled man; possessed of two virtues only— honesty and loyalty. He had been cajoled for a time by Gloucester, but his brother knew him too well to doubt his sincerity or affection. He was made Duke of Exeter.

The next call was for—"Sir Thomas de Mowbray, Earl of Nottingham!" And up came the last of the "Lords Appellants," painfully conscious in his heart of hearts that while he might have been in his right place on the scaffold in Cheapside, he was very much out of it in Westminster Hall, kneeling to receive the coronet of Norfolk.

A coronet was now laid aside, for the recipient was not present. She was an old lady of royal blood, above seventy years of age, the second cousin of the King, and great-grandmother of Nottingham. Her style and titles were duly proclaimed as Duchess of Norfolk for life.

But when "Sir John de Beaufort, Earl of Somerset!" was called for, the peer summoned rose and walked forward alone. He was to be created a marquis—a title of King Richard's own devising, and at that moment borne by no one else. The Earl came reluctantly, for he was very unwilling to be made unlike other people; and he dropped his new title, and returned to the old one, as soon as he conveniently could. He had a tall, fine figure, but not a pleasant face; and his religion, no less than his politics, he wore like a glove—well-fitting when on, but capable of being changed at pleasure. Just now, when Lollardism was "walking in silver slippers," my Lord Marquis of Dorset was a Lollard. Rome rarely persecutes men of this sort, for she makes them useful in preference.

And now the herald cried—"Sir Thomas Le Despenser, Baron of Cardiff!"

The Earls of Northumberland and Suffolk were the supporters of Le Despenser, who walked forward with a slow, graceful step, to receive from the King's hand an earl's coronet, accompanied by the ominous name of Gloucester—a title stained by its last bearer beyond remedy. In truth, the royal dukedom had been an interpolation of the line, and the King was merely giving Le Despenser back his own—the coronet which had belonged to the grand old family of Clare, whose co-heiress was the great-grandmother of Thomas Le Despenser. The title had been kept as it were in suspense ever since the attainder of her husband, the ill-fated Earl Hugh, though two persons had borne it in the interim without any genuine right.

Three other peers were created, but they do not concern the story. And then the King rose from his throne, the ceremony was over; and Constance Le Despenser left the hall among the Princesses by right of her birth, but wearing her new coronet as Countess of Gloucester.

Four months later, the Duke of Hereford knelt before the throne, and solemnly accused his late friend and colleague, the Duke of Norfolk, of treason. He averred that Norfolk had tempted him to join another secret conspiracy. Norfolk, when questioned, turned the tables by denying the accusation, and adding that it was Hereford who had tempted him. Since neither of these noble gentlemen was particularly worthy of credit, and they both swore very hard on this occasion, it is impossible to decide which (if either) was telling the truth. The decision finally arrived at was that both the accusers should settle their quarrel by wager of battle, for which purpose they were commanded to meet at Coventry in the following autumn.

Before the duel took place, an important event occurred in the death of Roger Mortimer, the Lollard Earl of March, whom the King had proclaimed heir presumptive of England. He was Viceroy of Ireland, and was killed in a skirmish by the "wild Irish." March, who was only 24 years of age, left four children, of whom we shall hear more anon, to be educated by their mother, Archbishop Arundel's niece, in her own Popish views. He is described by the monkish chroniclers as "very handsome and very courteous, most dissolute of life, and extremely remiss in all matters of religion." We can guess pretty well what that means. "Remiss in matters of religion," of course, refers to his Lollardism, while the accusation of "dissolute life" is notoriously Rome's pet charge against those who escape from her toils. Such was the sad and early end of the first and only Lollard of the House of Mortimer.

The duel between Hereford and Norfolk was appointed to take place on Gosford Green, near Coventry, on the 16th of September. The combatants met accordingly; but before a blow was struck, the King took the matter upon himself and forbade the engagement. On the 3rd of October, licence was granted to Hereford to travel abroad, this being honourable banishment; no penalty was inflicted upon Norfolk. But some event— perhaps never to be discovered—occurred, or came to light during the following ten days, which altered the whole aspect of affairs. Either the King found out some deed of treason, of which he had been previously ignorant, or else some further offence was committed by both Hereford and Norfolk. On the 13th both were banished—Hereford for ten years, Norfolk for life; the sentence in the former case being afterwards commuted to six years. Those who know the Brutus-like character of John of Gaunt, and his real opinion of his son's proceedings, may accept, if they can, the representations of the monastic chroniclers that the commutation of Hereford's sentence was made at his intercession.

In the interim, between the duel and the sentence, Archbishop Arundel was formally adjudged a traitor, and the penalty of banishment was inflicted on him also.

Constance was too busy with her nursery to leave Cardiff, where this autumn little Richard was joined by a baby sister, who received the name of Elizabeth after the Dowager Lady. But the infant was not many weeks old, when, to use the beautiful phrase of the chroniclers, she "journeyed to the Lord." She was taken away from the evil to come.

It was appropriate enough that the last dread year of the fourteenth century should be ushered in by funeral knells. And he who died on the third of February in that year, though not a very sure stay, was the best and last support of the Gospel and the throne. It was with troubled faces and sad tones that the Lollards who met in the streets of London told one to another that "old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster," was lying dead in the Bishop of Ely's Palace.

But the storm was deferred for a few weeks longer. There were royal visits to Langley and Cardiff, on the way to Ireland, the Earl of Gloucester accompanying the King to that country. And then, when Richard had left the reins of government in the feeble hands of York, the tempest burst over England which had been lowering for so long.

The Lady Le Despenser and the Countess of Gloucester were seated at breakfast in Cardiff Castle, on a soft, bright morning in the middle of July. Breakfast consisted of fresh and salt fish, for it was a fast-day; plain and fancy bread, different kinds of biscuits (but all made without eggs or butter); small beer, and claret. Little Richard was energetically teasing Maude, by whom he sat, for another piece of red-herring, and the Dowager, deliberate in all her movements, was slowly helping herself to Gascon wine. The blast of a horn without the moat announced the arrival of a guest or a letter, and Bertram Lyngern went out to see what it was. Ten minutes later he returned to the hall, with letters in his hand, and his face white with some terrible news.

"Ill tidings, noble ladies!"

"Is it Dickon?" cried the Countess.

"Is it Tom?" said the Dowager.

