Chapter Fourteen.
Evil Tidings.
“Too tired for rapture, scarce I reach and cling
To One that standeth by with outstretched hand;
Too tired to hold Him, if He hold not me:
Too tired to long but for one heavenly thing,—
Rest for the weary, in the Promised Land.”
Permission for Bruno to lay aside the habit of Saint Augustine reached Bury Castle very soon after his sermon. And with it came two other items of news,—the one, that Bishop Grosteste offered him a rich living in his diocese; the other, that the Bishop’s life had been attempted by poison. It was not to be wondered at in the least, since Grosteste had coolly declared the reigning Pope Innocent to be an exact counterpart of Anti-Christ (for which the head of the Church rewarded him by terming him a wicked old dotard), and his attachment to monachism in general was never allowed to stand in the way of the sternest rebuke to disorderly monks in particular. He also presumed to object to his clergy having constant recourse to Jewish money-lenders, and especially interfered with their favourite amusement of amateur theatricals, which he was so unreasonable as to think unbecoming the clerical office.
Bruno hastened to the Countess with the news, accompanying it by warm thanks for the shelter afforded to himself and his daughter, and informing her that he would no longer burden her with either. But she looked very grave.
“Father Bruno,” she said, “I have a boon to ask.”
“Ask it freely, Lady. I am bound to you in all ways.”
“Then I beg that you and Beatrice will continue here, so long—ha, chétife!—so long as my child lives.”
Father Bruno gravely assented. He knew too well that would not be long. Yet it proved longer than either of them anticipated.
Stormy times were at hand. The Papal Legate had effected between Earl Hubert and the Bishop of Winchester a reconciliation which resembled a quiescent volcano; but Hubert was put into a position of sore peril by his royal brother-in-law of Scotland, who coolly sent an embassy to King Henry, demanding as his right that the three northernmost counties of England should be peaceably resigned to him. After putting him off for a time by an evasive message, King Henry consented to meet Alexander at York, and discuss the questions on which they differed. His Britannic Majesty was still vexing his nobles by the favour he showed to foreigners. At this time he demanded a subsidy of one-thirtieth of all the property in the kingdom, which they were by no means inclined to give him. As a sop to Cerberus, the King promised thenceforth to abide by the advice of his native nobility, and the subsidy was voted. But his next step was to invite his father-in-law, the Count of Provence, and to shower upon him the gold so unwillingly granted. The nobles were more angry than ever, and the King’s own brother, Richard Earl of Cornwall, was the first to remonstrate. Then Archbishop Edmund of Canterbury took a journey to Rome, and declined to return, even when recalled by the Legate. But the grand event of that year was the final disruption of Christendom. The Greek Church had many a time quarrelled with the Latin, chiefly on two heads,—the worship of images and the assumption of universal primacy. On the first count they differed with very little distinction, since the Greek Church allowed the full worship of pictures, but anathematised every body who paid reverence to statues,—a rather odd state of things to Protestant eyes. Once already, the Eastern Church had seceded, but the quarrel was patched up again. But after the secession of 1237, there was never to be peace between East and West again.
