Part 9

So miserably and brutally perished the Lady Katharine Bonville's _second_ husband, one of the chief friends and favourites of Edward IV., through the remorseless malice aforethought of that king's brother, the Duke of Gloucester. Lord Hastings was a prominent, it may be said, representative character of that age of intrigue and unscrupulous ambition. Although loyal to Edward and his sons, he was a "sworn enemy" to Queen Elizabeth Woodville, notwithstanding his wife's daughter, Cicely Bonville, was married to her eldest son, and he is said to have "greatly contributed" to the execution of the prisoners at Pontefract, Anthony, Earl Rivers, and Richard, Lord Grey, the Queen's brothers, and near relatives of his step-daughter Cicely Bonville's husband, the Marquis of Dorset; by a most remarkable retribution he was awarded a similar fate to theirs, said to have occurred on the same day, and at the same hour. His hands too are reputed to have been imbrued with the blood of Margaret of Anjou's unfortunate youthful son. His amour with Jane Shore was made the handle of Gloucester's accusation, and sudden and cruel as his fate was, it was perhaps merciful as compared with the suffering that was reserved for her. While Hastings, her protector, lived, her position was one of comparative safety, but at his death none dared befriend her, and true to the hideous completeness of the part Gloucester was acting, she was to be the next victim. Then the poor, frail, beautiful and withal amiable creature,--Edward used to call her the 'holiest' of his three mistresses, the other two being respectively the 'wittiest' and the 'merriest'--one to whom a king, and 'the handsomest man in Europe' to boot, had paid court, amid unstinted opulence and luxury, was dragged forth and exposed to the gibes, jeers, and insults of a vulgar mob, with studied opprobrium publicly disgraced, and finally with contumely driven away to eke out the remainder of her days in the most abject poverty, misery, and distress. The purist,--forgetful his mother was a woman,--may say the degradation was deserved; but there is no human shortcoming that gives justification for unmanliness, the most detestable of all crimes.

By his wife Katharine, widow of William Bonville, and daughter of Richard Nevill, Earl of Salisbury, Lord Hastings had issue four sons:--1. Edward, eldest son and heir; he married Mary, grand-daughter and heiress of Robert, Baron Hungerford, Bottreaux, Molyns, and Moels, and in right of his wife was summoned to Parliament, though still a minor, in 1483, by the title of Baron Hastings of Hungerford; he died in 1507.--2. Sir Richard.--3. Sir William.--4. Sir George; and one daughter, Anne, married to George Talbot, fourth Earl of Shrewsbury.

Lord Hastings made his will 27 June, 1481, bequeaths his body to be buried in the "_Chapel of Seynt George at Wyndesore_," and "_that there be ordeigned a tumbe convenient for me by myne executors, and for the costs of the same I bequeath c marks_." After many religious bequests,--"_also when George, Erle of Shrewsbury, whose warde and marriage to be, me is granted, &c.,--hath married Anne my daughter, I woll that if the same Erle should die, which God defend, &c., that then Thomas brother of the said Erle take to wife, her the same Anne, &c._,"--gives to "_Kateryn myn entirely beloved wyff_," sundry manors and constitutes her one of his executors, and "_ordaynes John, Lord Dynham_," a contemporary of west-country fame, as one of the surveyors.

Katharine, Lady Hastings, made her will 22 Nov., 1503, and orders her body "_to be buried in our Lady Chapell, within the parish church of Ashby-de-la-Zouch_," gives numerous religious bequests, and "_where I owe unto Cecilie, Marquesse Dorset, certain summes of money which I borrowed of her at diverse times, I woll that the said Cecilie in full contentation of all summes of money as I owe unto her, have my bed of arres, tittor, tester, and counterpane, which she late borrowed of me; and over that I woll that she have my tabulet of_ _gold that she now hath in her hands for a pledge, and three curtains of blew sarcionet, and three quishons of counterfeit arres with imagery of women, a long quishon, and two short of blew velvet, also two carpets_;" and "_makes and ordaines Cercell, Marquis Dorset, widow_," one of her executors. She died in 1504.