"There be no news of my Lord, nor from Langley," said Bertram. "But my Lord's Grace of Hereford, and Sir Thomas de Arundel, sometime Archbishop, be landed at Ravenspur."

"Landed at Ravenspur!—Banished men!"

The loyal soul of Elizabeth Le Despenser could imagine nothing more atrocious.

"Well, let them land!" she added in a minute. "The Duke's Grace of York shall wit how to deal with them. Be any gathered to them?"

"Hundreds and thousands," was the ominous answer.

"Ay me!" sighed the Dowager. "Well! 'the Lord reigneth.'"

Constance's only comment on the remarks was a quiet, incredulous shrug of her shoulders. She knew her father.

And she was right. Like many another, literally and figuratively, York went over to the enemy's ground to parley, and ended in staying there. One of the two was talked over—but that one was not the rebel, but the Regent.

Poor York! Looking back on those days, out of the smoke of the battle, one sees him a man so wretchedly weak and incapable that it is hardly possible to be angry with him. It does not appear to have been conviction, nor cowardice, nor choice in any sense, which caused his desertion, but simply his miserable incapacity to stand alone, or to resist the influence of any stronger character on either side. He go to parley with the enemy! He might as well have sent his baby grandson to parley with a box of sugar-plums.

Fresh news—always bad news—now came into Cardiff nearly every day.

The King hurried back from Ireland to Conway, and there gathered his loyal peers around him. There were only sixteen of them. Dorset, always on the winning side, deserted the sinking ship at once. Aumerle more prudently waited to see which side would eventually prove the winner.

Exeter and Surrey were sent to parley with the traitors. They were both detained, Surrey as a prisoner, Exeter with a show of friendship. The latter was too fertile in resources, and too eloquent in speech, not to be a dangerous foe. He was therefore secured while the opportunity offered.

Then came the treacherous Northumberland as ambassador from Hereford, whom we must henceforth designate by his new title of Lancaster.

Northumberland's lips dropped honey, but war was in his heart. He offered the sweetest promises. What did they cost? They were made to be broken. So gentle, so affectionate were his solicitations to the royal hart to enter the leopard's den—so ready was he to pledge word and oath that Lancaster was irrevocably true and faithful—that the King listened, and believed him. He set forth with his little guard, quitting the stronghold of Flint Castle, and in the gorge of Gwrych he was met by Northumberland and his army, seized, and carried a prisoner to Chester.

This was the testing moment for the hitherto loyal sixteen. Aumerle, who had satisfied himself now which way the game was going, went over to his cousin at once. Worcester broke his white wand of office, and retired from the contest. Some fled in terror. When all the faithless had either gone or joined Lancaster, there remained six, who loved their master better than themselves, and followed, voluntary prisoners, outwardly in the train of Henry of Lancaster, but really in that of Richard of Bordeaux.

These six loyal, faithful, honourable men our story follows. They were—Thomas Le Despenser, Earl of Gloucester; John de Montacute, Earl of Salisbury; Thomas de Holand, Duke of Surrey; William Le Scrope, Earl of Wilts; Richard Maudeleyn, chaplain to the King; John Maudeleyn (probably his brother), varlet of the robes.

Slowly the conqueror marched Londonwards, with the royal captive in his train. Westminster was reached on the first of September. From that date the coercion exercised over the King was openly and shamelessly acknowledged. His decrees were declared to be issued "with the assent of our dearest cousin, Henry Duke of Lancaster." At last, on Michaelmas Day, the orders of that loving and beloved relative culminated in the abdication of the Sovereign.

The little group of loyalists had now grown to seven, by the addition of Exeter, who joined himself to them as soon as he was set at liberty. They remained in London during that terrible October, and most of them were present when, on the 13th of that month, Henry of Lancaster was crowned King of England.

There stood the vacant throne, draped in gold-spangled red; and by it, on either hand, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal. The hierarchy were, on the right, Arundel at their head, having coolly repossessed himself of the see from which he had been ejected as a traitor; an expression of contemptuous amusement hovering about his lips, which might be easily translated into the famous (but rather apocryphal) speech of Queen Elizabeth to the men of Coventry—"Good lack! What fools ye be!" On the left hand of the throne stood Lancaster, his lofty stature conspicuous among his peers, waiting with mock humility for the farce of their acknowledgment of his right. Next him was his uncle of York, wearing a forced smile at that which his conscience disapproved, but his will was impotent to reject. Aumerle came next, his face so plainly a mask to hide his thoughts that it is difficult to judge what they were. Then Surrey, with a half-astonished, half-puzzled air, as though he had never expected matters really to come to this pass. His uncle Exeter, who sat next him, looked sullen and discontented. The other peers came in turn, but their faces are not visible in the remarkable painting by an eye-witness from which those above are described, with the exception of the tellers, the traitor Northumberland, and the cheery round-faced Westmoreland. These went round to take the votes of the peers. There were not likely to be many dissenting voices, where to vote No was death.

Henry stated his assumption of power to rest upon three points. First, he had conquered the kingdom; secondly, his cousin, King Richard, had voluntarily abdicated in his favour; and lastly, he was the true heir male of the crown.

"Ha!" said the little Earl of March, the dispossessed heir general, "haeres malus, is he?"

It was not a bad pun for seven years old.

If Henry of Bolingbroke may be credited, the majority of the loyal six, and Thomas Le Despenser among them, not only sat in his first Parliament, but pleaded compulsion as the cause of their petition against Gloucester, and consented to the deposition of King Richard, while some earnestly requested the usurper to put the Sovereign to death. While some of these allegations are true, the last certainly is false. One of those named as having joined in the last petition is Surrey; and his alleged participation is proved to be a lie. Knowing how lightly Henry of Bolingbroke could lie, it is hardly possible to believe otherwise of any member of the group, except indeed the time-serving Aumerle.

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Note 1. See "Mistress Margery," preface, page six.

Note 2. His mother, Alianora of Lancaster, was the daughter of Earl Henry, son of Prince Edmund, son of Henry the Third.



CHAPTER SEVEN.

FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH.

"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."

"Ninerias!" [Nonsense!—literally, childishness] cried Constance hastily, using a word of her mother's tongue, which she had frequently heard from the lips of Dona 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 pite, Jesu, 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.



CHAPTER EIGHT.

MOVES ON THE CHESSBOARD.

"O purblind race of miserable men, How many among us at this very hour Do forge a life-long trouble for themselves, By taking true for false, or false for true!"