The new year came in with a royal marriage. There were curious circumstances attending it, for the parties married in spite of the King, who was obliged to give away the bride, his sister Alianora, “right sore against his will:” and though the bride had taken the vow of perpetual widowhood, (Note 1) they did not trouble themselves about a Papal dispensation till they had been married for some weeks. The bridegroom was the young Frenchman, Sir Simon de Montfort, whom the King at last came to fear more than thunder and lightning. The English nobility were extremely displeased, for they considered that the Princess had been married beneath her dignity; but since from first to last she had had her own wilful way, it was rather unreasonable in the nobles to vent their wrath upon the King. They rose against him furiously, headed by his own brother, and by the husband of the Princess Marjory of Scotland, till at last the royal standard was deserted by all but one man,—that true and loyal patriot, Hubert, Earl of Kent,—the man whom no oppression could alienate from the Throne, and whom no cruelty could silence when he thought England in danger. But now his prestige was on the wane. The nobles were not afraid of him, on account of his old age, his wisdom, and a vow which he had taken never to bear arms again. In vain King Henry appealed privately to every peer, asking if his fidelity might be relied on. From every side defiant messages came back. The citizens of London, as their wont was, were exceptionally disloyal. Then he sent the Legate to his brother, urging peace. Cornwall refused to listen. At last, driven into a corner, the King begged for time, and it was granted him, until the first Monday in Lent. When that day came, the nobles assembled in grand force at London, to come to a very lame and impotent conclusion. Earl Richard of Cornwall, the King’s brother, suddenly announced that he and his new brother-in-law, Montfort, had effected a complete reconciliation. The other nobles were very angry at the desertion of their leader, and accused him, perhaps not untruly, of having been bribed into this conduct: for Cornwall was quite as extravagant, and nearly as acquisitive, as his royal brother. Just at this time died Joan, Queen of Scotland, the eldest sister of King Henry, of rapid decline, while on her way home from England; and her death was quickly followed by that of Hubert’s great enemy, the Bishop of Winchester. The filling up of the vacant see caused one of the frequent struggles between England and Rome. The Chapter of Winchester wished to have the Bishop of Chichester: the King was determined to appoint the Queen’s uncle, Guglielmo of Savoy; and, as he often did to gain his ends, Henry sided with Rome against his own people.
The disruption between the Greek and Latin Churches being now an accomplished fact, the Archbishop of Antioch went the length of excommunicating the Pope and the whole Roman Church, asserting that if there were to be a supreme Pontiff, he had the better claim to the title. This event caused a disruption on a small scale in Margaret’s bower, where Beatrice scandalised the fair community by wanting to know why the Pope should not be excommunicated if he deserved it.
“Excommunicate the head of the Church!” said Hawise, in a horrified tone.
“Well, but here are two Churches,” persisted Beatrice. “If the Pope can excommunicate the Archbishop, what is to prevent the Archbishop from excommunicating the Pope?”
“Poor creature!” said Hawise pityingly.
“The Eastern schism is no Church!” added Eva.
“Oh, I do wish some of you would tell me what you mean by a Church!” exclaimed Beatrice, earnestly, laying down her work. “What makes one thing a Church, and another a schism?”
But that was just what nobody could tell her. Hawise leaped the chasm deftly by declaring it an improper question. Eva said, “Si bête!” and declined to say more.
“Well, I may be a fool,” said Beatrice bluntly: “but I do not think you are much better if you cannot tell me.”
“Of course I could tell thee, if I chose!” answered Eva, with lofty scorn.
“Then why dost thou not?” was the unanswerable reply.
Eva did not deign to respond. But when Bruno next appeared, Beatrice put her question.
“The Church is what Christ builds on Himself: a schism is bred in man’s brain, contrary to holy Scripture.”
In saying which, Bruno only quoted Bishop Grosteste.
“But, seeing men are fallible, how then can any human system claim to be at all times The Church?” asked Beatrice.
“The true Church is not a human system at all,” said he.
“Father, Beatrice actually fancies that the Archbishop of Antioch could excommunicate the holy Father!” observed Hawise in tones of horror.
“I suppose any authority can excommunicate those below him, in the Church visible,” said Bruno, calmly: “in the invisible Jerusalem above, which is the mother of us all, none excommunicates but God. ‘Every branch in Me, not fruit-bearing, He taketh it away.’ My daughters, it would do us more good to bear that in mind, than to blame either the Pope or the Archbishop.”
And he walked away, as was his wont when he had delivered his sentence.
That afternoon, the Countess sent for Beatrice and Doucebelle to her own bower. They found her seated by the window, with unusually idle hands, and an expression of sore disturbance on her fair, serene face.
“There is bad news come, my damsels,” she said, when the girls had made their courtesies. “And I do not know how to tell my Magot. Perhaps one of you might manage it better than I could. And she had better be told, for she is sure to hear it in some way, and I would fain spare the child all I can.”
“About Sir Richard the Earl, Lady?” asked Beatrice.
“Yes, of course. He is married, Beatrice.”
“To whom, Lady?” asked Beatrice, calmly but Doucebelle uttered an ejaculation under her breath.
