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

by Emily Sarah Holt

When Constance returned home to Cardiff, she remained there for some little time without any further visit to Court. She alone of all the Princesses was absent from the Church of Saint Nicholas at Calais, when the King was married there to the Princess Isabelle of France—a child of only eight years old. Something far more interesting to herself detained her at Cardiff; where, on the 30th of November, 1396, an heir was born to the House of Le Despenser.

That the will of “the Lady” stood paramount we see in the name given to the infant. He was christened after her favourite brother, Richard—a name unknown in his father’s line, whose family names were always Hugh and Edward.

In their unfeigned admiration of this paragon of babies, its mother and grandmother sank all their previous differences. But when the difficult question of education arose, the differences reappeared as strongly as ever. The only notion which Constance had of bringing up a child was to give it everything it cried for; while the Dowager was prepared to go a long way in the opposite direction, and give it nothing in respect to which it showed the slightest temper. The practical result was that the boy was committed to the care of Maude, whom both agreed in trusting, with the most contradictory orders concerning his training. Maude followed the dictates of her own common sense, and implicitly obeyed the commands of neither of the rival authorities; but as little Richard throve well under her care, she was never called to account by either.

The year 1397 brought a political earthquake, which ended in the destruction of three of the five grand traitors, the Lords Appellants. The commons had at last opened their eyes to the real state of affairs. The conspirators were meditating fresh projects of treachery, when by the advice of the Dukes of Lancaster and York, Gloucester was arrested and imprisoned at Calais, where he died on the 15th of September, either from apoplexy or by a private execution. Richard Earl of Arundel, the tool of his priestly brother, was beheaded six days later. The Earl of Warwick, who had been merely the blind dupe of the others, was banished to the Isle of Man. The remaining two—the ambitious Derby, and the conceited Nottingham—contrived in the cleverest manner, not only to escape punishment, but to obtain substantial rewards for their loyalty! Derby presented a very humble petition on behalf of both, in which he owned, with so exquisite a show of penitence, to having listened to the suggestions of the deceased traitors, and been concerned in “several riotous disturbances”—professed himself and his friend to be so abjectly repentant, and so irrevocably faithful for ever henceforward—that King Richard, as easily deceived as usual, hastened to pardon the repenting sinners. But there was one man in the world who was not deceived by Derby’s plausible professions. Old Lancaster shook his white head when he heard that his son was not only pardoned, but restored to favour.

“’Tis hard matter for father thus to speak of son,” he said to his royal nephew; “nathless, my gracious Lord, I do you to wit that you have done a fool deed this day. You shall never have peace while Hal is in this kingdom.”

“Fair Uncle, I am sure he will repay me!” was the response of the warm-hearted Richard.

“Ha!” said John of Gaunt, and sipped his ipocras with a grim smile. “Sans doute, Monseigneur, sans doute!”

Westminster Hall beheld a grand and imposing ceremony on the Michaelmas Day of 1397. The King sat in state upon his throne at the further end, the little Queen beside him, and the various members of the royal line on either side—Princes on the right, Princesses on the left. The Duchess of Lancaster had the first place; then the Duchess of York, particularly complacent and resplendent; the Duchess of Gloucester, who should have sat third, was closely secluded (of her free will) in the Convent of Bermondsey. Next sat the Countess of March, the elder sister of the Duchess Joan, and wife of the Lollard heir of England. The daughters of the Princes followed her. Elizabeth, Countess of Huntingdon, daughter of the Duke of Lancaster, whom that day was to make a duchess, and who bore away the palm from the rest as “the best singer and the best dancer” of all the royal ladies, held her place, beaming with smiles, and radiant with rubies and crimson velvet. Next, arrayed in blue velvet, sat the only daughter of York, Constance Lady Le Despenser. Round the hall sat the nobles of England in their “Parliament robes,” each of the married peers with his lady at his side; while below came the House of Commons, and lower yet, outside the railing, the people of England, in the shape of an eager, sight-seeing mob. There was to be a great creation of peers, and one by one the names were called. As each of the candidates heard his name, he rose from his seat, and was led up to the throne by two nobles of the order to which he was about to be raised.

“Sir Henry of Bolingbroke, Earl of Derby!” The gentleman whose unswerving loyalty was about to be recompensed by the gift of a coronet (!) rose with his customary grace from his seat, third on the right hand of the King, and was led up by his father of Lancaster and his uncle of York. He knelt, bareheaded, before the throne. A sword was girt to his side, a ducal coronet set on his head by the royal hand, and he rose Duke of Hereford. As old Lancaster resumed his seat, he smiled grimly under his white beard, and muttered to himself—“Sans doute!”

“Sir Edward of Langley, Earl of Rutland!”