Tennyson.

Three months had rolled away since that thirteenth of January which had made Constance a widow. Her versatile, volatile nature soon recovered the shock of her husband's violent death. The white garments of widowhood which draped her found little response either in the gravity of her demeanour or in the expression of her face. But on the Dowager Lady the effect was very different. She became an old, infirm woman all at once; but her manner was softer and gentler. She learned to make more allowance for temperaments which entirely differed from hers. There were no further efforts to repress her little grandson's noisy glee, no more cold responses to his occasionally troublesome demonstrations of affection. The alteration was quiet, but lasting.

It was an hour after dinner, and Maude sat alone at work in the banquet-hall. She was almost unconsciously humming to herself the air of a troubadour chanson—an air as well-known to ourselves as to her, though we have turned it into a hymn tune, and have christened it Innocents, or Durham. A fresh stave was just begun, when the hall door opened, and a voice at the further end announced—

"A messenger from my Lord of Aumerle!"

Maude rose as the messenger approached her.

"Your servant, sir! If you bear any letter, I will carry the same unto my Lady."

"Here is the letter, Mistress Maude," replied the messenger with a smile. "Methinks I am more changed than you be."

Maude looked more narrowly at him.

"I know you now, Master Calverley," she said, a smile breaking over her lips. "But you ware not that beard the last time I did see you."

She took the letter to Constance, and when she returned, she found Hugh and his old friend Bertram in close conversation.

"Verily, sweet Hugh,"—Bertram was saying—"there is one thing in this world I can in no wise fathom! How thy Lord—"

"There be full many things in this world that I cannot," interposed Hugh.

"How thy Lord ordereth his dealings is beyond me," ended Bertram.

"In good sooth, I have enough ado to look to mine own dealings, though I should let other men's be," answered Hugh.

"Lo' you now, Mistress Maude! Here is my Lord of Aumerle—you wis somewhat of his deeds—high in favour with the King, and prevailing upon his Grace to grant all manner of delicates [good things] unto our Lady. He hath soothly-stirred [persuaded] him unto the bestowal of every manor that was our late Lord's father's (whom God assoil!) and of all his jewels, and of the custody of the young Lord. And 'tis not four months gone since he sold our Lord to his death! What signifieth he by this whileness?" [Whirling, turning round.]

Maude shook her head, as if to say that she could not tell. She had resumed her work, the hemming of what she (not very elegantly) called a sudary, and we, euphemistically but tautologically, a pocket-handkerchief.

"Ah! 'tis a blessed thing to have a brother!" observed Bertram with irony. "Well!—and what news, sweet Hugh, of olden friends?"

"None overmuch," responded Hugh, "unless it be of the death of Father Wilfred, of the Priory at Langley."

"Ah me!" exclaimed Bertram regretfully.

"Master Calverley," said Maude, looking up, "do me to wit, of your goodness, if you wot any thing touching the Lady Avice de Narbonne?"

"But so much," answered he, "that she hath taken veil upon herself in the Minoresses' convent at Aldgate, and is, I do hear, accounted of the sisters a right holy and devout woman."

"Marry, I am well fain to hear so good news," said Maude.

"Good news, Mistress Maude! forsooth, were I lover or kinsman of the fair lady, I would account them right evil news," commented Bertram, in a tone of some surprise.

"Methinks I conceive what Mistress Maude signifieth," quietly observed Hugh. "She accounteth that the Lady Avice shall find help and comfort in the Minoresses' house."

"Ay, in very deed," said Maude, "the which methinks she could never have found without."

"God have it so!" answered Hugh, gently. "Yet I trust, Mistress Maude, that our Lord may be found without convent cell, as lightly [easily] as within it."

"Be these all thy news, sweet Hugh?" inquired Bertram. "Is nought at work in the outer world?"

"Matters be reasonable peaceful at this present. But methinks King Henry sitteth not over delightsomely on his throne, seeing he hath captivated [captured] the four childre of my sometime Lord of March, and shut them close in the Castle of Windsor."

"Hath he so?" asked Bertram, with interest. "Poor hearts!"

"Be they small childre?" said Maude, compassionately.

"The Lady Anne, that is eldest, hath but nine years, I do hear."

"Ay me, Master Calverley! Have they any mother?"

"Trust me, ay!" broke in Bertram. "Why, have you forgot that my Lady of March is sister unto the Duchess' Grace of York?"

"And is she prisoned with the childre?"

"Holy Mary! the King's Grace lacketh not her," said Bertram.

"She was dancing at the Court a few weeks gone," returned Hugh rather drily, "with her servant [lover], the Baron of Powys, a-waiting upon her; and so was likewise the Lady Elizabeth, my Lord of Exeter his widow, with the Lord Fanhope. Men say there shall be divers weddings at Court this next summer, and these, as I reckon, among them."

"Ah! the Lady Elizabeth's Grace danceth right well!" said Bertram sarcastically. "Marry, Robin Falconer, of my Lord's Grace of York's following, which bare hither certain letters this last month, told me they had dances at Court in Epiphany octave, when we rade for our lives from Oxford; and that very night my Lord's Grace of Exeter was beheaden at Pleshy, his wife, the Lady Elizabeth, was at the cushion dance and singing to her lute in the Lady Blanche [the Princess Royal] her chamber, where all the Court was gathered."

"Aid us, our Lady of Pity!" whispered Maude in a shocked voice.

"There be some women hard as stones!" pursued Bertram disgustedly.

For men knew the Lady Elizabeth well in those days, as fairest and gayest of the Princesses. She was King Henry's favourite sister, though that royal gentleman showed his favour rather oddly, by granting her a quantity of damaged goods of her late husband, among which were sundry towels, "used and torn." During the terrible struggle which had just occurred, she had sided with her brother, against King Richard, of whom her husband Exeter was a fervent partisan. Perhaps such vacillation as was occasionally to be seen in Exeter's conduct may be traced to her influence. The night that King Richard was taken, she "made good cheer," though the event was almost equivalent to the signing of her husband's death-warrant. I doubt if we must not class this accomplished and beautiful Elizabeth among the most heartless women whose names have come down to us on the roll of history. And where a woman is heartless, she is heartless indeed.

"Forsooth, Master Lyngern, methinks I wis what you mean by women hard as stones," observed Maude with a slight shudder. "They do give me alway the horrors."

"Think you there is naught of the stone in the Lady Custance?" said Hugh in a low voice.

