“Soothly,” saith she: “neither do very brambles bear grapes.”
Three days the Queen tarried at Bury: then, with banners flying, she marched on toward Essex. I thought it strange that even she should march with displayed banners, seeing the King was not of her company: but I reckoned she had his order, and was acting as his deputy. Elsewise had it been dread treason (Note 1), even in her. I was confirmed in my thought when my Lord of Lancaster, the King’s cousin, and my Lord of Norfolk, the King’s brother, came to meet her and joined their troops to her company; and yet more when the Archbishop of Dublin, and the Bishops of Hereford, Lincoln, and Ely, likewise joined them to her. Verily, such holy men could not countenance treason.
Truth enough: but that which was untrue was not the treason, but the holiness of these Caiaphases.
And now began that woeful Dolorous Way, which our Lord King Edward trod after his Master Christ. But who knoweth whither a strange road shall lead him, until he be come to the end thereof? I wis well that many folk have said unto us—Jack and me—since all things were made plain, How is it ye saw not aforetime, and wherefore followed ye the Queen thus long? They saw not aforetime, no more than we; but now that all is open, up come they with wagging heads and snorkilling noses, and—“Verily, we were sore to blame for not seeing through the mist”—the mist through the which, when it lay thick, no man saw. Ha, chétife! I could easily fall to prophesying, myself, when all is over. Could we have seen what lay at the end of that Dolorous Way, should any true and loyal man have gone one inch along it?
And who was like to think, till he did see, what an adder the King nursed in his bosom? Most men counted her a fair white dove, all innocent and childlike: that did I not. I did see far enough, for all the mist, to see she was no child in that fashion; yet children love mischief well enough betimes; and I counted her, if not white, but grey—not the loathly black fiend that she was at the last seen to be. I saw many a thing I loved not, many a thing I would not have done in her place, many a thing that I but half conceived, and feared to be ill deed—but there ended my seeing. I thought she was caught within the meshes of a net, and I was sorry she kept not thereout. But I never guessed that the net was spread by her own hands.
My mother, Dame Alice de Lethegreve, I think, saw clearer than I did: but it was by reason she loved more,—loved him who became the sacrifice, not the miserable sinner for whose hate and wickedness he was sacrificed.
So soon as King Edward knew of the Queen’s landing, which was by Michaelmas Eve at latest, he put forth a proclamation to all his lieges, wherein he bade them resist the foreign horde about to be poured upon England. Only three persons were to be received with welcome and honour: which was, the Queen herself, Edward her son (his father, in his just ire, named him not his son, neither as Earl of Chester), and the King’s brother, the Lord Edmund of Kent. I always was sorry for my Lord of Kent; he was so full hoodwinked by the Queen, and never so much as guessed for one moment, that he acted a disloyal part. He was a noble gentleman, a kindly and a generous; not, maybe, the wisest man in the realm, and something too prone to rush after all that had the look of a noble deed, ere he gave himself time enough to consider the same. But if the world held no worser men at heart than he, it were marvellous better world than now.
One other thing did King Edward, which showed how much he had learned: he offered a great price of one thousand pounds (about 18,000 pounds, according to modern value), for the head of the Mortimer: and no sooner did the Queen hear thereof, than she offered double—namely, two thousand pounds—for the head of Sir Hugh Le Despenser—a man whose little finger was better worth two thousand than the Mortimer’s head was worth one. Two days later, the King fortified the Tower, and appointed the Lord John of Eltham governor thereof; but he being only a child of ten years, the true governor was the Lady Alianora La Despenser, who was left in charge of the King’s said son. And two days afore Saint Francis (October 2nd) he left the Tower, and set forth toward Wallingford, leaving the Bishop of Exeter to keep the City: truly a thankless business, for never could any man yet keep the citizens of London. Nor could he: for a fortnight was not over ere they rose in insurrection against the King’s deputies, invested the Tower, wrenched the keys from the Constable, John de Weston, to whom the Lady Alianora had confided them, brought her out with the young Lord, and carried them to the Wardrobe—not without honour—and then returning, they seized on the Bishop, with two of his squires, and strake off their heads at the Standard in Chepe. And this will I say for the said Bishop, though he were not alway pleasant to deal withal, for he was very furnish—yet was he honest man, and loved his master, ay, and held to him in days when it was little profit so to do. And seeing how few honest men there be, that will hold on to the right when their profit lieth to the left, that is much to say.
With the King went Sir Hugh Le Despenser—I mean the younger, that was create Earl of Gloucester by reason of his marriage; for the Lady Alianora his wife was eldest of the three sisters that were coheirs of that earldom. And thereanent—well-a-day! how different folks do from that I should do in their place! I can never tell wherefore, when man doth ill, the penalty thereof should be made to run over on his innocent sons. Because Sir Hugh forfeited the earldom, wherefore passed it not to his son, that was loyal man and true, and one of the King’s best councillors all his life? On the contrary part, it was bestowed on Sir Hugh de Audley, that wedded the Lady Margaret (widow of Sir Piers de Gavaston), that stood next of the three coheirs. And it seemeth me scarce just that Sir Hugh de Audley, that had risen up against King Edward of old time, and been prisoned therefor, and was at best but a pardoned rebel, should be singled out for one of the finest earldoms in England, and not Sir Hugh Le Despenser, whose it was of right, and to whose charge—save the holding of the Castle of Caerphilly against Queen Isabel, which was in very loyalty to his true lord King Edward—no fault at all could be laid. I would I had but the world to set right! Then should there be justice done, and every wrong righted, and all crooked ways put straight, and every man and woman made happy. Dear heart, what fair and good world were this, when I had made an end of—
Did man laugh behind me?