Darnley; or, The Field of the Cloth of Gold

by G. P. R. James

"God bless and shield your graces both!" said he. "I feared some evil by this early call; but now that I find the occasion was one of joy, I do not regret the haste that apprehension gave me."

"Still we have business, my good Wolsey," replied Henry, "and of some moment. My brother of France here espouses much the cause of the Sir Osborne Maurice who lately sojourned at the court, and won the good-will of all, both by his feats of arms and his high-born and noble demeanour; who, on the accusations given against him to you, lord cardinal, by Sir Payan Wileton, was banished from the court; nay, judged worthy of attachment for treason."

The king, in addressing Wolsey, instead of speaking in French, which had been the language used between him and Francis, had returned to his native tongue; and good Jekin Groby, hearing what passed concerning Sir Osborne Maurice, was seized with an intolerable desire to have his say too.

"Lord 'a mercy!" cried he, popping his head from behind the tapestry, "your grace's worship don't know----"

"Silence!" cried Henry, in a voice that made poor Jekin shrink into nothing: "said I not to stay there--ha?"

The worthy clothier drew back his head behind the arras, like a frightened tortoise retracting its noddle within the shelter of its shell; and Henry proceeded to explain to Wolsey, in French, what had passed between himself and Francis.

The cardinal was, at that moment, striving hard for the King of France's favour; nor was his resentment towards Sir Payan at all abated, though the arrangements of the first meeting between the kings had hitherto delayed its effects. Thus all at first seemed favourable to Sir Osborne, and the minister himself began to soften the evidence against him, when Sir Payan, escorted by a party of archers and a sergeant-at-arms, was conducted into the king's chamber. The guard drew up across the door of the anteroom; and the knight, with a pale but determined countenance, and a firm heavy step, advanced into the centre of the room, and made his obeisance to the kings. Henry, now dressed, drew forward one of the ivory chairs for Francis, and the sergeant hastened to place the other by its side for the British monarch; when, both being seated, with Wolsey by their side, the whole group would have formed as strange but powerful a picture as ever employed the pencil of an artist. The two magnificent monarchs in the pride of their youth and greatness, somewhat shadowed by the eastern wall of the room; the grand and dignified form of the cardinal, with his countenance full of thought and mind; the stern, determined aspect of Sir Payan, his whole figure possessing that sort of rigidity indicative of a violent and continued mental effort, with the full light streaming harshly through the open casement upon his pale cheek and haggard eye, and passing on to the king's bed, and the dressing-robe he had cast off upon it, showing the strange scene in which Henry's impetuosity had caused such a conclave to be held: these objects formed the foreground; while the sergeant-at-arms standing behind the prisoner, and the guard drawn up across the doorway, completed the picture; till, gliding in between the arches, the strange figure of Sir Cesar the astrologer, with his cheeks sunken and livid, and his eye lighted up by a kind of wild maniacal fire, entered the room, and, taking a place close on the right hand of Henry, added a new and curious feature to the already extraordinary scene.

"Sir Payan Wileton," said Henry, "many and grievous are the crimes laid to your charge, and of which your own conscience must accuse you as loudly as the living voices of your fellow-subjects; at least, so by the evidence brought forward against you, it appears to us at this moment. Most of these charges we shall leave to be investigated by the common course of law; but there are some points touching which, as they involve our own personal conduct and direction, we shall question you ourself: to which questions we charge you, on your allegiance, to answer truly and without concealment."

"To your grace's questions," replied Sir Payan, boldly, "I will answer for your pleasure, though I recognise here no established court of law; but first, I will say that the crimes charged against me ought to be heavier than I, in my innocence believe them, to justify the rigour with which I have been treated."

An ominous frown gathered on the king's brow. "Ha!" cried he, forgetting the calm dignity with which he had at first addressed the knight. "No established court of law! Thou sayest well: we have not the power to question thee! Ha! who then is the king? Who is the head of all magistrates? Who holds in his hand the power of all the law? By our crown! we have a mind to assemble such a court of law as within this half-hour shall have thy head struck off upon the green!"