Shakspeare.
The impatience of Evellin to join his royal master frustrated the hospitable wish of Dr. Beaumont to detain his brother-in-law at Ribblesdale. A few weeks were all he would grant, and even this time was not unemployed, for Williams was sent forward to present the levy and supply of money to the King, to inquire where he would command his services, and to procure arms and accoutrements.
During this interval, the Doctor found, with unspeakable pleasure, that the intellectual disorder of Evellin, which had been caused by too keen a sense of his wrongs, was composed rather than heightened by the severe loss he had lately sustained. The death of that faithful partner, who had sacrificed her life in labouring for his benefit, impressed on him the conviction that he must either exert himself, or perish. The tender age of his children peremptorily required his assistance, and to a mind formed like his, a still more awakening consideration presented itself in the dangers and difficulties of his King. Was it worthy of the true Earl of Bellingham to wander among wilds and fastnesses, weeping for a dead wife, or raving at a false friend, when England's throne tottered under its legitimate Sovereign, and the lowest of the people, (like owls and satyrs in the capital of Assyria) fixed their habitations in the pleasant palaces where luxury late reigned! He felt that he had too long behaved like a woman, pining in secret when he ought to have acted; while his faithful consort, with masculine courage, opposed her tender frame to the tempest, and, at length, sunk beneath the added terrors of his imbecility. His weakness in lamenting an irremediable evil, was the fault to which he owed the loss of his invaluable Isabel. He would now shew how truly he deplored that loss, by changing moody reflection into vigorous action, and by becoming a protector and support to the family to which he had hitherto been a burden. To such a state of mind, the situation of the King supplied a powerful impetus, and Dr. Beaumont saw, with pleasure, that loyalty was likely to give full scope to those fine qualities, which had hitherto, like smothered fire, consumed the fabric in which they were engendered.
He, however, entreated Evellin not to compromise his own safety by acts of rashness, which could do his Prince no good, but to wait the return of Williams before he took the field. In raising a band of mountaineers, he had acted under the authority of the King's commission of array, against which Davies had preached, and Morgan had inveighed, not only with vehemence, but with falsehood. They had told the yeomen and peasants, that "some lords about the court said, twenty pounds a year was enough for any peasant to live upon, and, taking advantage of the commission being in Latin, they translated it into what English they pleased, persuading the freeholders, that at least two parts of their estates would be taken from them; and the poorer sort, that one day's labour in the week would be extorted as a tax to the King[[1]]." These calumnies were not peculiar to Ribblesdale, but unhappily were diffused over all the nation, in which a vast body of people were grown up, who, like Morgan, had acquired wealth, and were ambitious of equal consequence with the hereditary gentry and nobility, by whom they found themselves despised for their ignorance and coarse manners, and therefore endeavoured to supplant them. Such men were every-where fast friends to the Parliament, and by their freer intercourse with the common people, whose habits and ideas were originally their own, they misrepresented the King's designs, and counteracted the measures of those noble and brave patriots, who, notwithstanding their dislike of some former measures, felt it was their duty now to rally round the throne. "Nor can it be remembered without much horror, that this strange wild-fire among the people was not so much and so furiously kindled by the breath of the Parliament, as by that of their clergy, who both administered fuel and blowed the coals. These men having crept into and at last driven all learned and orthodox divines from the pulpits, had, from the commencement of this 'memorable Parliament,' under the notion of reformation and extirpation of popery, infused seditious inclinations into the hearts of men against the present government of the church with many libellous invectives against the state. But now they contained themselves in no bounds, and as freely and without controul inveighed against the person of the King, prophanely and blasphemously applying whatever had been spoken by God himself or the Prophets, against the most wicked and impious Kings, to incense and stir up the people against their most gracious Sovereign. Besides licensed divines, preaching and praying was at that time practiced by almost all men in the kingdom except scholars."
Thus as every parish had its Davies and its Morgan, the unhappy Charles, faultless as a man, and at worst only ill-advised as a Monarch, found himself, after much ineffectual submission, and many unconstitutional abridgements of his lawful rights, required to surrender the scanty remains of his prerogative, and consent to be a state-engine, in the hands of his enemies. When, driven from his capital by riots, his fleet, army, militia, garrisons, magazines, revenues, nay, his palaces and personalities seized, by those who still called themselves his most dutiful subjects, and prefaced their requisitions, that he would virtually surrender as their prisoner with the title of an humble petition; when, after all these humiliations and privations, the King found it necessary to throw himself on the allegiance of his faithful subjects, and to appeal to arms by raising the royal standard, only a few hundred, out of the millions he governed, joined him. Discouraged by this apparent defection, some of his friends advised him to treat with the Parliament, or, in other words, to submit unconditionally. In abandoning his own personal rights, His Majesty had gone as far as his conscience would permit, and he chose rather to suffer banishment or death, than yield to abolish the church he had sworn to defend, as Parliament now required him to do, in the phrase of "casting out an idle, unsound, unprofitable, and scandalous ministry, and providing a sound, godly, profitable, and preaching ministry, in every congregation through the land." Yet he so far conceded as to make an offer of reconciliation, secretly convinced that the latent insolence with which it would be rejected, though couched in smooth language, would awaken the nation to a sense of duty. The event justified his expectation, and the King was enabled to make a glorious, but unsuccessful resistance, during which, though many excellent persons fell (himself among the number), the principles of reciprocal duty between King and subject were defined, and hypocrites, fanatics, and republicans, were completely unmasked.