Lord Hastings was buried in the Chantry erected by his widow, and dedicated to St. Stephen, in the north arcade of the choir of St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle. The screen that separates it from the aisle, is of three stories, the two upper of open work with tracery. Above is a cornice with Tudor flower cresting, and in the centre, an open-vizored helmet with mantling, supporting the Hastings' crest, _from out a ducal coronet, a bull's head affrontée, couped at the shoulders_. Below are the arms of Hastings, _a maunch sable_, and this device with the Garter appears in a series below. The screen was originally richly painted and gilded. There is no monument within it, and probably there never was such. In general design the Hastings' Chantry has much in common with Canon Oxenbridge's, on the opposite side of the choir.

To return to Lord Bonville. We have thus traced as clearly and succinctly as may be, this somewhat tangled genealogy of their descents, and its bloodstained surroundings, to clear the ground, and get a more comprehensive view of the circumstances that may have had their influence on the last years of Lord Bonville's life, and also to afford some reason as to when, and why, he finally transferred his influence and allegiance from the Red to the White Rose.

Our last glimpse of him was in 1455, when he was said to have "valiantly performed" the duel on Clyst-Heath, with Thomas Courtenay, Earl of Devon, the real basis of which quarrel it is inferred, but not authenticated, was his presumed sympathy then with the cause of the White Rose, and so raised the anger of his antagonist, who was warmly interested on the side of the Red.

Apart from this rather apochryphal incident, there does not appear to be any direct evidence of his identification, at least actively, with the cause of York for the next five years. There were reasons why perhaps this might not be so. He was then married to his second wife, a Courtenay, the member of a family strongly identified with the fortunes of the Red Rose. She was the widow of a wealthy peer, and her present husband's son was married to the heiress of her first husband's house, in the person of her niece, the only daughter of his brother; and there does not appear to be any evidence as to which way the Haringtons leant toward the impending struggle, that may have influenced him. Lord Bonville may from conviction have passively inclined toward the interest of York, but no mention is made of his being at the first battle of St. Albans (which took place the same year as the duel on Clyst-Heath) 22 May, 1455, nor as to his being in any way concerned with the fluctuating aspects of the strife during the next four years, up to and including the battle of Bloreheath, which occurred 23 Sep., 1459.

But about 1458-9 a new and very powerful factor found admission into Lord Bonville's family, in the marriage of his grandson with Katharine Nevill, the sister of the king-maker, Richard, Earl of Warwick, the central point around which the hopes of the White Rose concentrated, while her other brother George Nevill presided over the diocese of Exeter. It is difficult to estimate the important influence this relationship would naturally exercise on the Bonvilles, especially if already inclined that way, and doubtless it did add considerable weight to turn the scale promptly, and as it turned out irremediably, on the side of York, as immediate events shew.

Taking the foregoing speculations and surmises, however, only for what they are worth, by the middle of the year 1460, there could be no doubt as to the side Lord Bonville had taken, whether by the "subtile insinuations" of his grandson's wife's family or otherwise. The battle of Northampton took place 10 July, 1460, and the unfortunate half-demented Henry VI. being taken prisoner, we are told by Prince, with probable correctness, the king was, "among others, committed to the care and custody of the Lord Bonvil."

Doubtless afterward, Lord Bonville, accompanied by his son and grandson, found distinguished places in the retinue of the king-maker, in their triumphal march back to London, escorting the captive monarch in the train.

Short spell of success and victory, soon to be followed by a terrible nemesis! The scared but determined Margaret of Anjou, and her son Edward had escaped into Scotland, and presently the dark war-clouds were again gathering north and south for another sanguinary conflict. Six months of preparation brought the combatants together, and on the 31 Dec., in the same year, the frightful and merciless battle of Wakefield shattered, for the time, the hopes of York to the centre.

Among the nobles fighting on the side of Queen Margaret, was Lord Bonville's neighbour and old antagonist, Thomas Courtenay, Earl of Devon; and on the other, arrayed in the cause of York, were the three generations of the Bonvilles, two of whom were destined never to come out of that fearful conflict alive. Whether in the thick of the battle, or in the pursuit that followed, may not be related, but both son and grandson perished, and Prince intensifies its horror by relating "that both were slain before his (the grandfather--Lord Bonville's) face."

