Arundel was dead; but the infernal generalissimo of the persecutors, who could not die, was ready with a worthy successor. Henry Chichele stepped into the vacant seat, and the fierce battle against the saints went on.
The nephew of the deceased Archbishop, Thomas Earl of Arundel, presented himself at Cardiff early in the year. He lost no time in delicate insinuations, but came at once to his point. Was the Lady of Cardiff ready to give all possible aid to himself and his troops, against those traitors and heretics called Lollards? The answer was equally distinct. With some semblance of the old fire flashing in her eyes, the Lady of Cardiff refused to give him any aid whatever.
The Earl hinted in answer, with a sarcastic smile, that judging by the rumours which had reached the Court, he had scarcely expected any other conduct from her.
“Look ye for what ye will,” returned the dauntless Princess. “Never yet furled I my colours in peace; and I were double craven if I should do it in war!”
Her words were reported to the relentless hearts at Westminster. The result was an order to seize all the manors of the Despenser heritage, and to deliver them to Edward Duke of York, the King’s dearly beloved cousin, by way of compensation (said the grant) for the loss which he had sustained by the death of Richard Le Despenser. But the compensation was estimated at a high figure.
There were some curious contradictory statutes passed this year. A hundred and ten monasteries were suppressed by order of Council, and at the same time another order was issued for the extirpation of heresy. But, as usual, “the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the Church.” Wycliffism increased rapidly among the common people. Meanwhile Henry was preparing for his French campaign; and at Constance the seventeenth General Council of Christendom was just gathering, and John Huss, with the Emperor’s worthless safe-conduct in his pocket, was hastening towards his prison—not much larger than a coffin—in the Monastery of Saint Maurice. The Council ended their labours by burning Huss. They would have liked to burn Wycliffe; but as he had been at rest with God for over thirty years, they took refuge in the childish revenge of disinterring and burning his senseless bones. And “after that, they had no more that they could do.”
The day that heard Huss’s sentence pronounced in the white-walled Cathedral of Constance, Edward Duke of York—accompanied by a little group of knights and squires, one of whom was Hugh Calverley—walked his oppressed horse across the draw-bridge at Cardiff. Life had agreed so well with York that he had become very fat upon it. He had no children, his wife never contradicted him, and he did not keep that troublesome article called a conscience; so his sorrows and perplexities were few. On the whole, he had found treachery an excellent investment—for one life; and York left the consideration of the other to his death-bed. It may be that at times, even to this Dives, the voice from Heaven mercifully whispered, “Thou fool!” But he never stayed his chariot-wheels to listen—until one autumn evening, by Southampton Water, when the end loomed full in view, the Angel of Death came very near, and there rose before him, suddenly and awfully, the dread possibility of a life which might not close with a death-bed. But it was yet bright summer when he reached Cardiff; and not yet had come that dark, solemn August hour, when Edward Duke of York should dictate his true character as “of all sinners the most wicked.”
On this particular summer day at Cardiff, York was, for him, especially gay and bright. Yet that night in the Cathedral of Constance stood John Huss before his judges; and in the Convent of Coimbra an English Princess (Philippa Queen of Portugal, eldest daughter of John of Gaunt), long ago forgotten in England, yet gentlest and best daughters of Lancaster, lay waiting for death. Somewhere in this troublesome world the bridal is always matched by the burial, the festal song by the funeral dirge. Men and women are always mourning, somewhere.
York’s mind was full of one subject, the forthcoming campaign in France. He was to sail from Southampton with his royal master in August. Bedford was to be left Regent, the King’s brother—Bedford, who, whatever else he were, was no Lollard, and was not likely to let a Lollard escape his fangs. And on this interesting topic York’s tongue ran on glibly—how King Henry meant to march at once upon Paris, proclaim himself King of France, be crowned at Saint Denis, marry one of the French Princesses—which, it did not much signify—and return home a conquering hero, mighty enough to brave even the Emperor himself on any European battle-plain.
A little lower down the table, Hugh Calverley’s mind was also full of one subject.