Part 15

"Troweth the protector," replies the queen, (heaven grant that he may prove a protector,) "that the king doth lack a playfellow? Can none be found to play with the king but only his brother, who hath no wish to play because of sickness? as though princes so young as they be, could not play without their peers, or children could not play without their kindred, with whom, for the most part, they agree worse than with strangers!" The archbishop knew not what to say in answer, he liked not to tell her that the protector was resolved to gain possession of the young prince, and he waited in the hope that she might be inclined to accede to his request. At length the queen, taking her son by the hand, said, in a compressed and solemn tone, "My lord, and all my lords now present, I will not be so suspicious as to mistrust your truth. Lo here is this gentleman whom, I doubt not, would be safely kept by me if I were permitted; and well do I know there be some such deadly enemies to my blood, that if they wist where any lay, they would let it out if they could. The desire of a kingdom knoweth no kindred; brothers have been brothers' bane, and may the nephews be sure of the uncle? Each of these children are safe while they be asunder; notwithstanding, I here deliver him, and his brother's life with him, into your hands, and of you I shall require them before God and man. Faithful ye be, I wot well, and power ye have, if ye list, to keep them safe; but if ye think I fear too much, yet beware ye fear not too little! Farewell, my own sweet son! God send you good keeping. Let me kiss you once ere you go, for God knoweth when we shall kiss together again." Tenderly embracing the afflicted boy, she is seen "weeping bitterly over him, and he too is weeping as fast in his turn."[57]

Fearful tragedies are acting now in the dim distance of time's perspective. They flit before the mental view, fading, and seeming to appear again; yet not the same, though like in terror and in kind. The shadowy figures of Hastings, of Gray, and Rivers, are seen passing from the block, and then the innocent forms of two young children, emerging from the gloomy range of fortresses belonging to the Tower. And loud is heard the sobbing, and the pitiful screams of the poor mother, as she beats upon her breast, and calls her sweet babes by name; and, kneeling down, implores the vengeance of the Just One, on the guilty head of him who has thus cruelly deprived her of her sons.

The vaulted door of a spacious room is opening, and across the furthest end seems flitting a strange succession of sad scenes--a young child's[58] funeral passes, and then a burst of anguish comes remotely to the ear, as if across wide waters, from a stern man, who yet cannot hide his sorrow; then a woman's wail, but the wail soon dies away, and a death scene and a funeral pass in faint review.[59] Then the great fight of Bosworth, where a king is slain, and another takes his crown; a bridal follows and a coronation.

Thus they pass; events of other days are shadows now; terrible, indeed, at the period of their reality, but when ended, how soon forgotten! yet not forgotten by the aged woman, who is resting, as in a quiet home, within that spacious room in the Abbey of Bermondsey. It is her right to be there, for the prior and monks are bound by their charter to entertain, and that most hospitably, the representative of their great founder, Clare, Earl of Gloucester. Edward VI. was the sole heir of that family, and the queen dowager is privileged to occupy the nobly panelled halls, and state-chambers, that are expressly reserved for the descendants of the founder.[60]

The waves and billows of life's deepest waters have passed over that aged woman who is sitting in a richly carved chair, at the great oriel-window, watching the summer clouds as they flit over the smiling landscape, and cast their shadows on the abbey fields. Her venerable figure, beautiful even in its decrepitude, though not with the beauty of sunny youth, yet such as the bright ray of the setting sun sheds over an autumn landscape, recalls the faint remembrance of a lovely woman who once stood, with two orphan boys beneath the oak of Whittlebury, to sue for the restitution of her broad lands, from the gallant Edward.

Hark to the toll of the convent bell. It is tolling for Elizabeth Woodville, late Queen Dowager of England, and the requiem is being sung, which breathes peace to the passing spirit. The moon is up, and yet the night is dark and gloomy, by reason of the heavy clouds that are rolling past, and he who looks narrowly on the deep dark waters of the river may discern a small boat gliding on, with the coffin of the queen on board, and four attendants, but when the moon shines out you can distinguish the prior of the Charterhouse by his robes, with two others in deep mourning, yet without insignia, by which to designate them, and one female figure. Now the rowers stop, and the coffin is being carried through the little park into Windsor Castle, a few torches serving to guide the bearers, which appear and disappear among the trees, like the twinkling lights of glow-worms in the grass.