Maude energetically repudiated the imputation.

"She a stone? nay!—she is a butterfly," said Bertram.

"And, pray you, which were better—to have a stone or a butterfly to your wife?" asked Hugh, laughingly.

"The stone, in good surety," said Bertram. "I were allgates [always] afeard of hurting the butterfly."

"Very well," responded Hugh, rather drily; "but the stone might hurt thee."

The summer passed very quietly at Cardiff, except for one incident. Maude spent it in learning to read, for which she had always had a strong wish, and now coaxed Father Ademar to teach her. The confessor was a Lollard, and was therefore not deterred by any fear of her becoming acquainted with forbidden books. He willingly complied with Maude's wish.

The incident which disturbed the calm was a hostile visit of Owain Glyndwr, who appeared with a large force on the tenth of July, and held the Church of Saint Mary against all comers, until driven out with great slaughter. On the very morning of his appearance, the last baby came to Cardiff Castle—a baby which would never see its father. The Bishop of Llandaff, who was a guest in the Castle, was obliged to reconsecrate the church before the child could be christened. It was not till late in the evening that the little lady was baptised by the name of Isabel, after the dead Infanta. She might have been born to illustrate Bertram's observations, for her heart was as hard as a stone, and as cold.

When Maude became able to read well, she was installed in the post of daily reader to the Dowager. Constance had never cared for books; but the old lady, who had been a great reader for her time, missed her usual luxury now that age was dimming her eyes, and was very glad to employ Maude's younger sight. The book was nearly always one of Wycliffe's, and the reading invariably closed with a chapter of his Testament. Now and then, but only now and then, she would ask for a little poetry— taking by preference that courtly writer whom she knew as a great innovator, but whom we call the father of English poetry. But she was very particular which of his poems was selected. The Knight's, the Squire's, the Man of Law's, the Prioress's, and the Clerk's Tales, were all that she would have of that book by which we know Geoffrey Chaucer best. She liked better the graceful fairy tale of the Flower and the Leaf, written for the deceased Lollard Queen; and best of all that most pathetic lamentation for the Duchess Blanche of Lancaster, whom Elizabeth Le Despenser had known personally in her youth. Maude would never have suspected the Dowager of the least respect for poetry; and she was surprised to watch her sit by the open casement, dreamily looking out on the landscape, while she read to her of the "white ycrowned Queen" of the Daisy, or of the providential interpositions by which "Crist unwemmed kept Custance," or oftener yet—

"But what visage had she thereto? Alas, my heart is wonder woe That I ne can discriven it Me lacketh both English and wit... For certes Nature had such lest To make that fair, that truly she Was her chief patron of beaute, And chief ensample of all her work And monstre—for be 't ne'er so derk, Methinketh I see her evermo'!"

[Note: Monstre was then employed in the sense in which we now use phoenix.]

But this, as has been said, was only now and then. The words which were far more common were Wycliffe's; and those which were invariable were Christ's.

When Maude began this work, she had not the remotest idea of changing her faith, nor even of inquiring into the grounds on which it rested. She entertained no personal prejudice against the Lollards, with whom she associated her dead mistress the Infanta, and her young murdered master; but she vaguely supposed their doctrines to be somehow unorthodox, and considered herself as good a "Catholic" as any one. She noticed that Father Ademar gave her fewer penances than Father Dominic used to do; that he treated her mistakes as mistakes only, and not as sins; that generally his ideas of sin had to do rather with the root of evil in the heart than with the diligent pruning of particular branches; that he said a great deal about Christ, and not much about the saints. So Maude's change of opinion came, over her so gradually and noiselessly that she never realised herself to have undergone any change at all until it was unalterable and complete.

The realisation came suddenly at last, with a passing word from Dame Audrey, the mistress of the household at Cardiff.

"Nay," she had said, a little contemptuously, in answer to some remark: "Mistress Maude is too good to consort with us poor Catholics. She is a great clerk, quotha! and hath Sir John de Wycliffe his homilies and evangels at her tongue's end. Marry, I count in another twelvemonth every soul in this Castle saving me shall be a Lollard."

Maude was startled. Was the charge true—that she was no longer a "Catholic," but a Lollard? And if so, in what did the change consist of which she was herself unconscious?

That afternoon, when she sat down to read to the Dowager as usual, Maude asked timidly—

"Madam, under your Ladyship's good leave, there is a thing I would fain ask at you."

"Ask freely, my maid," was the kindly answer.

"Might it like you to arede me, Madam, of your grace—in what regard, and to what greatness, the Lollards do differ from the Catholics?"

The Dowager smiled, but she looked a little surprised.

"A short question, forsooth, my maid, the which to answer shortly should lack sharper wit than mine. But I will give thee to wit so far as I can. We do believe that all things which be needful for a Christian man to know, be founden in God's Word, yclept Holy Scripture: so that all other our differences take root in this one. For the which encheson [reason] we do deny the Pope to have right and rule over this our Church of England, which lieth not in his diocese, neither find we in Holy Scripture that the Bishop of Rome should wield rule over other Bishops; but that in every realm the King thereof should be highest in estate over the priests as over any other of his subjects. Wherefore likewise we call not upon the saints, seeing that Holy Scripture saith 'oo God and a Mediatour is of God and of men, a man, Crist Jesu:' neither may we allow the holy bread of the blessed Sacrament of the Altar to be the very carnal flesh of our Saviour Christ, there bodily present, seeing both that Paul sayeth of it 'this breed' after that it be consecrate, and moreover that our own very bodily senses do deny it to be any other matter. So neither will any of us use swearing, which is utterly forbid in God's Word; neither hold we good the right of sanctuary, ne the power of the Pope's indulgence, ne virginity of the priesthood—seeing that no one of all these be bidden by Holy Scripture."

The old lady paused, and cut off her loose threads before she continued, in a rather more constrained voice.

"Beyond all these," she then added, "there be other matters wherein certain of us do differ from other. To wit, some of us do love to sing unto symphony [music] the praise and laud of God; the which othersome (of whom am I myself) do account to be but a vain indulgence of the flesh, and a thing unmeet for its vanity to be done of God's servants dwelling in this evil world. Some do hold that childre ought not to be baptised, but only them that be of age to perceive the signification of that holy rite: herein I see not with them. Likewise there be othersome that would have the old prayers for to abide, being but a form of words; while other (of whom be I) do understand such forms to be but things dead and dry, and we rather would pray unto our Lord with such words as He in the instant moment shall show unto us—the which (nowise contaking [reproaching] other) we do nathless judge to be more agreeable with Holy Scripture. But wherefore wouldst know all this, my maid?"

