“I mean,” renewed Montagu, “that in my brother’s flight, his retainers were taken by surprise. In vain the king would confiscate his lands,—he cannot confiscate men’s hearts. If Warwick to-morrow set his armed heel upon the soil, trowest thou, sagacious and clear-judging prince, that the strife which would follow would be but another field of Losecote? [The battle of Erpingham, so popularly called, in contempt of the rebel lions runaways.] Thou hast heard of the honours with which King Louis has received the earl. Will that king grudge him ships and moneys? And meanwhile, thinkest thou that his favourers sleep?”
“But if he land, Montagu,” said Richard, who seemed to listen with an attention that awoke all the hopes of Montagu, coveting so powerful an ally—“if he land, and make open war on Edward—we must say the word boldly—what intent can he proclaim? It is not enough to say King Edward shall not reign; the earl must say also what king England should elect!”
“Prince,” answered Montagu, “before I reply to that question, vouchsafe to hear my own hearty desire and wish. Though the king has deeply wronged my brother, though he has despoiled me of the lands, which were, peradventure, not too large a reward for twenty victories in his cause, and restored them to the House that ever ranked amongst the strongholds of his Lancastrian foe, yet often when I am most resentful, the memory of my royal seigneur’s past love and kindness comes over me,—above all, the thought of the solemn contract between his daughter and my son; and I feel (now the first heat of natural anger at an insult offered to my niece is somewhat cooled) that if Warwick did land, I could almost forget my brother for my king.”
“Almost!” repeated Richard, smiling.
“I am plain with your Highness, and say but what I feel. I would even now fain trust that, by your mediation, the king may be persuaded to make such concessions and excuses as in truth would not misbeseem him, to the father of Lady Anne, and his own kinsman; and that yet, ere it be too late, I may be spared the bitter choice between the ties of blood and my allegiance to the king.”
“But failing this hope (which I devoutly share),—and Edward, it must be owned, could scarcely trust to a letter,—still less to a messenger, the confession of a crime,—failing this, and your brother land, and I side with him for love of Anne, pledged to me as a bride,—what king would he ask England to elect?”
“The Duke of Clarence loves you dearly, Lord Richard,” replied Montagu. “Knowest thou not how often he hath said, ‘By sweet Saint George, if Gloucester would join me, I would make Edward know we were all one man’s sons, who should be more preferred and promoted than strangers of his wife’s blood?’” [Hall.]
Richard’s countenance for a moment evinced disappointment; but he said dryly: “Then Warwick would propose that Clarence should be king?—and the great barons and the honest burghers and the sturdy yeomen would, you think, not stand aghast at the manifesto which declares, not that the dynasty of York is corrupt and faulty, but that the younger son should depose the elder,—that younger son, mark me! not only unknown in war and green in council, but gay, giddy, vacillating; not subtle of wit and resolute of deed, as he who so aspires should be!—Montagu, a vain dream!”—Richard paused and then resumed, in a low tone, as to himself, “Oh, not so—not so are kings cozened from their thrones! a pretext must blind men,—say they are illegitimate, say they are too young, too feeble, too anything, glide into their place, and then, not war—not war. You slay them not,—they disappear!” The duke’s face, as he muttered, took a sinister and a dark expression, his eyes seemed to gaze on space. Suddenly recovering himself as from a revery, he turned, with his wonted sleek and gracious aspect, to the startled Montagu, and said, “I was but quoting from Italian history, good my lord,—wise lore, but terrible and murderous. Return we to the point. Thou seest Clarence could not reign, and as well,” added the prince, with a slight sigh,—“as well or better (for, without vanity, I have more of a king’s mettle in me), might I—even I—aspire to my brother’s crown!” Here he paused, and glanced rapidly and keenly at the marquis; but whether or not in these words he had sought to sound Montagu, and that glance sufficed to show him it were bootless or dangerous to speak more plainly, he resumed with an altered voice, “Enough of this: Warwick will discover the idleness of such design; and if he land, his trumpets must ring to a more kindling measure. John Montagu, thinkest thou that Margaret of Anjou and the Lancastrians will not rather win thy brother to their side? There is the true danger to Edward,—none elsewhere.”
“And if so?” said Montagu, watching his listener’s countenance. Richard started, and gnawed his lip. “Mark me,” continued the marquis, “I repeat that I would fain hope yet that Edward may appease the earl; but if not, and, rather than rest dishonoured and aggrieved, Warwick link himself with Lancaster, and thou join him as Anne’s betrothed and lord, what matters who the puppet on the throne?—we and thou shall be the rulers; or, if thou reject,” added the marquis, artfully, as he supposed, exciting the jealousy of the duke, “Henry has a son—a fair, and they say, a gallant prince—carefully tutored in the knowledge of our English laws, and who my lord of Oxford, somewhat in the confidence of the Lancastrians, assures me would rejoice to forget old feuds, and call Warwick ‘father,’ and my niece ‘Lady and Princess of Wales.’”
With all his dissimulation, Richard could ill conceal the emotions of fear, of jealousy, of dismay, which these words excited.