In the carnage fell also Richard, Duke of York, whose head Margaret, in womanish revenge, then caused to be struck off and displayed over one of the gates of York, decorated with a paper crown; while immediately after, his second son, the Earl of Rutland, a beautiful boy of thirteen was stabbed to the heart by the savage Clifford. Eleven years intervened of ceaseless anxiety, and then at Tewkesbury, Margaret's own son Edward shared a similar dreadful fate at the hands of his captors.

In the pursuit that followed the battle of Wakefield, during the night, the Earl of Salisbury--the Lady Katharine Bonville's father--was captured, taken to Pontefract Castle, and the next day beheaded. The brother also, Sir Thomas Nevill, was killed in the engagement,--so that she lost husband, father, and brother in the fight; misfortunes almost greater than Lord Bonville's.

Thus died in the prime of life William Bonville (Lord Harington), the father,--and also before he had scarcely emerged from his teens, William Bonville the son. Probably both found common sepulture on the battle-field, or unrecorded graves in some sanctuary near. The Earl of Salisbury's body, and that of his son Thomas, were subsequently conveyed to Bisham Abbey in Berkshire, and there interred, with others of their ancestors and kindred.

It would be supposed that the aged Lord Bonville, satiated and stunned with these accumulated horrors, would have quietly withdrawn from the desperate dangers of further participation in these conflicts, and devoted the remainder of his declining days to a more peaceful life, and the preservation and guardianship of his baby great-grand-daughter, the last green branch of his antient stock, the infant Cecily. But no, his very name was now practically extinguished, his son and grandson were not, and the iron of misfortune had probably entered and seared his soul. Determined and perhaps reckless of the future on thus seeing all his hope and ambition blasted, he still followed on, for good or for evil, to the bitter end, regardless of consequence, the fortune of the cause he had espoused, and for which he had sacrificed so much. Who may enter into, or estimate fully the feelings that convulsed the stricken heart of this old man, under such an avalanche of misery?

But this misery, sharp as it was, was mercifully of short duration. Six weeks only intervened, in which interval it is probable Lord Bonville retreated from Wakefield, with such of the discomfited army that remained unslain, back to join the Earl of Warwick, then waiting on the outskirts of London to effect a junction with the forces of Edward, Duke of York, who had just fought and won a decisive victory over Jasper and Owen Tudor, with a Lancastrian army at Mortimer's Cross, near Hereford.

Before however this could be accomplished, the energetic Margaret, flushed with success, and hurrying southward in hope to secure the metropolis, was upon him; and the furious battle of St. Albans on the 18 Feb., 1460-1, was the result. There she at first received a check, but by turning the position she fell on Warwick's army, and the combat was carried on over the undulating country, between St. Albans and Barnet, in which two thousand Yorkists are said to have perished. At nightfall, Warwick found himself beaten at all points, and made precipitate retreat, leaving the King, who was accompanying the army as a prisoner, behind.

It would require no seer to divine the vindictive thoughts of Margaret, on regaining possession of her captive husband, and the consummate danger environing those in whose custody she found him, whether for preservation or otherwise. The Queen and her son discovered the helpless man in his tent with one personal attendant only, Lord Montague his Chamberlain. But there were at least two other distinguished men near, who were said to have remained to guard him from the lawless soldiery, one was the brave Sir Thomas Kyriel, and the other Lord Bonville. Both could doubtless have fled with the rest of the fugitives, had they been so minded, but it is recorded, that out of chivalrous feelings, when urged by the King to remain by him and protect him, they did so, under the assurance from him that their lives should be preserved.

A fatally hazardous undertaking in those days of merciless reprisals, and so it turned out. Whatever the well-meaning King may have promised and perhaps really wished, his wife, the determined Margaret, was the "master of the situation," and the arbiter of their destiny; nor was she probably wanting in prompters calculated to urge her to wreak the worst vengeance upon her husband's guardians. However that may be, it is recorded, that as she turned from the battle-field in the evening, she left orders for their decapitation the next day, and the barbarous sentence was promptly carried out.