Maude's answer was not a reply according to grammar, but it showed her thoughts plainly enough. She had been carefully comparing her own inward convictions with the catalogue as it proceeded. She certainly could see no harm either in infant baptism or sacred music: as to the question of forms of prayer, she had never considered it. But on all the other points, though to her own dismay, she found herself exactly in agreement with the description given by the Dowager.

"Then I am a Lollard, I account!" she said at last, with a sigh.

"And what if so, my maid?" quietly asked the old lady.

"Good Madam, can I so be, and yet be in unity with the Catholic Church?" said Maude in a tone of distress. "Methinks 'tis little comfort to be not yet excommunicate, if I do wit that an' holy Church knew of mine errors, she should cut me away as a dry branch. And yet—" and a very puzzled, troubled look came into Maude's face—"what I crede, I crede; ne can I thereof uncharge [disburden] me."

"My maid," said the Dowager earnestly, looking up, "the true unity of the Church Catholic is the unity of Christ. He said not 'Come into the Church,' but 'Come to Me.' He that is one with Christ cannot be withoutenside Christ's Church."

No more was said at that time; but what she had heard already left Maude's mind in a turmoil. She next, but very cautiously, endeavoured to ascertain the opinions of her mistress. Constance made her explain her motive in asking, and then laughed heartily.

"By Saint Veronica her sudary, what matter? Names be but names. So long as a man deal uprightly and keep him from deadly sin—call him Catholic, call him Lollard—is he the worser man? There be good and ill of every sort. I have known some weary tykes [really, a sheep-dog; used as a term of reproach] that were rare Catholics; and I once had a mother that is with God and His angels now, and men called her a Lollard."

Evidently Constance's practical religion was summed up in the childish phrase—"Be good." An excellent medicine—if the patient were not unable to swallow.

Maude tried Bertram next, and felt, to use her own phrase, more "of a bire" [confused] than ever. For she found him nearly in the same state of mind as herself, but advanced one step further. Convinced that the true meaning of Lollardism was plain adhesion to Holy Scripture, he was prepared to accept the full consequences. He had not only been thinking for himself, but talking with Hugh Calverley: and Hugh, like his father, was a Lollard of the most extreme type.

"It seemeth me, Mistress Maude," he said boldly, "less dread to say that the Church Catholic must needs have erred, than to say that God in His Word can err."

"But the whole Church Catholic!" objected Maude in a most troubled voice. "All the holy doctors and bishops that have ever been—yea, and the very Fathers of the Church!"

"'Nyle ye clepe to you a fadir on erthe,'" replied Bertram gravely.

"But, Master Lyngern, think you, the Holy Ghost dwelleth in the priests, and so He doth not in slender folk like to you and me."

"Ay so?" answered he, with a slight curl of his lip. "He dwelleth in such men as my Lord of Canterbury, trow? Our Lord saith the tree is known by his fruits. It were a new thing, mereckoneth, for a man to be indwelt of the Holy Ghost, and to bring forth fruits of the Devil."

"But our Lord behote [promised] to dwell in His Church alway," urged Maude, though she was arguing against herself.

"He behote to dwell in all humble and faithful souls—they be His Church, Mistress Maude. I never read in no Scripture that He behote to write all the Pope's decretals, nor to see that no Archbishop of Canterbury should blunder in his pastorals."

"But the Church, Master Lyngern—the Church cannot err! Holy Scripture saith it."

"Ay so?" said Bertram again. "Where?"

Maude was obliged to confess that she did not know where; she had "alway heard say the same;" but finding Bertram rather too much for her in argument, she carried her difficulty to Father Ademar when she next went to confession. She would never have propounded such a query to Father Dominic at Langley, since it would most certainly have ensured her a severe scolding and some oppressive penance; perhaps to lie flat on the threshold of the chapel and let every one pass over her, perhaps to lick the dust all round the base of the Virgin's pedestal. And Maude's own private conviction was that penances of this kind never did her the least good. Father Dominic told her that they humbled her. It was true they made her feel humiliated; but was that the same as feeling humble? They also made her feel irritated and angry—with whom, or with what, she hardly knew; but certainly with some person or thing outside of herself. But they never made her think that she had done wrong—only that she had been misunderstood and badly used.

Matters were very different with Father Ademar. He was so quiet and gentle that Maude never felt afraid of him. Confession to Father Dominic bore the awful aspect cast over a visit to a dentist's surgery; but confession to Father Ademar was (at least to Maude) merely talking over her difficulties with a friend. He often said, "Pray our Lord to grant thee wisdom in this matter," but he never said, "Repeat fifty Aves and ten Paternosters." And when Maude now laid her troubles before him as lucidly as she could, he gave her an answer which, she thought at first, did not touch the case at all, and yet which in the end settled every difficulty connected with it.

"Daughter," said the Lollard priest, "there is another question which must be first answered. Thou hast taken up the golden rod by the wrong end. Turn it around and have the other ensured; then we will talk of this."

"What other question, Father?"

"The same that our Lord asked of the sick man at the cistern [pool]—'Wilt thou be made whole?' Art thou of the unity of Christ?— art thou one with Him? Hast thou closed with Him? Wist thou that 'He loved thee, and gave Himself for thee?' For without thou be first ensured of this, it shall serve thee but little to search all the tomes of the Fathers touching the unity of the Church."

"But if I be in the true Church, Father, I must needs be of the unity of Christ."

"Truth," said Father Ademar, in his quietest manner. "Then turn the matter about, as I bade thee, and see whether thou art in Christ. So shalt thou plainly see thyself to be in the true Church."

Maude was silenced, but at first she was not convinced. Ademar did not press her answer. He left her to decide the question for herself. But many months passed away, fraught with many struggles and heart searchings and deep studies of Wycliffe's Bible, before Maude was able to decide it. Bertram, whose mental nature was less self-conscious and analytical than hers, was at peace long before she was. But the day came at last when Maude was able to answer Ademar's question—when she could say, "Father, I am of the true Church, because I am one with Christ."

