The White Rose of Langley / A Story of the Olden Time

by Emily Sarah Holt

It was very tranquilly at last that Elizabeth Le Despenser passed away from earth. She took most loving leave of Constance, blessed and said farewell to all her children, and charged Bertram and Maude to remain with her and be faithful to her.

Twenty years’ companionship, fellowship in sorrow, and fellowship in faith, had effected a complete revolution in the feelings of Constance towards her mother-in-law.

“O Mother, Mother!” she sobbed; “what shall I do without you!”

“My child,” answered Elizabeth, “had the heavenly Master not seen that thou shouldst well do without me, He had left me yet here.”

“You yourself said, Mother, that He had left me but Him and you!”

“Ay, dear daughter; and yet He hath left thee Himself. Every hour He shall be with thee; and every hour of thy life moreover shall be an hour the less betwixt thee and me.”

The last thing that they heard her murmur, which had reference to that land whither she was going, was—“Neither schulen they die more.”

They laid her in the family vault at Tewkesbury Abbey; and once more there was mourning at Cardiff.

It was only just begun when news came of another death, far more unexpected than hers. Richard of Conisborough and Anne Mortimer were already the parents of a daughter; and two months after the death of the Lady Le Despenser a son was born, who was hereafter to become the father of all the future kings of England. And while the young mother lay wrapped in her first tender gladness over her new treasure, God called her to come away to Him. So she left the little children who would never call her “mother,” left the husband who was all the world to her; and—fragile White Rose as she was—Anne Mortimer “perished with the flowers.” She died “with all the sunshine on her,” aged only twenty-one years. Perhaps those who stood round her coffin thought it a very sad and strange dispensation of Providence. But we, who know what lay hidden in the coming years, can see that God’s time for her to die was the best and kindest time. And indications are not quite wanting, slight though they may be, that Richard of Conisborough was not a political, but a religious Lollard, and that this autumn journey of Anne Mortimer to the unknown land may have been a triumphal entry into the City of God.

The news that Constance had of set purpose cast in her lot with the Lollards was not long in travelling to Westminster. And she soon found that the lot of a Lollard was no bed of roses. In his anger, Henry of Bolingbroke departed from his usual rule of rigid justice, and revoked the grant which Constance may be said to have purchased with her heart’s blood. Her favourite Richard, now a fine youth of sixteen, was taken from her, and his custody, possessions, and marriage were granted to trustees, of whom the chief persons were Archbishop Arundel and Edward Duke of York. This meant that the trustees were to sell his hand to the father of some eligible damsel, and pocket the proceeds; and also to convert to their own use the rents of young Richard’s estates until he was of age. The Duke of York was just now a most devout and orthodox person. It was time, for any one who cared to save his life, as Edward did; for a solemn decree against Wycliffe’s writings had just been fulminated at Rome; and while Henry of Bolingbroke sat on the throne, England lay at the feet of the Pope. The trustees took advantage at once of the favour done them, and sold young Richard (without consulting Constance) to the Earl of Westmoreland, for the benefit of one of his numerous daughters, the Lady Alianora Neville. She was a little girl of about ten years old, and remained in the charge of her mother, the King’s sister. In the April following it pleased the Duke of York to pay a visit to his sister, and to bring her son in his train. Edward was particularly silent at first. He appeared to have heard no news, to be actuated by no motive in coming, and generally to have nothing to say. Richard, on the contrary, was evidently labouring under suppressed excitement of some kind. But when they sat down to supper, York called for Malvoisie, and threw a bomb into the midst of the company by the wish which he uttered as he carried the goblet to his lips.