Faithful unto Death.
“Long since we parted!
I to life’s stormy wave—
Thou to thy quiet grave,
Leal and true-hearted!”
The first regnal act of Henry the Eighth was to strip the loyal lords of the titles conferred upon them just two years before. Once more, Aumerle became Earl of Rutland; Surrey, Earl of Kent Exeter, Earl of Huntingdon; Wiltshire, Sir William Le Scrope; and Gloucester, Lord Le Despenser.
Hitherto, King Richard had been imprisoned in the Tower, a lonely captive. But now, possessed by jealous fears of insurrection and restoration, the usurper hurried his royal prisoner from dungeon to dungeon:—to Leeds Castle, Pickering, Knaresborough, and lastly, about the middle of December, to Pomfret, which he was never to leave alive.
The guilty fears of Henry were not unfounded; but perhaps the judicial murder of Lord Wiltshire at Bristol quickened the action of the little band, now again reduced to six. They met quietly at Oxford in December, to concert measures for King Richard’s release and restoration, resolving that in case of his death they would support the title of March. But there was a seventh person present, whom it is incomprehensible that any of the six should have been willing to trust. This was Aumerle, vexed with the loss of his title, and always as ready to join a conspiracy at the outset as he was to play the traitor at the close. The extraordinary manner in which this man was always trusted afresh by the friends whom he perpetually betrayed, is one of the mysteries of psychological history. His plausibility and powers of fascination must have been marvellous. An agreement was drawn up, signed by the six, and entrusted to Aumerle (who cleverly slipped out of the inconvenience of signing it himself), containing promises to raise among them a force estimated at 8,000 archers and 300 lance-men, to meet on the fourth of January at Kingston, and thence march to Colnbrook, where Aumerle was to join them.
On the day appointed for the meeting at Kingston, Aumerle, attired in a handsome furred gown, went to dine with his father. The Duchess appears to have been absent. Aumerle carried the perilous agreement in his bosom, and when he sat down to dinner, he pulled it forth, and ostentatiously placed it by the side of his silver plate. The six seals caught the old Duke’s eye, as his son intended they should; and his curiosity was not unnaturally aroused.
“What is that, fair son?” inquired his father.
Aumerle ceremoniously took off his hat—then always worn at dinner—and bowed low.
“Monseigneur,” said he obsequiously, “it is not for you.”
Of course, after that, York was determined to see it.