To Constança of Castilla, the sister who had shared with her their “heritage of woe,” this younger sister was inexpressibly dear. The two sisters had married two brothers, and they saw a good deal of each other until that time; but after Isabel cast in her lot with Wycliffe, very little. The Gospel parted these loving sisters as with a sword; the magnet was received by each at an opposite end. It attracted Isabel, and repelled Constança. The elder wanted nothing more than she had always had; the gorgeous ceremonies and absolving priests of the old Church satisfied her, and she demanded no further comfort. She was “a woman devout above all others” in the eyes of the monkish chroniclers. And that usually meant that in this world she never awoke to her soul’s uttermost need, and she was therefore content with the meagre supply she found. So the difference between the sisters was that Constança slept peacefully while Isabel had awoke.
It was because Isabel had awoke, that she was unsatisfied with the round of ritual observances which were all in all to her sister. She could confess to man, and be absolved by man; but how could she wrestle against the conviction that she rose from the confessional with a soul none the cleaner, with a heart just as disinclined to go and sin no more? The branches might be lopped; but what mattered that while the root of bitterness remained? It is only when we hear God say, “Thy sins are forgiven thee,” that it is possible to go in peace. And Isabel never heard it until she came to Him. Then, when she came empty-handed, He filled her hands with gifts; He breathed into the harassed soul rest and hope.
This was what God gave her. But men gave her something very different. They had nothing better for this woman that had been a sinner, than the old comment of Simon the Pharisee. They were not ready to cast the remembrance of her iniquities into the depths of the sea—far from it. What they gave her was a scorned and slandered name, a character sketched in words that dwelt gloatingly on her early devotion to the world, the flesh, and the Devil, and left unwritten the story of her subsequent devotion to God. The later portion of her life is passed over in silence. We see something of its probable character in the supreme contempt of the monkish chroniclers; in the heretical epithet of “pestilent” applied to her; in the Lollard terms of her last will; in her choice of eminent Lollards as executors; in her bosom friendship with the Lollard Queen.
But at another Table from that of Simon the Pharisee, “many that are first shall be last, and the last first.”
We have kept Maude standing for a long while, before her mistress, seated in the great chair in Dame Agnes de La Marche’s chamber.
“And how lovest thy new fashion of life, my maid?” demanded the Countess, when she had taken her seat.
“Right well, an’ it like your Grace.”
“Thou art here welsomer (more comfortable) than in the kitchen?”
“Surely so, Madam.”
“Dame Joan speaketh well of thy cunning.” (Skill.)