‘Youth is gone,’ said Bedford. ‘We have been under a mighty master, and now God help us to do his work.’
‘You!’ said James; ‘but for me—it is like to be the library and the Round Tower again.’
‘Scarcely,’ said Bedford, ‘the Beauforts will never rest till Joan is on a throne.’
James smiled.
‘Ay,’ said Bedford, ‘the Bishop of Winchester will be no small power, you will find. Would that I could throw up this France and come home, for he and Humfrey will clash for ever. James, an you love me, see Humfrey alone, and remind him that all the welfare of Harry’s child may hang on his forbearance—on union with the Bishop. Tell him, if he ever loved the noblest brother that ever lived, to rein himself in, and live only for the child’s good, not his own. Tell him that Bedford and Gloucester must be nothing henceforth—only heads and hands doing Harry’s will for his babe. Oh, James, what can you tell Humfrey that will make him put himself aside?’
‘You have writ to him Harry’s words as to Dame Jac?’
‘The wanton! ay, I have; and if you can whisper in his ear that matter of Malcolm and the signet, it might lessen his inclination. But,’ he sighed, ‘I have little hope, James; I see nothing for Lancaster but that which the old man at York invoked upon us!’
‘Yet, when I look at you and Humfrey, and think of the contrast with my own father’s brethren, I see nothing but hope and promise for England,’ said James.
‘We must do our best, however heavy-hearted,’ said John of Bedford, pausing in his walk, and standing steadfast. ‘The rod becomes a palm to those who do not freshly bring it on themselves. May this poor child of Harry’s be bred up so that he may be fit to meet evil or good!’
‘Poor child,’ repeated James. ‘Were he not there, and you—’