Also along the Dover road, and up and down the road called Watling, and up the river and down the river, there ride day and night the King’s messengers. Was there a special service of messengers? I think
THE STAR CHAMBER. DEMOLISHED IN 1834.
not; men were dispatched with letters and enjoined to ride swiftly. There were neither telegraphs nor railways nor postal service, yet was the Court of every great king fully supplied with news. If it came a month after the event, so it came to all. We of to-day act on news of the moment; the statesmen of old acted on news of yesterday or yesterday fortnight. But communications with the outer world never ceased; news poured in daily from all quarters: from the Low Countries; from France and Spain; from Rome; from the Holy Land. Whatever happened was carried swiftly over Western Europe. If the king of Scotland crossed the border, in three days it was known in Westminster; if there was a rebellion in Ireland, four days brought the news to Westminster; if the Welsh harried the March, three days sufficed to bring the news to Westminster. Beside the messengers and bearers of dispatches, there were pilgrims who learned and carried about a vast quantity of information; there were the merchants whose ships arrived every day from Antwerp and from Sluys; and there were the foreign ships which came to London Port from the Levant and the Mediterranean.
The messengers as they arrived at the Palace of Westminster carried their letters not to the King, but to the Archbishop of Canterbury and to the Duke of Gloucester, the King’s uncle.
As for what follows, it is related by Francis de Winchelsea, scribe or clerk to the King’s Council, the same who went always limp or halt by reason of a knee stiffened by kneeling at his work; for before the Council the clerk who writes what he is commanded must neither sit nor stand. He kneels on his left knee and writes on the other knee. Many things were secretly written by Francis which are kept in the Abbey hard by, not to see the light for many years,—perhaps never,—because things said and done in secret council must not be spread abroad, as the cleric Froissart spread abroad all he knew and could learn, to the injury of many reputations. Thus sayeth Francis:
“On the morning of that day—the Induction of the Cross—it chanced that I was standing in the Cloisters of St. Stephen, whither I often repaired for meditation. The King came forth, and with him one—I name him not—who was his companion and friend. They walked in the cloisters, I retiring to a far corner; they were deep in conversation, and they marked me not. They talked in whispers for half an hour. Then the King said aloud, ‘Have no fear: this day will I reward my friends.’
“‘Beau Sire,’ replied the other, ‘your friends have mostly lost their heads thus far. Yet to die as your Highness’s friend should be reward enough.’
“‘Thou shalt not die. By St. Edward’s bones—when it comes to dying—— But wait.’