"It is well, Sir—Philipville, I think they call you?—you are a simple trader, or you take me for a silly purchaser, that you think to gull me with the same wares which I fancied not formerly. Change of fashion, man—novelty—is the motto of commerce; your Lancaster wares have had their day, and I have bought of them like others, and was like enough to have paid dear for them too. York is all the vogue now."
"It may be so among the vulgar," said the Earl of Oxford; "but for souls like your Highness, faith, honour, and loyalty are jewels which change of fancy, or mutability of taste, cannot put out of fashion."
"Why, it may be, noble Oxford," said the Duke, "that I preserve in my secret mind some veneration for these old-fashioned qualities, else why should I have such regard for your person, in which they have ever been distinguished? But my situation is painfully urgent, and should I make a false step at this crisis, I might break the purposes of my whole life. Observe me, Sir Merchant. Here has come over your old competitor, Blackburn, whom some call Edward of York and of London, with a commodity of bows and bills such as never entered France since King Arthur's time; and he offers to enter into joint adventure with me, or, in plain speech, to make common cause with Burgundy, till we smoke out of his earths the old fox Louis, and nail his hide to the stable-door. In a word, England invites me to take part with him against my most wily and inveterate enemy, the King of France; to rid myself of the chain of vassalage, and to ascend into the rank of independent princes;—how think you, noble Earl, can I forego this seducing temptation?"
"You must ask this of some of your counsellors of Burgundy," said Oxford; "it is a question fraught too deeply with ruin to my cause, for me to give a fair opinion on it."
"Nevertheless," said Charles, "I ask thee, as an honourable man, what objections you see to the course proposed to me? Speak your mind, and speak it freely."
"My lord, I know it is in your Highness's nature to entertain no doubts of the facility of executing anything which you have once determined shall be done. Yet, though this prince-like disposition may in some cases prepare for its own success, and has often done so, there are others, in which, persisting in our purpose, merely because we have once willed it, leads not to success, but to ruin. Look, therefore, at this English army;—winter is approaching, where are they to be lodged? how are they to be victualled? by whom are they to be paid? Is your Highness to take all the expense and labour of fitting them for the summer campaign? for, rely on it, an English army never was, nor will be, fit for service, till they have been out of their own island long enough to accustom them to military duty. They are men, I grant, the fittest for soldiers in the world; but they are not soldiers as yet, and must be trained to become such at your Highness's expense."
"Be it so," said Charles; "I think the Low Countries can find food for the beef-consuming knaves for a few weeks, and villages for them to lie in, and officers to train their sturdy limbs to war, and provost-marshals enough to reduce their refractory spirit to discipline."
"What happens next?" said Oxford. "You march to Paris, add to Edward's usurped power another kingdom; restore to him all the possessions which England ever had in France, Normandy, Maine, Anjou, Gascony, and all besides—Can you trust this Edward when you shall have thus fostered his strength, and made him far stronger than this Louis whom you have united to pull down?"
"By St. George, I will not dissemble with you! It is in that very point that my doubts trouble me. Edward is indeed my brother-in-law, but I am a man little inclined to put my head under my wife's girdle."
"And the times," said Philipson, "have too often shown the inefficiency of family alliances, to prevent the most gross breaches of faith."