"Dear heart, no!" cried Longpole; "I would not for the world. Poor little soul! she has suffered enough; so I'm now consoling her, your worship. It's wonderful how soon a broken heart is patched up with a little of the same stuff that broke it. It is the very reverse of piecing a doublet; for in love you mend old love with new, and it's almost as good as ever. However, some day soon we intend to ask your worship's leave and the priest's blessing, and say all those odd little words that tie two folks together."
"My leave and good wishes you shall have, Longpole," replied the knight, "and all I can do to assist your purse. Hark! is not that the trumpet to dinner? Give me my bonnet; I will down and dine at the board of estate to-day, as I was not there yesterday."
On descending to the hall, Sir Osborne was instantly assailed by a thousand questions respecting the accident which had befallen the king; for, what between the diligent exertions of the attendants and those of the surgeon, the news had already spread through the whole court. In reply, the knight gave as brief and exact an account of the whole occurrence as possible, endeavouring to stop the lying tongue of Rumour by furnishing her with the truth at least. After dinner he returned to his own apartments, and only left them once for a momentary visit to Constance de Grey, remaining in hopes all the evening that the king might send for him when he arose. Such hopes, however, were in vain: day waned and night fell, and the knight's suit was no farther advanced than when Sir Cesar warned him to hasten it in the morning.
CHAPTER XXIII.
A spirit fit to start into an empire,
And look the world to law.
He, full of fraudful arts,
This well-invented tale for truth imparts--Dryden.
We must now for a while change our place of action, and endeavour to carry the mind of the reader from the sweeter and more tranquil scenes of Richmond Park, one of the most favoured residences of Henry the Eighth, to York Place, the magnificent dwelling of that pampered child of fortune, Cardinal Wolsey.
His progress, his power, and his fall; his arrogance, his splendour, and his vices; all the many changes that may be traced to his government of the realm, or to his artifices with the king, and of which to this day we feel the influence--changes which, though beneficial in their effects, like many of our most excellent institutions, originated in petty passions or egregious errors; in short, all his vast faults and his vast powers have so often called the eyes of the world to the proud prelate, that he seems hardly one of those remote beings which the cloud of past centuries has shadowed with misty indistinctness. His image, as well as his history, is familiar to the mind's eye. He lives, he moves before us, starting out from the picture of the times of old to claim acquaintance with our memory, as something more tangibly real than the vague, undefined forms that float upon the sea of history. Such skilful pens also have depicted him in every scene and situation, that it becomes almost unnecessary, and, perhaps, somewhat presumptuous, to say more concerning him than that which strictly interweaves itself with the web of this tale.
York Place, which, as every one knows, was afterwards called Whitehall, though it offered an appearance very different from the building at present known by that name, stood nearly on the same spot which it now occupies. Surrounded by splendid gardens, and ornamented with all that the arts of the day could produce of luxurious or elegant, so far from yielding in any degree to the various residences of the king, it surpassed them all in almost every respect. The combination, also, of ecclesiastical pomp with the magnificence of a lay prince, created in the courts and round the gates of the palace a continual scene of glitter and brilliancy. Whether it were deputations from abbeys and monasteries, the visits of other bishops, the attendance of noblemen and gentlemen come to pay their court, the halt of military leaders with their armed bands, prepared for service and waiting for command, still bustle, activity, and splendour were always to be met with in the open space before the building on every morning when the fineness of the weather permitted such display. There were to be seen passing to and fro the rich embroidered robes of the clergy, in all the hues of green and purple and of gold; the splendid liveries of the cardinal's own attendants, and of the followers of his visitors; the white dresses of the soldiery, traversed with the broad red cross of England; the arms of the leaders, and the many-coloured housings of the horses; while above the crowd was often displayed the high-wrought silver cross or the glittering crook of bishop or mitred abbot, borne amongst banners, and pennons, and fluttering plumes.
It was on a morning when the scene before the palace was full of more than usual life, owing to the arrival of the cardinal the night before from York (which was, be it remarked, one day earlier than he had been expected), that Sir Payan Wileton rode through the crowd to the grand entrance. He was followed by ten armed attendants, the foremost of whom were Cornishmen, of that egregious stature which acquired for their countrymen in the olden time the reputation of sprouting out into giants. These two Sir Payan had sent for expressly from his estates in Cornwall, not without a purpose; and now, having dressed them in splendid liveries, he gave orders for his train to halt at such a distance as to be plainly visible from the windows of the palace.
Dismounting from his horse at the door, he gave him to his page, and entering the hall passed through the crowd of attendants with which it was tenanted, and mounted the grand staircase with that sort of slow, determined step which is almost always to be found in persons whose reliance on their own powers of mind is founded in long experience and success.