CHAPTER XI.
A LAST INTERVIEW.
"Now all these things are over,—yes, all thy pretty ways,
Thy needlework, thy prattle, thy snatches of old lays:
And none will grieve when I go forth, nor smile when I return,
Nor watch beside the old man's bed, nor weep upon his urn."
—LORD MACAULAY.
The two youthful Annes of the royal House at this period, who were nearly of an age, were very similar in character in all points but one. Both the Princess of Wales and Lady Anne Grey were gentle, amiable, refined, and gifted with deep affections: but the one was strong, and the other weak. For the strong nature was carved out a heavy cross. For the weak one, there was a light structure appointed, which so crushed down her feeble frame, that it was as oppressive to her as the greater burden to her cousin.
The sorrows of the one were close to their ending, while those of the other had little more than begun. Treated at first with apparent kindness and lenity—placed in the keeping of her uncle, and suffered to visit her beloved mother-in-law,—the Princess of Wales maintained so dauntless a front, and so unswerving a resolution, that Gloucester saw plainly that to wait for any change in her would be to wait for ever. No earthly consideration would ever make her willingly wed with him. So, as she refused to change front, he changed his. One dark evening in the March of 1473;[#] the Princess was removed from her place of detention by a band of armed men. Whither she knew not, until she found herself, to her amazement, in the lighted aisles of Westminster Abbey, with robed priests awaiting her in the chancel, and the Duke of Gloucester, in gorgeous array, standing before the altar. Then the full perception of the gulf of misery in which she was to be plunged rushed upon Anne Neville. She tried to fly, but the armed men held her down. She poured out passionate protests—she refused to utter the words prescribed by the service—she screamed in agony for the help that was not to come. Every thing she did which a lonely, captive girl could do, to show that this detested marriage was accompanied by no good-will and no consent of hers. But she might as well have cried to the stone pillars, or have fled for refuge to the dead kings lying around her. The priests went on with their ceremonies, the choir sang calmly, the bridegroom performed his part of the service, the ring was forced on her finger, and Richard Plantagenet and Anne Neville were pronounced man and wife, in the name of that God who looked silently down upon the iniquitous scene, and seemed as though He had forgotten the girl who cried in vain even to Him for mercy. With how much more truth may that dying appeal which has echoed through a hundred years be made, not to liberty, but to the God of all truth and righteousness,—"What crimes are committed in Thy name!" It may have been,—nay, if she were His, it must have been,—that eleven years later, when Anne Neville's spirit returned to the God who gave it, she found that His mercy towards her was better than the mercy she desired of Him, and that but for that painful and weary beating of the gold, the vessel would have been unfit for its place in the sanctuary above.
[#] The exact date cannot be ascertained, but circumstances point to this period.
But meanwhile to Anne Grey the mercy came. The period of her married life, to which she had looked forward with so much dread, proved the least painful time of her life. Not because Mr. Thomas Grey was any better than she had expected to find him, but because, after the first week, he relieved her of his company almost entirely. Affection for her he had none. So long, therefore, as the duties prescribed by civility and custom were properly performed, he had no scruple about leaving her to herself—which was exactly what she most desired.
One troublesome item remained, for no separate residence had been provided for the young pair, and Mr. Grey continued to occupy his old apartments in the Palace of his royal stepfather. This was the last place where Lady Anne could have wished to be. To her uncle she felt no dislike, for he had always shown his best side to her, and her pure and simple nature was incapable of entering into the darker features of his character. Towards the Queen her feeling was a curious mixture of affection and misgiving. The soft caresses and tender words could not be resented, nor even coldly received, yet they were unavoidably provocative of an under-current of doubt as concerned their whole-heartedness.
"The lady did protest too much."
With the children Lady Anne was at home, especially with that grave-eyed boy in whom much of her own temperament was reproduced.