The life at Cardiff Castle was very quiet—much too quiet to please Constance, who was again becoming extremely restless. They heard of wars and rumours of war—conspiracy after conspiracy, all more or less futile: some to free King Richard, whom a great number believed to be still living; some to release and crown the little Earl of March, yet a close prisoner in Windsor Castle; some to depose or assassinate Henry. But they were all to the dwellers in Cardiff Castle like the sounds of distant tempest, until the summer of 1402, when two terrible events happened almost simultaneously, and one at their very doors. Owain Glyndwr, the faithful Welsh henchman of King Richard, took and burnt Cardiff in one of his insurrectionary marches; sparing the Castle and one of the monasteries on account of the loyalty (to Richard) of their inmates; and about the same time Hugh Calverley came one day from Bristol, to summon the Princess to come immediately to Langley. Her father was dying.

Constance reached Langley in time to receive his last blessing. He died in the same quiet, apathetic manner in which he had lived—his intellect insufficient to realise all the mischief of which he had been guilty, but having realised one mistake he had made—his second marriage. He desired to be buried in the Priory Church at Langley, by the side of his "dear wife Isabel," whose worth he had never discovered until she was lost to him for ever.

It was on the first of August that Edmund of Langley died. After his funeral, the Duchess Joan—now a young woman of nineteen—intimated her intention of paying a visit to Court, as soon as her first mourning was over, and blandishingly hoped that her dear daughter would do her the pleasure of accompanying her. Maude would have liked her mistress to decline the invitation, for she would far rather have gone home. But Constance accepted it eagerly. It was exactly what she wished. They reached Westminster Palace just after the King had returned from his autumn progress, and he expressed a hope that his aunt and cousin would stay with him long enough to be present at the approaching ceremony of his second marriage with the Duchess Dowager of Bretagne.

It was the evening after their arrival at Westminster, and Maude sat on a stool in the great hall, every now and then recognising and addressing some acquaintance of old time. On the dais was a brilliant crowd of royal and semi-royal persons, among whom Constance sat engaged in animated conversation, and evidently enjoying herself. Maude knew most of them by sight, but as her eyes roved here and there, they lighted on a young man coming up towards the dais whom she did not know. He stopped almost close to her, to speak to Aumerle, now Duke of York, so that Maude had time and opportunity to study him.

He was dressed in the height of the fashion. In the present day his costume would be thought supremely ridiculous for a man; but when he wore it, it was considered perfectly enchanting. It consisted of a gown—similar to a long dressing-gown, nearly touching the feet—of blue velvet, spangled with gold fleur-de-lis, and lined with white satin; an under-tunic (equivalent to a waistcoat) of bright apple-green satin, with wide sweeping sleeves of the same, cut at the edge into imitations of oak-leaves. Under these were tight sleeves of pink velvet, edged at the wrist by white frills, and a similar white frill finished the gown at the neck. His boots were black velvet, with white buttons; they were about a yard long, tapering to a point, and were tied up to the garter by silver chains, a pattern resembling a church window being cut through the upper portion of the boot. These very fashionable and most uncomfortable articles were known as cracowes, having come over from Germany with the late Queen Anne. In the young man's hand was a black velvet cap, covered by a spreading plume of apple-green feathers. Round the waist, outside the gown, was a tight black velvet band, to which was fastened the scabbard of a golden-hilted sword.

This extremely smart young gentleman was Sir Edmund de Holand, Earl of Kent,—brother and heir of the Duke of Surrey, and brother also of Constance's step-mother. He was a true Holand in appearance, nearly six feet in height, most graceful in carriage, very fair in complexion, his hair a glossy golden colour, with a moustache of similar shade. His age was just twenty-one. He was pre-eminently handsome—surpassing even Surrey. His eyes were of the softest blue, clear and bright; his voice soft, musical, and insinuating.

I am careful to describe the Earl of Kent fully, because he is about to become a prominent person in the story, and also because he had absolutely nothing to recommend him beyond his physical courage, his taste in dress, his fascinating manners, and his very handsome person. These points have to be dwelt upon, since his virtues lay entirely in them.

Kent and York conversed in a low tone for some minutes. When the subject seemed exhausted, York turned quickly round to his sister, as if a sudden idea had occurred to him.

"Lady Custance! You remember my Lord of Kent, trow?—though methinks you have scarce met together sithence we were all childre."

Constance lifted up her eyes, and offered her hand to Kent's kiss of homage. Ay, to her utter misery and undoing, like Elaine—

—"she lifted up her eyes, And loved him, with that love which was her doom."

Not worth such love as that, Constance! Not worth one beat of that true heart which was stilled at Bristol, and which now lies, dust to dust, in Tewkesbury Abbey. This man will not love you as he did, to the end. He will only give you what love he can spare from himself, for he is his own most cherished treasure. And it will be—as, a few hours later, you whisper to yourself, pulling the petals from a white daisy—"un peu—beaucoup—point du tout:"—a little yesterday, intense to-day, and none at all to-morrow.

Constance and Kent saw a good deal of each other during her visit to Westminster. Her brother of York evidently furthered his suit to the utmost of his power. Maude, who had learned utterly to distrust the Duke of York, set herself to consider what his reason could be. That York rarely did any thing except with some ulterior and selfish object, she was satisfied. But the more she thought about the matter, the further she found herself from arriving at any conclusion. The secret was to be revealed to her before long. The plotting brain of the Prince was busy as usual in the concoction of another conspiracy, and to forward his purposes on this occasion he intended to make a catspaw of his sister. The plot was not yet quite ripe; but when it should be, for Constance to be Kent's wife would make her all the more eligible as a tool.

The ceremonies attendant on the royal marriage were over; the King was about to take the field against another insurrection of Glyndwr, and the Earl of Kent had undertaken to guard him to Shrewsbury. Maude, in close attendance on her mistress, heard the parting words between Kent and Constance.

"You will render me visit at Cardiff, my Lord?"

"Sweet Lady, were it possible I could neglect such bidding?"

Constance journeyed in the royal train for a distance, and turned off towards Cardiff, when their ways parted.

Her manner when she arrived at home was particularly affectionate, both to the Dowager and her children, of whom little Richard was now eight years old, while Isabel had just reached four. The keen eyes of the old lady—much sharper mentally than physically—soon discerned the presence of some new element in her daughter-in-law's mind. She closely questioned Maude as to what had happened, or was about to happen; and after a minute's hesitation, Maude told her all she knew and feared. For some time after receiving this information, Elizabeth Le Despenser sat gazing uneasily from the lattice, with unwontedly idle hands.

