I will not pause on this matter. I will only add that the Earl of Warwick, finding Guy a man whom the King delighted to honor, accepted him for a son-in-law; and then, ever wise, and civil, and proper, he discreetly died. The King made Guy Earl of Warwick, in his place, and our hero being now a married man, he of course ceased to be Master Guy.
And here I might end my legend, but that it has a moral in it Guy did a foolish but a common thing, he launched out into extravagant expenses, and, suddenly, he found himself sick, sad, and insolvent. Whether, therewith, his wife was soured, creditors troublesome, and bailiffs presuming, it is hard to say. One thing, however, is certain, that to save himself from all three, Earl Guy did what nobles often do now, in the same predicament, “went abroad.” Guy, however, travelled in primitive style. He went on foot, and made his inn o’nights in church-yards, where he colloquized with the skulls after the fashion of Hamlet with the skull of “poor Yorick.” He had given out that he was going to Jerusalem, but hearing that the Danes were besieging Athelstan at Winchester, he went thither, and, in modest disguise, routed them with his own unaided hand. Among his opponents, he met with the giant Colbron whom he had previously slain in Orient lands, and the two fought their battles o’er again, and with such exactly similar results as to remind one of the peculiar philosophy of Mr. Boatswain Cheeks.
This appearance of Colbron in two places is a fine illustration of the “myth,” and I mention it expressly for the benefit of the next edition of the Right Reverend Doctor Whateley’s “Historical Fallacies.” But to resume.
Guy, imparting a confidential statement of his identity and intentions to the King, left him, to take up his abode in a cave, in a cliff, near his residence; and at the gates of his own castle he received, in the guise of a mendicant, alms of money and bread, from the hands of his wife. I strongly suspect that the foundation of this section of our legend rests upon the probable fact that Phillis was of that quality which is said to belong to gray mares; and that she led Guy a life which made him a miserable Guy indeed; and that the poor henpecked man took to bad company abroad, and met with small allowance of everything but reproach at home And so he “died.”
A dramatic author of Charles I.’s reign, has, however, resuscitated him in “A Tragical History of Guy, Earl of Warwick,” enacted several times in presence of that monarch, and professedly written by a certain “B. J.,” whom I do not at all suspect of being Ben Jonson. The low comedy portion of this tragic drama is of the filthiest sort, dealing in phrases and figures which I can hardly conceive would now be tolerated in the lowest den of St. Giles’s, certainly not out of it. If Charles heard this given more than once, as the titlepage intimates, “more shame for him.” If his Queen was present, she haply may not have understood the verba ad summam caveam spectantia, and if a daughter could have been at the royal entertainment, why then the very idea revolts one, and pity is almost lost in indignation. That the author himself thought well of the piece, which he printed in 1661, is proved by the defiant epigraph which says:—
“Carpere vel noli nostra vel ede tua.”
I must not devote much space to a retrospective review of this piece, particularly as the action begins after Guy has ceased to be “Master,” and when, on his announcement of going to Jerusalem (perhaps to the Jews to do a little business in bills), Phillis makes some matronly remarks in a prospective sense, and a liberty of illustration which would horrify a monthly nurse.
However, Guy goes forth and meets with a giant so huge, that his squire Sparrow says it required four-and-twenty men to throw mustard in his mouth when he dined. From such giants, Heaven protects the errant Guy, and with a troop of fairies, wafts him to Jerusalem. Here he finds Shamurath of Babylon assaulting the city, but Guy heaps miracle on miracle of valor, and produces such astounding results that Shamurath, who is a spectator of the deeds and the doer; inquires, with a suspicion of Connaught in the accent of the inquiry, “What divil or man is this?”
The infidel is more astonished than ever when Guy, after defeating him, takes him into controversy, and laying hold of him as Dr. Gumming does of Romanism, so buffets his belief that, the soldier, fairly out of breath and argument, gives in, and declares himself a Christian, on conviction.
During one-and-twenty years, Guy has a restless life through the five acts of this edifying tragedy, and when he is seen again in England, overcoming the Danes, he intimates to Athelstan that he has six years more to pass in disguise, ere a vow, of which we have before heard nothing, will be fulfilled. Athelstan receives all that is said, in confidence; and promises affably, “upon my word,” not to betray the secret. Guy is glad to hear that Phillis is “pretty well;” and then he takes up his residence as I have before told, according to the legend. He and an Angel occasionally have a little abstruse disquisition; but the most telling scene is doubtless where the bread is distributed to the beggars, by Phillis. Guy is here disguised as a palmer, and Phillis inquires if he knew the great Earl, to which Guy answers, with a wink of the eye, that he and the Earl had often drank at the same crystal spring. But Phillis is too dull, or too melancholy to trace her way through so sorry a joke.