CHAPTER VIII.
THE END OF A WEDDING-DAY
"Aye, there's a blank at my right hand
That ne'er can be made up to me."
—HOGG.
"And how goes it with the fair Grisacres, Sellinger?"
The question was asked by King Edward IV., who was lounging in an attitude of lazy ease on a "day-bed," the ancestor of the modern sofa. His Majesty's life was spent in alternations between taking his ease in the very easiest of ways, and fits of fiery bravery when occasion called them forth. The gentleman addressed was Master Thomas St. Leger, a squire of the body, to whom Edward had granted the marriage of Jane Grisacres, one of the chamberers of his sister of Exeter. This meant that the young lady was an heiress, and that the gentleman was at liberty either to marry her himself, or to make merchandise of her to some other person. The inclinations of the lady were not considered. Her sole opportunity, therefore, if she did not admire her master, lay in making herself so extremely disagreeable to him that he might prefer to sell her.
"I humbly thank your Highness, all goes rarely well," replied St. Leger, with a courtesy.
St. Leger was a good-looking man of some five and twenty years, with light hair, which, in accordance with fashion, he wore very long, and cut quite straight all round.
"That is well. I would fain do thee some grace for thy service," said Edward, rising, and calling another of his squires to attend him, he lounged out of the room.
King Edward IV. was the handsomest man of his age. "A more beautiful person," says Comines, "never did mine eyes behold." He was very tall,—six feet three inches—of extremely fair complexion, light brown hair, and blue eyes—true Plantagenet colours: but he grew corpulent in his later years—a blemish which at this time had not begun to appear. Like most persons at that period, he wore his hair very long, but neither beard, whiskers, nor moustache.
"What though the face be fair,
What though the eye be bright,
What though the rare and flowing hair
Vie with the rich sunlight,—
If the soul which of all should the fairest be,
If the soul which must last through eternity
Be a dark and unholy thing?"