Weever says,--

"Sir _Thomas Kiriell_ was beheaded with the Lord _Bouvile_ the day after the second battell at _St. Albons_, in the raigne of king Henry the sixth: or slain in the battell according to John Harding.

'The Lords of the north southward came, To Sainct _Albones_, vpon fasting gang eve Wher then thei slewe the Lord Bouvile I leve And Sir _Thomas Kyriell_ also of Kent, With mekell folke, that pitee was to se.'"

The old chronicler Hollingshed describing this unhappy transaction tells us with greater truth,--

"When the daie was closed, those that were about the king (in number a twenty thousand) hearing how euill their fellowes had sped, began utterlie to despair of the victorie, and so fell without anie long tarriance to running awaie. By reason whereof, the nobles that were about the king, perceiving how the game went, and withall saw no comfort in the king, but rather a good will and affection toward the contrarie part, they withdrew also, leauing the king accompanied by the Lord Bonneuille and Sir Thomas Kiriell of Kent, which vpon assurance of the king's promise, tarried with him and fled not. But their trust deceived them, for at the queenes departing from Saint Albons they were both beheaded, though contrarie to the mind and promise of her husband."

No record exists of Lord Bonville's burial place. At the first battle of St. Alban's, in 1455, the Abbot craved the bodies of the slain nobles from the victors, and buried them in the choir of the Abbey Church. But after this second engagement, Margaret's ill-paid, freebooting soldiers pillaged the town and abbey, so that probably those that perished were hastily interred near where they fell. This plundering the abbey "entirely changed the worthy Abbot Whethamstede's politics, and from being a zealous Lancastrian, he became a Yorkist."

Lord Bonville's ancestors in the direct line were mostly, if not all, buried in the choir of Newenham Abbey Church, near Axminster, of which hardly a trace now remains.

At the death of Lord Bonville, his brother Thomas of Tamerton-Foliot, was still alive, and survived until 11 Feb., 1467. He left one son John, who deceased in 1494, leaving a daughter Anne, married to Philip Coplestone. Some years anterior to this, the little child-heiress of Shute, Cicely Bonville, grown to woman's estate, was wedded,--and so, before the fifteenth century had closed, the antient and influential name of Bonville was extinct.[15]

[15] There was a natural strain of the Bonvilles, settled at Combe-Ralegh, and later at Ivybridge where, "by virtue of a remainder, this land came unto William Lord Bonvill, which gave it unto John Bonvill, his naturall sonne, begotten on his concubine Elizabeth Kirkby, which John Bonvill, having only daughters, gave it to his natural son, &c." (Pole). There were several generations of them, and used for their arms those of Bonville with the addition of _a bend sinister_; they also became extinct.

It is with feelings of relief that we turn away, at least for a time, from these scenes of horror. The Wars of the Roses appear to us, we regret to say, to have been imbued with very little, if any, chivalry. They were in the main, only fought for the selfish purpose, lust of power, and as a consequence, were attended by the congenial sinister characteristics of cruelty, treachery, and revenge. It is noteworthy however, that notwithstanding so many of the common people shed their blood and lost their lives thus freely, and it may be added ignorantly, partly lured and partly compelled probably to take part in these conflicts, at the bidding of their superiors in station and wealth striving for the mastery, it was not upon them as a class the great social misfortunes of the war fell. As a general result, the engagements being over, their little houses and surroundings were scarcely ever ravaged or destroyed, the humble partizans in these sanguinary encounters, if victors, do not seem to have laid waste or appropriated their beaten neighbours' possessions, but simply kept their legions together, until their antagonists had time to rally, and again gather themselves in array for another trial of strength; an extraordinary, in its way, but by no means uncommon hallucination, that has first and last, in the world's history, cost millions of lives, wasted to determine the unmanly and degrading sentiment as to who should be a nation's master and rule over them;--a totally opposite aspiration to a people engaged fighting against a tyranny for liberty. But not thus comparatively scatheless, did the great actors in and promoters of this sanguinary drama, come off from the effects of the internecine strife. These men were desperate gamblers for high stakes, and the loss of the game to them was a fatal mischance, resulting in the deprivation of their lives, the confiscation of their estates, and occasionally--as with Bonville and the elder strain of Courtenay, extermination of their race also. No such terrible social quarrel ever convulsed England, nor heart-rending dissension so bitter, sown between the nearest and dearest relatives and friends, that the very commonest ties of humanity were outraged, dyed in blood, and trampled under foot, until at last the majority of the most illustrious families in the land were wrecked in misery and destruction.