“To Maud, daughter of Sir John de Lacy, the Earl of Lincoln. It is no fault of his, poor boy! The Lord King would have it so. And the King has made a good thing of it, for I hear that the Earl of Lincoln has given him above three thousand gold pennies to have the marriage, and has remitted a debt of thirteen hundred more. A good thing for him!—and it may be quite as well for Richard. But my poor child! I cannot understand how it is that she does not rouse up and forget her disappointment. It is very strange.”
It was very strange, to the mother who loved Margaret so dearly, and yet understood her so little. But Doucebelle silently thought that any thing else would have been yet stranger.
“And you would have us tell her, Lady?”
“It would be as well. Really, I cannot!”
The substratum was showing itself for a moment in the character of the Countess.
“Dulcie would do it better than I,” said Beatrice, “I am a bad hand at beating about the bush. I might do it too bluntly.”
“Then, Dulcie, do tell her!” pleaded the Countess.
“Very well, Lady.” But all Doucebelle’s unselfishness did not prevent her from feeling that she would almost rather have had any thing else to do.
She went back slowly to Margaret’s bower, tenanted at that moment by no one but its owner. Margaret looked up as Doucebelle entered, and read her face as easily as possible.
“Evil tidings!” she said, quietly enough. “For thee, or for me, Dulcie?”
Doucebelle came and knelt beside her.
“For me, then!” Margaret’s voice trembled a little. “Go on, Dulcie! Richard—”
She could imagine no evil tidings except as associated with him.
Doucebelle conquered her unwillingness to speak, by a strong effort.
“Yes, dear Margaret, it is about him. The—”
“Is he dead?” asked Margaret, hurriedly.
“No.”
“I thought, if it had been that,”—she hesitated.
“Margaret, didst thou not expect something more to happen?”
“Something—what? I see!” and her tone changed. “It is marriage.”
“Yes, Sir Richard is married to—”
“No! Don’t tell me to whom. I am afraid I should hate her. And I do not want to do that.”
Doucebelle was silent.
“Was it his doing,” asked Margaret in a low voice, “or did the Lord King order it?”
“Oh, it was the Lord King’s doing, entirely, the Lady says.”
“O Dulcie! I ought to wish it were his, because there would be more likelihood of his being happy: but I cannot—I cannot!”
“My poor Margaret, I do not wonder!” answered Doucebelle tenderly.
“Is it very wicked,” added Margaret, in a voice of deep pain, “not to be able to wish him to be happy, without me? It is so hard, Dulcie! To be shut out from the warmth and the sunlight, and to see some one else let in! I suppose that is a selfish feeling. But it is so hard!”
“My poor darling!” was all that Doucebelle could say.
“Father Bruno said, that so long as we kept saying, ‘My will be done,’ we must not expect God to comfort us. Yet how are we to give over? O Dulcie, I thought I was beginning to submit, and this has stirred all up again. My heart cries out and says, ‘This shall not be! I will not have it so!’ And if God will have it so!—How am I to learn to bend my will to His?”
Neither of the girls had heard any one enter, and they were a little startled when a third voice replied—
“None but Himself can teach thee that, my daughter. If thou canst not yet give Him thy will, ask Him to take it in spite of thee.”
“I have done that, already, Father Bruno.”
“Then thou mayest rest assured that He will do all that is lacking.”
That night, Bruno said to Beatrice,—“That poor, dear child! I am sure God is teaching her. But to-day’s news has driven another nail into her coffin.”
Would it have been easier, or harder, if the veil could have been lifted which hid from Margaret the interior of Gloucester Castle? To the eyes of the world outside, the young Earl behaved like any other bridegroom. He brought the Lady Maud to his home, placed her in sumptuous apartments, surrounded her with obsequious attendants, provided her with all the comforts and luxuries of life: but there his attentions ended. For four years his step never crossed the threshold of the tower where she resided, and they met only on ceremonial occasions. Wife she never was to him, until for twelve months the cold stones of Westminster Abbey had lain over the fair head of his Margaret, the one love of his tried and faithful heart.
Having now completed the wreck of these two young lives, His Majesty considerately intimated to Richard de Clare, that in return for the unusual favours which had been showered upon him, he only asked of him to feel supremely happy, and to be devoted to his royal service for the term of his natural life.