Stately figures are kneeling round the coffin, where it remains for a while, ready to be borne to its last resting-place, and among the mourners one is discerned in the dress of a nun. Again the coffin is upborne, and the queen's daughters fall behind, with a train of shadowy forms, ladies, and earls, and viscounts, moving onward to St. George's chapel. Strange it seems, that neither plumes nor scutcheons are to be seen; that when the dirge is being sung, the twelve old men, whose office it is to chant the requiem for the dead, are not even clad in sable vestments: appearing rather like a dozen old men indiscriminately and hastily brought together for the purpose, and permitted to retain the garments of poverty, in which they were found, and, instead of flambeaux, they light on the funeral with old torches and torches ends.[61] Some say, that the queen, when dying, expressed an earnest wish for a speedy and private funeral. If so, her request was punctually fulfilled. Yet still it is remarkable that no more of pomp should appertain to the obsequies of her who had been Queen of England--that scutcheons and nodding plumes, and other mourning tokens, were wanting to distinguish that illustrious one's last sojourn on earth.

THE END.

Joseph Rickerby, Printer, Sherbourn Lane.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Gloucestershire.

[2] South Wales.

[3] Lingard.

[4] Southey's visit to Godstow nunnery.--CAMDEN.

[5] Roger de Hoveden.

[6] Hatcher's Account of Salisbury.

[7] The Old Peerage, by Brooke.

[8] Dugdale incorrectly says months, instead of years, a mistake corrected by Bowles.

[9] History of Lacock Abbey. Monsieur de Saint Palage's great work on the History of Troubadours.

[10] Book of Lacock.

[11] Close Rolls, May 2. Rhymer's Foedore, 1207.

[12] Book of Lacock.

[13] A most beautiful copy was deposited, and may still be seen, in the chamber of Records at Salisbury Cathedral.

[14] Clause Rolls.

[15] Dugdale, from a MS. Oxon, in Bibl. Bodl. n. 11. f. 177, et 178. p. a.

[16] Matt. of Paris. Clause Rolls.

[17] Register of Osmund, among the MSS. of the Cathedral. Narrative, by William de Wanda, published in the first volume of Wilkins's Concilia.

[18] Matt. Paris. Foedera.

[19] Matt. Paris.

[20] William de Wanda's Church History.

[21] History of Lacock. Matt. Paris.

[22] History of Lacock Abbey.

[23] Matt. of Westminster.

[24] Chron. of W. de Wanda. Wilkin's Concilia, vol. 1 page 559.

[25] Annals and Antiquities of Lacock Abbey.

[26] Book of Lacock Abbey.

[27] Annals of Lacock, p. 180.

[28] Madox's History of the Exchequer, p. 218.

[29] Book of Lacock.

[30] Book of Lacock.

[31] Historian of Lacock Abbey.

[32] Marian is the legendary name of the Countess of Huntingdon.

[33] Rom. viii. 21.

[34] Rapin.

[35] M. Paris.

[36] Hen. Knyghton.

[37] A small silver cross of beautiful workmanship was found buried a few years since, near the fatal tree.

[38] Mentioned by Walter Hennyngforde, and quoted in Grafton's Chronicle.

[39] The Palace of Bishops Hatfield, then a royal residence, where the Princess Elizabeth resided in a kind of honourable custody, though still rigorously guarded.

[40] Hall's Chronicle, p. 365. Parliamentary History. Vol. II. 345.

[41] Afterwards the home of Lady Jane Gray.

[42] History of St. Albans.

[43] Whethemstede and Guthrie.

[44] Parliamentary History. Vol. II. p. 345.

[45] Baker's Northamptonshire.

[46] Fragment Chronicle, printed by Heane, at the end of the Sprott. Chronicle.

[47] The Sprott. Chronicle.

[48] Lives of the Queens of England, by Alice Strickland.

[49] Monstrelet.

[50] Hall. Comines.

[51] It is conjectured that the prince was born in the Jerusalem Chamber, which the kind abbot relinquished to the queen.

[52] Fleetwood's Chronicle.

[53] Narrative of Louis of Bruges, Lord Grauthuse, edited by Sir F. Madden.

[54] Cont. Hist. Croyl. Sir Thomas More. Hall.

[55] Sir Thomas More.

[56] Hall.

[57] Hall, 355. Sir Thomas Moore, 358.

[58] Only son of Richard III.

[59] Death and funeral of Richard's Queen.

[60] Annals of the Abbey of Bermondsey.

[61] Arundel MSS. 30. referred to in the Lives of the Queens of England.