“That yon castle and those hills, which I seem to have seen in a dream, are associated with my future fate, for weal or woe.”
Chapter [3]: Kenilworth.
The chief seat of the noble Earl of Leicester, as of a far less worthy earl of that name, three centuries later, was the Castle of Kenilworth. It had been erected in the time of Henry the First by one Geoffrey de Clinton, but speedily forfeited to the Crown, by treason, real or supposed. The present Henry, third of that name, once lived there with his fair queen, and beautified it in every way, specially adorning the chapel, but also strengthening the defences, until men thought the castle impregnable.
Well they might, for our Martin and Hubert beheld on their arrival a double row of ramparts, looking over a moat half a mile round, and sometimes a quarter of that distance broad: and the old servitors still told how the sad and feeble king had built a fragile bark, with silken hangings and painted sides, wherein he and his newly-married bride oft took the air on the moat. The buildings of the castle were most extensive; the space within the moat contained seven acres; the great hall could seat two hundred guests. The park extended without a break from the walls of Coventry on the northeast to the far borders of the park of the great Earl of Warwick on the southwest—a distance of several miles.
And here, in the society of a score of other boys of their own age, our Hubert and Martin were to receive their early education as pages.
Education—ah, how unlike that which falls to the lot of the schoolboy of the nineteenth century. As a rule, the care of the mother was deemed too tender and the paternal roof too indulgent for a boy after his twelfth year, so he was sent, not exactly to a boarding school, but to the castle of some eminent noble, such as the one under our observation; and here, in the company of from ten to twenty companions of his own age, he began his studies.
We have previously described this course of education in a former tale, The Rival Heirs, but for the benefit of those who have not read the afore-said story we must be pardoned a little recapitulation.
He was daily exercised in the use of all manner of weapons, beginning with such as were of simple character; he was taught to ride, not only in the saddle, but to sit a horse bare-backed, or under any conceivable circumstances which might occur. He had to bend the stout yew bow and to wield the sword, he had to couch the lance, which art he acquired with dexterity by the practice at the quintain.
He had also to do the work of a menial, but not in a menial spirit. It was his to wait upon his lord at table, to be a graceful cup bearer, a clever carver, able to select the titbits for the ladies, and then to assign the other portions according to rank.
It was his to follow the hounds, to learn the blasts of the horn, which belonged to each detail of the field; to track the hunted animal, to rush in upon boar or stag at bay, to break up or disembowel the captured quarry.