“Ay?” said Hugh eagerly.
“I shall choose that,” he said, pointing to one about half-way between the entrance of the choir and the spot where it was designed that the bishop’s seat should be. “There is something friendly and inviting in that pillar, it fits in with my design. Thou, Hugh, must take whichever they offer thee.”
“If they will accept me at all!”
“I think so,” said Elyas gravely. “’Tis true thy lack of years is against thee, but there is no other hindrance, and I believe they will trust me in the matter. How old art thou now, Hugh?”
“Just seventeen, sir.”
“Already? But, yes, it must be so. It is all but six years since I stumbled upon thee in the street, a little fellow, no older than our Joan is now. Much has happened in the kingdom since then, but here the time has flown peacefully.”
Much, indeed, had happened to weight the last years of the reign of the great king. The second war in Scotland was over; Edward had married again, the Princess Margaret of France being his chosen wife. Parliaments had by his efforts become more frequent and more important, and the parliament of Lincoln, in 1301, marked an era in representative government, when one hundred and thirty seven cities and boroughs sent up representatives. Archbishop Winchelsey was still trying to enforce the papal supremacy, which Edward ever resisted, and certain disaffected nobles joined the archbishop. The king dealt with the two principal conspirators, Norfolk and Hereford, both firmly and leniently. Winchelsey he would not himself judge, but his ambassador placed the matter in the hands of the pontiff, who immediately cited the archbishop to Rome, to answer for his conduct. William Thorn, a monk of Canterbury, thus describes the next scene: “When the archbishop knew that he was thus cited, he went to the king to ask for permission to cross the sea. And when the king heard of his coming, he ordered the doors of his presence chamber to be thrown open, that all who wished might enter, and hear the words which he should address to him. And having heard the archbishop, he thus replied to him:—‘The permission to cross the sea which you ask of us we willingly grant you—but permission to return grant we none:—bearing in mind your treachery, and the treason which at our parliament at Lincoln you plotted against us;—whereof a letter under your seal is witness, and plainly testifies against you. We leave it to the pope to avenge our wrongs; and as you have deserved, so shall he recompense you. But from our favour and mercy, which you ask, we utterly exclude you; because merciless you have yourself been, and therefore deserve not to obtain mercy.’ And so we part with Winchelsey.” (The Greatest of all the Plantagenets.)
At Exeter, however, as Gervase said, the time had passed peaceably. Two burgesses had indeed with much pain and trouble journeyed all the way to Lincoln, and came back with marvellous stories of the magnificence of the barons, the crowds of retainers, the quantity of provisions supplied, and the deliciousness of sea-wolves, now tasted for the first time.
And, greatly to Hugh’s delight, it appeared that Sir Thomas de Trafford, being there with his lady and children, applied to one of the Exeter burgesses for news of Hugh, and sent word he was glad to hear that he was a good lad, and doing credit to his craft. And Dame Edith despatched him a token, a rosary from the Holy Land, and the two sisters a gift of a mark to Agrippa, to buy him cakes.
On poor Agrippa the years had, perhaps, told the most hardly. He suffered much from the cold winters, and had lost a good deal of his activity. But on the whole he had a very happy life, with no fear of ill-usage from boy or man, for he was as well-known to all the citizens as any other dweller in the High Street, and was held to be under the special protection of the guild of which Elyas was warden.