“Brother,” said he, throwing himself with some petulance into the only chair the room, otherwise splendid, contained, “when you left me to seek Edward in the camp of Anthony Woodville, what was the understanding between us?”
“I know of none,” answered the earl, who having doffed his armour, and dismissed his squires, leaned thoughtfully against the wall, dressed for the banquet, with the exception of the short surcoat, which lay glittering on the tabouret.
“You know of none? Reflect! Have you brought hither Edward as a guest or as a prisoner?”
The earl knit his brows—“A prisoner, archbishop?”
The prelate regarded him with a cold smile.
“Warwick, you, who would deceive no other man, now seek to deceive yourself.” The earl drew back, and his hardy countenance grew a shade paler. The prelate resumed: “You have carried Edward from his camp, and severed him from his troops; you have placed him in the midst of your own followers; you have led him, chafing and resentful all the way, to this impregnable keep; and you now pause, amazed by the grandeur of your captive,—a man who leads to his home a tiger, a spider who has entangled a hornet in its web!”
“Nay, reverend brother,” said the earl, calmly, “ye churchmen never know what passes in the hearts of those who feel and do not scheme. When I learned that the king had fled to the Woodvilles, that he was bent upon violating the pledge given in his name to the insurgent commons, I vowed that he should redeem my honour and his own, or that forever I would quit his service. And here, within these walls which sheltered his childhood, I trusted, and trust still, to make one last appeal to his better reason.”
“For all that, men now, and history hereafter, will consider Edward as your captive.”
“To living men my words and deeds can clear themselves; and as for history, let clerks and scholars fool themselves in the lies of parchment! He who has acted history, despises the gownsmen who sit in cloistered ease, and write about what they know not.” The earl paused, and then continued: “I confess, however, that I have had a scheme. I have wished to convince the king how little his mushroom lords can bestead him in the storm; and that he holds his crown only from his barons and his people.”
“That is, from the Lord Warwick!”