Only!
How often it is the case that we imagine our friends to be blessing us with every fibre of their hearts, when it is all that they can do to pray for grace to enable them to forgive us!
Not that Richard did any thing of the kind. So far from it, that he registered a vow in Heaven, that if ever the power to do it should fall into his hands, he would repay that debt an hundredfold.
The two chaplains of the Earl had shown no interest whatever in Margaret and her troubles. Father Warner despised all human affections of whatever kind, with the intensity of a nature at once cold and narrow. Father Nicholas was of a far kindlier disposition, but he was completely engrossed with another subject. Alchemy was reviving. The endless search for the philosopher’s stone, the elixir of life, and other equally desirable and unattainable objects, had once more begun to engage the energies of scientific men. The real end which they were approaching was the invention of gunpowder, which can hardly be termed a blessing to the world at large. But Father Nicholas fell into the snare, and was soon absolutely convinced that only one ingredient was wanting to enable him to discover the elixir of life. That one ingredient, of priceless value, remains undiscovered in the nineteenth century.
Yet one thing must be said for these medieval philosophers,—that except in the way of spending money, they injured none but themselves. Their search for the secret of life did not involve the wanton torture of helpless creatures, nor did their boasted knowledge lead them to the idiotic conclusion that they were the descendants of a jelly-fish.
Oh, this much-extolled, wise, learned, supercilious Nineteenth Century! Is it so very much the superior of all its predecessors, as it complacently assumes to be?
King Alexander of Scotland married his second wife in the May of 1239, to the great satisfaction of his sisters. The Countess of Kent thought that such news as this really ought to make Margaret cheer up: and she was rather perplexed (which Doucebelle was not by any means) at the discovery that all the gossip on that subject seemed only to increase her sadness. An eclipse of the sun, which occurred on the third of June, alarmed the Countess considerably. Some dreadful news might reasonably be expected after that. But no worse occurrence (from her point of view) happened than the birth of a Prince—afterwards to be Edward the First, who has been termed “the greatest of all the Plantagenets.”
The occasion of the royal christening was eagerly seized upon, as a delightful expedient for the replenishing of his exhausted treasury, by the King who might not inappropriately be termed the least of the Plantagenets. Messengers were sent with tidings of the auspicious event to all the peers, and if the gifts with which they returned laden were not of the costliest description, King Henry dismissed them in disgrace. “God gave us this child,” exclaimed a blunt Norman noble, “but the King sells him to us!”
Four days after the Prince’s birth came another event, which to one at least in Bury Castle, was enough to account for any portentous eclipse. The Countess found Beatrice drowned in tears.
“Beatrice!—my dear maiden, what aileth thee? I have scarcely ever seen thee shed tears before.”
The girl answered by a passionate gesture.
“‘Oh that mine head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!’”
“Ha, chétife!—what is the matter?”
“Lady, there has been an awful slaughter of my people.” And she stood up and flung up her hands towards heaven, in a manner which seemed to the Countess worthy of some classic prophetess. “‘Remember, O Adonai, what is come upon us; consider, and behold our reproach!’ ‘O God, why hast Thou cast us off for ever? why doth Thine anger smoke against the sheep of Thy pasture? We see not our signs: there is no more any prophet.’ ‘Arise, O Adonai, judge the earth! for Thou shalt inherit all nations.’”
The Countess stood mute before this unparalleled outburst. She could not comprehend it.
“My child, I do not understand,” she said, kindly enough. “Has some relative of thine been murdered? How shocking!”
“Are not all my people kindred of mine?” exclaimed Beatrice, passionately.
“Dost thou mean the massacre of the Jews in London?” said the Countess, as the truth suddenly flashed upon her. “Oh yes, I did hear of some such dreadful affair. But, my dear, remember, thou art now a De Malpas. Thou shouldst try to forget thine unfortunate connection with that low race. They are not thy people any longer.”
Beatrice looked up, with flashing eyes from which some stronger feeling than sorrow had suddenly driven back the tears.
