THE THREE AGES.
FIRST AGE.
One fine summer day, about three hundred and ten years ago, all Whitehall was astir with the throngs who were hastening to see my Lord Cardinal set forth from the episcopal palace for the Parliament House. The attendants of the great man had been collected for some time,—the bearers of the silver crosses, of the glittering pillars, and of the gilt mace, those who shouldered the pole-axes, the running footmen, and the grooms who held the well-clothed mules. The servants of the palace stood round, and there came among them a troop of gentlemen in foreign costume, whose country could not be divined from their complexions, since each wore a mask, rarely painted wherever left uncovered by a beard made of gold or silver wire. When my Lord Cardinal came forth, glowing in scarlet damask, and towering above everybody else by the height of the pillion and black velvet noble which he carried on his head, these strangers hastened to range themselves round the mule, (little less disguised than they,) and to offer a homage which savoured of mockery nearly as strongly as that of casual passengers, who had good reason for beholding with impatience the ostentatious triumphs of the “butcher’s dog,” as an angry man had been heard to call my Lord Cardinal. Wolsey made a sudden halt, and his goodly shoe, blazing with gems, met the ground less tenderly than was its wont, as its wearer stopped to cast a keen glance upon the strangers. He removed from beneath his nose the orange peel filled with confections which might defy the taint of the common people, and handed it to a page, with a motion which signified that he perceived how an atmosphere awaited him which he need not fear to breathe. There was then a general pause.
“Pleaseth it your Grace,” said one of the strangers, “there are certain in Blackfriars that await your Grace’s passage and arrival, to prosper a light affair, in which your Grace’s countenance will be comfortable to them. Will it please you to spare them further perplexity of delay?”
The Cardinal bowed low to the speaker, mounted his mule in all solemnity, and in a low voice asked for the honour of the stranger’s latest commands to his obedient parliament.
“Commend us heartily to them, and see that they be readily obedient. We commend them to your Grace’s tuition and governance. We will be advertised of their answer at a certain fair house at Chelsea, where we shall divert ourselves till sunset. Pray heaven your Grace may meet as good diversion in Blackfriars!”
The strangers renewed their obeisances, and drew back to allow the Cardinal’s stately retinue to form and proceed. The crowd of gazers moved on with the procession, and left but few to observe the motions of the strangers when the last scarlet drapery had fluttered, and the last gold mace had gleamed on the sight. He who seemed the leader of the foreigners then turned from the gate of the episcopal palace, followed by his companions. All mounted mules which awaited them at some distance, and proceeded in the direction of Chelsea.
They saw many things on the way with which they might make merry. Pale, half-naked men were employed along the whole length of road in heaping up wood for bonfires, as the people had been told that it pleased the King’s Highness that they should rejoice for a mighty success over the French. There was something very diverting, it was found, in the economy of one who reserved a clean bit of board to be sawn into dust to eke out the substance of his children’s bread; and nothing could be more amusing than the coolness with which another pulled up the fence of his little field, that the wood might go to the bonfire, and the scanty produce of the soil to any wandering beggar who chose to take it, the owner having spent his all in supporting this war, and being now about to become a wandering beggar himself. He was complimented on his good cheer, when he said that the king’s asses were welcome to the thistles of his field, and the king’s pages to adorn themselves with the roses of his garden, since the king himself had levied as tribute the corn of the one and the fruits of the other. There was also much jesting with a damsel who seemed nothing loth to part with her child, when they offered playfully to steal it to be brought up for the wars. She thought the boy might thus perchance find his father, since he owed his birth to one who had promised the woman to get her father released from the prison where he pined because he was unable to pay his share of the Benevolence by which the King’s wars were to be carried on. She would give her son in exchange for her father, in hopes of forgetting her anger and her shame. The child was cast back into her arms with the assurance that when he was strong enough to wield his weapon, the King’s Highness would call for him. The next diverting passage was the meeting with a company of nuns, on their way from their despoiled convent to find a hiding-place in London. There was some exercise of wit in divining, while the maidens kept their veils before their faces, which of them were under four-and-twenty, and might therefore be toyed with, according to the royal proclamation, that all below that age were released from their vows. When the veils were pulled aside, there was loud laughter at the trembling of some of the women, and the useless rage of others, and at the solemn gravity of the youngest and prettiest of them all, who was reproved by her superior for putting on a bold, undismayed face when so many older and wiser sisters were brought to their wits’ end. Nothing could be made of her, and she was therefore the first to be forgotten when new matter of sport appeared. A friar, fatter than he seemed likely to be in future, was seen toiling along the road under a loaded basket, which the frolickers were certain must contain something good, from its being in the custody of a man of God. They got round him, so enclosing him with their beasts that he could not escape, and requested to be favoured with the sight and scent of the savoury matters which his basket doubtless contained, and for which they hungered and thirsted, since they had seen none but meagre fare in the houses they had passed:—little better than coarse bread had met their eyes since their own morning meal. The friar was not unwilling to display his treasures, (although unsavoury,) in the hope of a parting gift: so the eyes of the stranger were regaled with the parings of St. Edmund’s toes,—the most fastidious of saints in respect of his feet, to judge from the quantity of such parings as one and another of the present company had seen since there had been a stir among the monasteries. There were two of the coals which had roasted St. Lawrence—now cool enough to be safely handled. A head of St. Ursula,—very like a whale,—but undoubtedly a head of St. Ursula, because it was a perfect preventive of weeds in corn. The friar was recommended to bestow it upon the poor man who had been seen pulling up the fence of his barren field; but the leader of the party could not spare the friar at present. The holy man did not know his own age, for certain. He must,—all the party would take their oath of it,—be under four-and-twenty, and his merriment would match admirably with the gravity of the young nun who had just passed. Two of the revellers were sent back to catch, and bring her with all speed to Chelsea, where she should be married to the friar before the day was over; the King’s Highness being pleased to give her a dower. The friar affected to enjoy this as a jest, and sent a message to the damsel while inwardly planning how to escape from the party before they should reach Chelsea.
His planning was in vain. He was ordered to ride behind one of the revellers, and his precious burden of relics was committed to the charge of another, and some of the mocking eyes of the party were for ever fixed on the holy man, insomuch that he did not dare to slip down and attempt to escape; and far too soon for him appeared the low, rambling house, its expanse of roof alive with pert pigeons, its garden alleys stretching down to the Thames, and its porch and gates guarded with rare, grim-looking stuffed quadrupeds placed in attitudes,—very unlike the living animals which might be seen moving at their pleasure in the meadow beyond.