It was during this lowering aspect of the political horizon, while the clouds, congregating from all quarters, menaced a tremendous storm, that Evellin sheltered his woe-worn head at Ribblesdale. The time was not lost; for the well-informed piety of the Doctor succeeded in completely tranquillizing Evellin's mind, who, admitting him to unbounded confidence, told him all his early sorrows, the enmity of Buckingham, the falsehood of De Vallance, and the loss of his estate, title, and high connection. When in the sequel of his narrative, he stated that his perfidious friend was at this time Earl of Bellingham, the blood recoiled from Dr. Beaumont's heart, and he almost fainted with horror. "Do I understand you," said he; "was De Vallance thus exalted by the King? Was his wife the Queen's confidante, the dispenser of her favours and the adviser of her conduct?" He then shewed Evellin the British Mercury, which stated, that this same Bellingham had accepted a commission under the Parliament; that the treacherous favourite of the unfortunate Henrietta Maria had charged her mistress with the design of introducing popery and arbitrary power, as well as of secretly fomenting the Irish rebellion, and that she had involved in her slanders the merciful and truly religious King.
"This infinitely transcends all," exclaimed Evellin, "and drives from my remembrance the recollection of my private wrongs. I consider the infernal pair not merely as my enemies, but as the common foes of man; I regard them as a tiger and hyæna, whom I ought to hunt down and destroy. They are not depraved human beings, tempted by ambition to sin greatly; but demons, who know no moral feelings either of honour, pity, attachment, or gratitude."
"Restrain your warmth," said Dr. Beaumont; "this is only the natural progress of inordinate desires unchecked by principle, and gorged, not satiated, by indulgence. She who would betray a brother would never adhere to a fallen benefactress. He who would ruin a confiding friend, would desert his King in adversity. A coronet, a large estate, a magnificent castle, and splendid retinue, were the baubles for which these offenders forfeited their immortal souls. The compact once made, cannot (they think) be broken. Habit here becomes fixed as the Ethiop's die or the leopard's spots; and greater crimes must secure what lesser offences purchased."
The friends now consulted on their future measures. Evellin was for concealing his real self from the King, but Dr. Beaumont advised that though he should retain his borrowed name, as a personal security in case he should fall into the enemy's hands, the King should know him for the injured Allan Neville. "It will add to his distress," said Evellin, "to see a man whom he has wronged, and has now no power to redress." "It will console him," returned Beaumont, "to find one generous and loyal enough to forget injuries, when others renounce benefits. Affliction is sent by Providence, to teach us to recollect our ways. My loyalty does not make me forget that the King is equally subject to one great Master, nor am I so desirous to secure his temporal repose as to wish him to lose the advantages of adversity. Let him by seeing you be taught to distinguish between flatterers and friends. It will be happy for England if he regains his high station; it will do good to his own soul when he comes to give an account of his stewardship, at that tribunal before which the emperor and the slave must one day stand."
"Beaumont," said Evellin, grasping the Doctor's hand, "you are still that angel of truth who in my early life led my proud and rebellious thoughts to seek the consolation of religious humility; but in one circumstance you must give my weakness way. My gallant boy, ignorant of his noble birth, pants for military fame with all that generous ardour which during five centuries distinguished his ancestors. He is the last hope of an illustrious house. Accuse me not of malice, or of folly, when I own that, (next to the restoration of my King,) I beg of heaven that he may be spared to tear the polluted ermine from the shoulders of this branded rebel, and to purify the coronet of Bellingham from the foul contamination it receives by binding a villain's brow. Toss this storm-beaten carcase into any trench where it may in future serve as a mound against traitors; but let my young nursling be planted where the tempest that unroots the cedars shall pass over without injuring his tender growth. You, Beaumont, are a man of peace, bound by your functions to that bloodless warfare which attacks opinions, not men. Take him with you, wherever you go; keep him in your sight; cultivate in him every noble propensity, except his passion for military renown. In all else he is the son of my desires; and were it not for my peculiar circumstances, he would be so in this also. Consider him as a young avenger destined by heaven to punish the guilty, and never let despair of the royal cause induce you to yield him to his own impetuosity. While a branch of the Stewart stock remains, fear not, though these cursed malcontents cut down the royal tree; the scion, watered by a nation's tears, shall still grow, and the soiled regalia of England again look splendid among contemporary kingdoms. At that period the descendants of your Isabel shall reclaim the honours to which my services, and perhaps my death, will ensure them a renewed patent."