Chapter Ten.
Forgiveness not to be Forgiven.
“Ay, there’s a blank at my right hand
That ne’er can be made up to me.”—James Hogg.
Before leaving Bermondsey, the Earl had accomplished one of the hardest pieces of work which ever fell to his lot. This was the execution of the deed of separation which conveyed his legal assent to the departure of his wife, and assigned to her certain lands for her separate sustenance. Himself the richest man in England, he was determined that she should remain the wealthiest woman. He assigned to her all his lands in Norfolk and Suffolk, the manors of Kirketon in Lincolnshire, Malmesbury and Wyntreslawe in Wiltshire, and an annuity on Queenhithe, Middlesex—the whole sum amounting to 800 pounds per annum, which was equivalent to at least 15,000 pounds a year. He reserved to himself the appointments to all priories and churches, and the military feofs and escheats. Moreover, the Countess was not to sell any of the lands, nor had she the right to build castles. So far, in all probability, any man would have gone. But one other item was added, which came straight from the human heart of Earl Edmund, and was in the thirteenth century a very strange item indeed. The Countess, it was expressly provided, should not waste, exile, enslave, nor destroy “the serfs on these estates.” (Note 1.)
The soul of Haman the Agagite, which had descended upon Margaret de Clare, fiercely resented this unusual clause. On the same roll which contains the Earl’s grant, in ordinary legal language—which must have cost him something where he records her wish, and his assent, “freely during her widowhood to dedicate herself to the service of God,”—there is another document, in very extraordinary language, wherein the Lady Margaret recounts the wrongs which her lord is doing her in respect of this 800 pounds a year. A more spiteful production was hardly ever penned. From the opening address “to all who shall read or hear this document” to the concluding assertion that she has hereto set her seal, the indenture is crammed full of envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness. She lets it plainly be seen that all the lands in Norfolk and Suffolk avail her nothing, so long as these restraining clauses are added to the grant. Margaret probably thought that she was merely detailing her wrongs; she did not realise that she was exhibiting her character. But for these four documents, the two letters, and the two indentures, wherein Earl and Countess have respectively “pressed their souls on paper,” we might never have known which was to blame in the matter. Out of her own mouth is Margaret judged.
With amazing effrontery, and in flat contradiction not only of her husband’s assertion, but of her own admission, the Countess commenced her tirade by bringing against her lord the charge of which she herself was guilty. As he was much the more worthy of credit, I prefer to believe him, confirmed as his statement is by her own letter to the Pope. She went on to detail the terms of separation, making the most of everything against her husband, and wound up with a sentence which must have pierced his heart like a poignard. She solemnly promised never to aggrieve him at any time by asking him to take her back, and never to seek absolution (Note 2) from that oath! In one sentence of cold, cruel, concentrated spite, she sarcastically swore never to demand from him the love for which during one and twenty years he had sued to her in vain.
So now all was over between them. The worst that could come had come.
“All was ended now, the hope, and the fear, and the sorrow,
All the aching heart, the restless unsatisfied longing,
All the dull deep pain, and constant anguish of patience!”