“‘If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning!’ Lady, thou canst not fathom the heart of a Jew. No Christian can. We are brethren for ever. And you call my nationality unfortunate, and low! Know that I look upon that half of my blood as the King does upon his crown,—yea, as the Lord dees upon His people! ‘We are Thine; Thou never barest rule over them; they were not called by Thy name.’ But you do not understand, Lady.”
“No,—it is very strange,” replied the Countess, in a dubious tone. “Jews do not seem to understand their position. It is odd. But dry thine eyes, my dear child; thou wilt make thyself ill. And really—”
The Countess was too kind to finish the sentence. But Beatrice could guess that she thought there was really nothing to weep over in the massacre of a few scores of Jews. She found little sympathy among the younger members of the family party. Margaret said she was sorry, but it was evidently for the fact that her friend was in trouble, not for the event over which she was sorrowing. Eva openly expressed profound scorn of both the Jews and the sorrow.
Marie wanted to know if some friend of Beatrice were among the slain: because, if not, why should she care any thing about it? Doucebelle alone seemed capable of a little sympathy.
But before the evening was over, Beatrice found there was one Christian who could enter into all her feelings. She was slowly crossing the ante-chamber in the twilight, when she found herself intercepted and drawn into Bruno’s arms.
“My darling!” he said, tenderly. “I am sent to thee with heavy tidings.”
Poor Beatrice laid her tired head on her father’s breast, with the feeling that she had one friend left in the world.
“I know it, dear Father. But it is such a comfort that you feel it with me.”
“There are not many who will, I can guess,” answered Bruno. “But, my child, I am afraid thou dost not know all.”
“Father!—what is it?” asked Beatrice, fearfully.
“One has fallen in that massacre, very dear to thee and me, my daughter.”
“Delecresse?” She thought him the most likely to be in London of any of the family.
“No. Delecresse is safe, so far as I know.”
“Is it Uncle Moss?—or Levi my cousin?”
“Beatrice, it is Abraham the son of Ursel, the father of us all.”
The low cry of utter desolation which broke from the girl’s lips was pitiful to hear.
“‘My father, my father! the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof!’”
Bruno let her weep passionately, until the first burst of grief was over. Then he said, gently, “Be comforted, my Beatrice. I believe that he sleeps in Jesus, and that God shall bring him with Him.”
“He was not baptised?” asked Beatrice, in some surprise that Bruno should think so.
“He was ready for it. He had spoken to a friend of mine—one Friar Saher de Kilvingholme—on the subject. And the Lord would not refuse to receive him because his brow had not been touched by water, when He had baptised him with the Holy Ghost and with fire.”
Perhaps scarcely any priest then living, Bruno excepted, would have ventured so far as to say that.
“Oh, this is a weary world!” sighed Beatrice, drearily.
“It is not the only one,” replied her father.
“It seems as if we were born only to die!”
“Nay, my child. We were born to live for ever. Those have death who choose it.”
“A great many seem to choose it.”
“A great many,” said Bruno, sadly.
“Father,” said Beatrice, after a short silence, “as a man grows older and wiser, do you think that he comes to understand any better the reason of the dark doings of Providence? Can you see any light upon them, which you did not of old?”
“No, my child, I think not,” was Bruno’s answer. “If any thing, I should say they grow darker. But we learn to trust, Beatrice. It is not less dark when the child puts his hand confidingly in that of his father; but his mind is the lighter for it. We come to know our Father better; we learn to trust and wait. ‘What I do, thou knowest not now: but thou shalt know hereafter.’ And He has told us that in that land where we are to know even as we are known, we shall be satisfied. Satisfied with His dealings, then: let us be satisfied with Him, here and now.”
“It is dark!” said Beatrice, with a sob.
“‘The morning cometh,’” replied Bruno. “And ‘in the morning is gladness.’”
Beatrice stood still and silent for some minutes, only a slight sob now and then showing the storm through which she had passed. At last, in a low, troubled voice, she said—
“There is no one to call me Belasez now!”
Bruno clasped her closer.
“My darling!” he said, “so long as the Lord spares us to each other, thou wilt always be belle assez for me!”
Note 1. She was the young widow of William, Earl of Pembroke, the eldest brother of the husband of Marjory of Scotland.