Over such a relation as this, friend of mine, fraught with contingencies and evils so desperate, let us close the record for awhile.

* * * * *

Old Shute Park! A royally descending gift of demesne,--as such, sacred from the intrusion of despoiling hands, and therefore happily preserved to us undesecrated of Nature's abounding charms and native beauty.

Here we are, seated on one of its pleasant knolls, throned in luxuriant ferns, surrounded by magnificent trees, and a calm, sunny, summer evening. Overhead a congregation of noisy rooks are flapping about, quarrelling with us apparently for thus intruding on the solitude of their domain. Below, across the openings of a densely foliaged avenue, a shadowy train of flying horn and bounding hoof has passed noiseless as an apparition into the adjoining covert, where they presently assemble in timorous conclave, at safer distance, alert and watchful.

"Gold of the reddening sunset, backward thrown In largess on these old paternal trees, Thou with false hope or fear did'st never tease His heart that hoards thee; nor is childhood flown, From him, whose life no fairer boon hath known Than that which pleased him earliest, still should please: And who hath incomes safe from chance as these, Gone in a moment, yet for life his own?"

Such is the commentary Nature suggests, as we linger on this delightful acclivity. But what to us is the inspiration of the hour, whose minds are now busy in contemplation of the olden doings of her sons?

Look along that glade of venerable oaks, huge, gnarled, and twisted, the duration of whose lives may be reckoned by centuries, yet still hale, vigorous and leaf-arrayed, whose outward and visible aspect during the little cycle of mortal existence that at present looks upon them, has shewn no appreciable change, and will probably with unvarying regularity continue to display their perennial Spring garniture, to many succeeding generations, long after the eyes that now behold them have closed for ever.

Among them yonder is a veteran with a regal appellative--called after him, surnamed of Lackland,--"King John's Oak," with which monarch, tradition delivers it was in existence contemporary. And who is to say the legend is not correct, especially as every lineament of this aged grandee of the forest's appearance, goes to confirm it. Could a tongue be given thee, old tree, what a history mightest thou relate. Then, probably in the vigour of early youth, thou mayest have witnessed the _first_ Bonville, that claimed the ownership of this acclivity, pass cross-bow in hand under thy branches. His influential descendant who lies at rest in the valley of the far distance, and his still more celebrated but unfortunate grandson--both, when in the flesh,--with little doubt thou hast seen. Aye, even the little Lady Cicely--the _last_ hope of their unfortunate race,--may have toddled and prattled beneath thy shade, and afterward escorted by her noble husband, accompanied by his august relative, the moody and astute Henry VII., and followed by her fine family, rested beside or near thee, when that monarch and his host exercised their skill as bowmen in these delightful glades.

Then a season of desertion and gloom fell for a time over these erstwhile pleasant precincts; but when the star of the last Tudor sovereign was in the ascendant, then it again became thy destiny to welcome the new owner of this historic and time-honoured appanage, and thenceforward from time to time to greet each succeeding inheritor down to its genial possessor of the present hour. Here, may we not appropriately say,

"Beneath thy shadowing leafage dense What stories have been told;-- Perchance of booty won and shared Beneath the starry cope,-- Or beauty kept an evil tryste, Ensnared by love and hope,-- Of old intrigues, And privy leagues, Of traitor lips that muttered plots, Of kin who fought and fell; Performed long generations since, If trees had tongues to tell."