"Sister's son unto our adversary!" she murmured to herself at last. "Whither shall this tend? Verily, there is One stronger than Thomas de Arundel. Is He leading us blind by a way that we know not?—for in very sooth I cannot discern the way. If so it be, then—Lord, lead Thou on!"

Kent paid his visit to Cardiff in the winter, accompanied by Constance's pet brother, Lord Richard of Conisborough, who had been promoted to his father's old dignity of Earl of Cambridge. It was the first time that the Dowager had seen either; and she afterwards communicated her impressions of the pair to Maude, as they sat together at work.

"As touching the Lord Richard, he is gent and courteous enough; he were no ill companion, an' he knew his own mind a little better. Mayhap three of him, or four, might make a man amongst them."

For Cambridge, though in a much fainter degree, reflected his father's character by finding it very difficult to say no.

"And what thinks your Ladyship of my Lord of Kent?" asked Maude with some anxiety.

The Dowager shook the loose threads from her work with a peculiar little laugh.

"Marry, my maid, what think I of my Lord of Kent his barber, and his tailor?" said she; "for they made my Lord of Kent betwixt them. He is not a man of God's making."

"But think you, Madam, he is to be trusted or no?"

"Trusted!—for what? To oil his golden locks, and perfume well his sudary, and have his sleeves of the newest cutting? Ay, forsooth, and that right worthily!"

"I meant," explained Maude, "to have a care of our Lady."

"Maybe he shall keep her in ointment for her hair," returned the Dowager.

The Earl of Kent returned to Court, and for some time stayed there. He was rather too busy to prosecute his wooing. The Lord Thomas of Lancaster, one of the King's sons, was projecting and executing an expedition from Calais to Sluys, and he took Kent with him; so that, with one or another obstacle arising, Constance's second marriage was not quite so quick in coming as Maude had expected. But at last it did come.

The Duke of York and his Duchess—not long married—and the Earl of Cambridge, journeyed to Cardiff for their sister's wedding. The Duchess of York, though both an heiress and a beauty, left no mark on her time. She was by profession at least a Lollard; and since Lollardism was not now walking in silver slippers, this says something for her. But in all other respects she appears to have been one of those beautiful, mindless women whom clever men frequently marry. Perhaps no woman with a decided character of her own would have ventured on such a husband as Edward Duke of York.

It was a mild winter day, and a picnic was projected in the woods near Cardiff. The wedding was to take place in about a week. Maude rode on a pillion to the scene where the rustic dinner was to be behind Bertram Lyngern, who seemed in a particularly bright and amiable mood. When a woman rode on a pillion, it must be remembered that she was in a very insecure position; and it was an absolute necessity for the fair rider to clasp her arms round the waist of the man who sat before her, and, when the road was rough, to cling pretty tightly. It was therefore desirable that the pair should be at least reasonably civil to one another, and should not get on quarrelsome terms. There was little likelihood of Maude's quarrelling with Bertram, her friend of twenty years' standing; but she did not share his evident light-heartedness as he rode carolling along, now breaking out into a snatch of one song, and now of another, and constantly interrupting himself with playful remarks.

"'Sitteth all still, and hearkeneth to me: The King of Almayne, by my leaute, Thritti thousand pound asked he—'

"A squirrel, Mistress Maude! shall I catch it?

"Dame avec l'oeil de beaute—

"So, my good lad, softly! so, Lyard! How clereful a day! Nigh as soft as summer.

"'Summer is ycomen in— Merry sing, cuckoo! Groweth glede, and bloweth mead, And springeth wood anew.'

"Be merry, Mistress Maude, I pray you! you mope not, surely?"

"I scarce know, Master Lyngern. Mayhap so."

"Shame to mope on such a day!" said Bertram, springing from the saddle, and holding his hand to help Maude to jump down also. "There hath not been so fair a morrow this month gone."

He was soon busy unpacking the sumpter-mules' bags, with two or three more; and dinner was served under the shade of the trees, without any consideration of ceremony. Our fathers spent so much of their time out of doors, and dressed for the season so much more warmly than we do, that they chose days for picnics at which we should shudder. After dinner Maude wandered about a little by herself, and at length sat down at the foot of a lofty oak. She had not been there many minutes before she saw Constance and York coming slowly towards her, evidently in earnest conversation.

"Lo' you here, Ned!" said Constance eagerly, when she caught sight of Maude. "Here is one true as steel. If that you say must have no eavesdroppers, sit we on the further side of this tree; and Maude, hold where thou art, and if any come this way, give a privy pluck at my gown, and we will speak other."

They sat down on the other side of the oak.

"Custance," began her brother, "I misconceive not, trow, to account thee yet true to the cause of King Richard, be he where he may?"

York knew, as certainly as he knew of his own existence, that Richard had been dead five years. But it suited his purpose to speak doubtfully.

"Certes, Ned, of very inwitte!" [Most heartily.]

"Well. And if King Richard were dead, who standeth next heir?"

"My Lord of March, no manner of doubt."

"Good again. Then we thus stand: King Henry that reigneth hath no right; and the true King is shut up in Pomfret, or, granting he be dead, is then shut up in Windsor."

"Well, Ned?"

"Shall we—thou and I—free young March and his brother and sisters?"

"Thou and I!"

She was evidently doubtful. Edward took a stronger bolt from his quiver.

"Custance, Dickon loves Anne Mortimer."

That was a different matter. If Dickon wanted Anne Mortimer or anything else, in his sister's eyes, he must have it. To refuse to help Ned was one thing, but to refuse to help Dickon was quite another.

"But how should we win in?"

Edward drew a silver key from his pocket.

"I gat this made of a smith, Custance, a year gone. 'Tis a key for my strong-room at Langley, the which was lost with other my baggage fording the Thames, and I took the mould of the lock in wax, and gave it unto the smith."

He looked in her face, pausing a little between the sentences, to make sure that she understood him; and he saw by her eyes that she did. The very peril and uncertainty involved in such an adventure gave it a charm for her.

"When, Ned?"

"When I send word."

"Very well. I will be ready."

Before Edward could reply, Bertram Lyngern's horn sounded through the forest, saying distinctly to all who heard it, "Time to go home!" The three rose and walked towards the trysting-place, both Constance and Maude possessed of some ideas which had never presented themselves to them before.

