For him, he was full calm: stately as his father—he was comelier of the twain, yea, the goodliest man ever mine eyes lit on: but I thought not on that in that hour. His chief fault, man deemed, was pride: not the vanity that looketh for applause of man, but rather the lofty-mindedness that is sufficient to himself, and despiseth other. I beheld no trace thereof as he there stood. All that had been—all that was of earth and earthy—seemed to have dropped away from him: he was calm and tranquil as the sea on a summer eve when not a breath stirreth. Wala wa! we have all our sins: and what be we, to throw the sins of another in his face? Sir Hugh did some ill deeds, belike; and so, God wot, hath done Cicely de Chaucombe; and whose sins of the twain were worser in His sight, He knoweth, not I. Verily, it was whispered that he had taint of heresy, the evillest thing that may be: but I trust that dread charge were untrue, and that he was but guilty of somewhat more pride and ambitious desires than other. Soothly, pride is one of the seven deadly sins—pray God save us all therefrom!—yet is heresy, as the Church teacheth, an eighth deadlier than all the seven. And if holy Church hath the words of God, and is alonely guided of His Spirit, then must it be an awful and deadly sin to gainsay her bidding. There be that take in hand to question the same: whom holy Church condemneth. I Cicely cannot presume to speak thereof, not being a priest, unto whom alone it appertaineth to conceive such matter. ’Tis true, there be that say lay folk can as well conceive, and have as much right as any priest; but holy Church agreeth not therewith. God be merciful to us all, whereinsoever we do err!
But now was the Queen in a sore strait: for that precious treasure that had once been in her keeping—to wit, the Great Seal—was no longer with her. The King had the same; and she was fain to coax it forth of his keeping, the which she did by means of my said Lord of Hereford. I know not if it were needful, but until she had this done, did not Sir Hugh Le Despenser suffer.
It was at Hereford, the eve of Saint Katherine, that he died. I thank the saints I was not there; but I heard dread stories of them that were. Dame Isabel de Lapyoun was in waiting that day; I think she was fittest for it.
I ween it was on that morrow, of the eve of Saint Katherine, that mine eyes first began to ope to what the Queen was in very deed. Wherefore was she present at that deed of blood? Dame Tiffany reckoned she deemed it her duty: and truly, to behold what man can deem his duty, is of the queerest things in this queer world. I never knew a cow that reckoned it duty to set her calf in peril, and herself tarry thereout; nor a dog that forsook his master’s company by reason of his losing of worldly gear; nor an horse that told falsehoods to his own profit. I have wist men that would do all these things, and more; because, forsooth, it was their duty! Now, after what manner it could be duty to Dame Isabel the Queen to preside in her own person at the execution of Sir Hugh, that cannot I Cicely tell. Nay, the saints love us! what need was there of an execution at all? Sir Hugh was dying fast. Since he was taken would he never open his lips, neither to speak nor yet to eat; and that eve of Saint Katherine had seen his end, had they left him die in peace. Veriliest, I wis not what he had done so much worser than other men, that so awesome an ensample should be made of him. I do trust the rumour was not true that ran of his heresy; for if so, then must not man pity him. And yet—
Virgo sanctissima! what is heresy? The good Lord wot.
My Lord of Lincoln was he, as I heard, which brought tidings to the Queen that Sir Thomas Wager had done him to wit Sir Hugh would die that day. Would die—whether man would or no. Holy Mary, the pity of it! Had I been Sir Thomas, never word would I have spoken till the breath was clean gone out of him, and then, if man coveted vengeance, let him take it on the silent dust. But no sooner was it known to the Queen—to her, a woman and a mother!—than she gave command to have the scaffold run up with all speed, and that dying man drawn of an hurdle through the city that all men might behold, with trumpets going afore, and at last hanged of the gallows till he were dead. Oh, the pity of it! the pity of it!
The command was obeyed—so far as man could obey. But ere the agony were full over, God Almighty stepped in, and bare him away from what she would have had him suffer. When they put him on the hurdle, he lay as though he wist not; when they twined a crown of nettles and pressed it on his brow, he was as though he felt not; when, the torture over, they made ready to drag him to the gallows, they saw that he was dead. God cried to them, “Let be!”
God assoil that dead man! Ay, maybe he shall take less assoiling than hath done that dead woman.
Man said that when my Lord of Lincoln came to tell her of this matter, she was counting the silver in my Lord of Arundel his bags, that were confiscate, and had then been brought to her: and but a few days later, at Marcle, Sir William de Blount brought from the King the Great Seal in its leathern bag sealed with the privy seal, and delivered it unto the Queen and her Keeper (Chancellor) the Bishop of Norwich. Soothly, it seemed to me as though those canvas bags that held my Lord of Arundel’s silver, and the white leathern bag that held the Great Seal, might be said to be tied together by a lace dipped in blood. And somewhat later, when we had reached Woodstock, was Sir Hugh Le Despenser’s plate brought to the Wardrobe, that had been in the Tower with the Lady Alianora his wife—five cups and two ewers of silver, and twenty-seven cups and six ewers of gold; and his horses and hers delivered into the keeping of Adam le Ferrour, keeper of the Queen’s horses: and his servants either cast adrift, or drafted, some of them, into the household of the Lord John of Eltham. Go to! saith man: was all this more than is usual in like case? Verily, nay: but should such things be usual in Christendom? Was it for this our Lord came to found His Church—that Christian blood should thus treat his Christian brother? And if no, what can be said of such as called themselves His priests, and passed by on the other side?—nay, rather, took into their own hands the arrows of Sathanas, and wounded their brother with their own fingers? “Numquid adhaeret Tibi sedes iniquitatis?” (Psalm 94, verse 20). Might it not have been said to Dame Isabel the Queen like as Moses said to Korah, “Is it nothing to you that you have been joined to the King, and set by his side on the throne, and given favour in his eyes, so that he suffereth you to entreat him oftener and more effectually than any other, but you must needs covet the royal throne theself?” (Itself.)
Ah, what good to write such words, or to speak them? When man hath no fear of God before his eyes, what shall he regard the reasonings of men? But the day of doom cometh, and that sure.