Bertram and Maude rode back as they had come. Maude was very silent, which was no wonder; and so, for ten minutes, was Bertram. Then he began:—

"How liked you this forest life, Mistress Maude?"

"Well, Master Lyngern, and I thank you," said she absently.

"And to-morrow is a week our Lady's Grace shall wed?"

"Why, Master Lyngern, you know that as well as I."

Maude wished he would have left her to her own thoughts, from which his questions were no diversion in any sense.

"Mistress Maude, when will you be wed?"

The diversion was effected.

"I, Master Lyngern! I am not about to wed."

"Are you well avised of that, Mistress Maude?"

"Marry, Master Lyngern!" said Maude, feeling rather affronted.

"If you will take mine avisement, you will be wed likewise," said Bertram gravely.

"What mean you, Master Lyngern?"

Maude was really hurt. She liked Bertram, and here he was making fun of her, without the least consideration for her feelings.

"Marry, I mean that same," responded Bertram coolly. "Would it like you, Mistress Maude?"

"Methinks you had better do me to wit whom your avisement should have me to wed," said Maude, standing on her dignity, and manufacturing an angry tone to keep herself from crying. She would certainly have released her hold of Bertram, and have sat on her pillion in indignant solitude, if she had not felt almost sure that the result would be a fall in the mud. Bertram's answer was quick and decided.

"Me!"

Maude would have answered with properly injured dignity if she could; but a disagreeable lump of something came into her throat which spoilt the effect.

"Thou hadst better wed me, Maude," said Bertram coaxingly, dropping his voice and his conventionalities together. "There is not a soul loveth thee as I do; and thou likest me well."

"I pray you, Master Lyngern, when said I so much?" responded Maude, stung into speech again.

"Just twenty years gone, little Maude," was the gentle answer.

Bertram's voice had changed from its bantering tone into a tender, quiet one, and Maude felt more inclined to cry than ever.

"Is that saying truth no longer, Maude?"

Maude's conscience whispered to her that she must not say any thing of the sort. Still she thought it only proper to hold out a little longer. She was silent; and Bertram, who thought she was coming round, let her alone for a short time. The grey towers of Cardiff slowly rose to view, and in a few seconds more they would no longer be alone.

"Well, Maude?" asked Bertram softly. "Is it ay or nay?"

"As you will, Master Lyngern."

This was Bertram's wooing; and Maude wondered, when she was alone, if any woman had been so wooed before.

Constance expressed the greatest satisfaction when she heard of her bower-woman's approaching marriage; but one item of Bertram's project she commanded altered—namely, that Maude's nuptials should not take place on the same day as her own.

"Why, Maude!" she said, "if our two weddings be one day, I shall have but an half-day's rejoical, and thou likewise! Nay, good maid! we will have each her full day, and a bonfire in the base court, and feasting, and dancing to boot. Both on one day, quotha! marry, but that were niggardly."

So Maude was married on the Saturday previous to her mistress. She was dressed in lilac damask, trimmed with swansdown, and her hair, for the last time in her life, streamed over her shoulders and fell at its own sweet will. Matrons always tucked away their hair in the dove-cote, while widows were careful not to show a single lock. Bertram exhibited extraordinary splendour, for he was generally rather careless about his dress. He wore a red damask gown, trimmed with rabbit's fur; a bright blue under-tunic; a pair of red boots with white buttons; and he bore in his hand a copped hat of blue serge. The copped hat had no brim, and was about a foot and a half in height. Bertram's appearance, therefore, to say the least, was striking.

When the ceremony was just completed, without any previous intimation, the Duke of York, who was present, drew his sword, and lightly struck the shoulder of the bridegroom, before he could rise from his knees.

"Rise, Sir Bertram Lyngern!"

So Maude became entitled at once to the honourable prefix of "Dame."

The grander wedding was on the following Thursday. The Earl of Kent's costume baffles description. Suffice it to say that it cost two thousand pounds. The royal bride doffed her widow's weeds, and appeared in a crimson silk deeply edged with ermine, low in the neck, but with long sleeves to the wrist. She wore the dovecote, and over it an open circlet of gold and gems, to mark her royal rank.

At the threshold of Constance's bower, after the ceremony, the old Lady Le Despenser met the Earl and Countess of Kent.

"The Lord bless you, fair daughter!" she said, laying her hands on the bowed head of the bride.

But a little later the same evening, she said unexpectedly, "Ay me! I am but a blind thing, Dame Maude; yet this match of the Lady Custance doth sorely misgive me."

At the other end of the room, the Duke of York was saying, "You will visit me at Langley, fair sister, this coming spring?"

"With a very good will, Ned."

It only remains to be noted that Father Ademar officiated at both marriages; and that as in those days people went home for the honeymoon, not away from it, the Earl and Countess set out from Cardiff in a few days for Brockenhurst, the birthplace and favourite residence of the young Earl. The children were left with their grandmother; they were to follow, in charge of Maude and Bertram, to Langley, where their mother intended to rejoin them. Maude continued to be bowerwoman to her mistress; but some of the more menial functions usually discharged by one who filled that office, were now given to a younger girl, who bore the name of Eva de Scanteby.

It was in the evening of a lovely spring day that Constance, accompanied by Kent, rejoined Maude and her children at Langley.



CHAPTER NINE.

PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT.

"He that hath a thousand friends hath not a friend to spare, And he that hath one enemy shall find him everywhere."

On the evening of Constance's arrival at Langley, two men sat in close conference in the Jerusalem Chamber of the Palace of Westminster. One of them was a priest, the other a layman. The first priest, and the first layman, in the realm; for the elder was Thomas de Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, and the younger was Henry of Bolingbroke, King of England.

The Archbishop was a tall, stout, portly man, with a round, fair, fat face, on which sat an expression of extreme self-complacency. A fine forehead, both broad and high, though slightly too retreating, surmounted a pair of clear, bright grey eyes, a well-formed nose, and lips in which there was no weakness, but they were just a shade too smiling for sincerity. Though his age was only fifty-one, his hair was snow-white. Of course his face was closely shaven; for it is an odd fact that the higher a man's sacerdotal pretensions rise, the more unlike a man he usually makes himself—resembling the weaker sex as much as possible, both in person and costume. This man's sacerdotal pretensions ran very high, and accordingly his black cassock fell about his feet like a woman's dress, and his face was guiltless of beard or whisker.