The Golden Grasshopper: A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham

by William Henry Giles Kingston

“Wisely spoken, lad,” answered Lady Anne; “you have well repaid the care we have taken of you. While I am seeing that such garments as my lord may require are put up, do you go and tell the factor, John Elliot, to have the horses in readiness; and let James Brocktrop know that he is to ride with his lord. Tell him not where, but that he must be prepared for a long journey.”

All these arrangements were made before the return of Master Gresham: he had been presiding at a meeting of the Mercers’ Company. Seldom had he appeared so much out of spirits, even before he heard the account Ernst had to give him. The merchants of London, he said, were universally against this Spanish marriage. They were too well acquainted with the affairs of Europe, and with the character of the Emperor and his son, not to dread the worst consequences to England. The cruelties exercised over the inhabitants of the Low Countries had driven numerous skilled artisans to England; but if Philip was ruler here, they would be afraid to come, dreading lest the same cruelties might be exercised upon them in the land of their adoption.

Lady Anne interrupted these remarks by bringing forward Ernst. The merchant listened calmly to the account given him by the lad.

“The warning is from a friend,” he remarked; “it should not be disregarded. Yet I have no fancy to fly away like a traitor or criminal: I would rather remain and stand the brunt of any attack made on me.”

“Oh, my dear lord, be not so rash!” exclaimed Lady Anne. “If the Queen desires again to establish the Romish faith in England, surely she will endeavour to remove all those who, from their rank or wealth and sound Protestant principles, are likely to interfere with her project.”

Ernst added his entreaties to those of the Lady Anne, assuring his patron that the man who had spoken to him had urged instant flight as the only sure means of escaping the threatened danger. Master Gresham at length yielded to the entreaties of his wife; and having put on his riding-dress, and secured his arms round him, accompanied by his faithful attendant James Brocktrop, he took his departure from his house. He was soon clear of the City, riding along the pleasant lanes and open fields towards the north of London. Ernst ran behind the horses, keeping a little way off, for a considerable distance, till he saw them safe out of the City, and then returned to make his report to the Lady Anne, who failed not to pray that her lord might be protected on his journey. Again she thanked Ernst for the benefit he had done her lord.

And now the boy returned, with his heart beating more proudly than it had ever beaten before, back to school: a line from Lady Anne, explaining that he had been employed by his patron, saved him from the penalty which he might have had to suffer for his absence.

Ernst got back to school: the master asked no questions. He might have been aware that some of his boys had been out pelting the Spaniards with snow-balls; but the crime, perchance, was not a great one in his eyes.

The following day, the Earl of Devonshire and a large assemblage of other lords and gentlemen went down to the Tower Wharf to receive the Spanish Ambassador, who came to arrange the terms of the Queen’s marriage. He travelled in great state, attended by a number of nobles and others. He was Flemish—the Count of Egmont; hereafter to be seen by Ernst under very different circumstances. As he landed thus in great state, the Earl of Devonshire gave him his right hand, and assisted him to mount a richly-caparisoned steed standing ready to carry him. Thus the cavalcade of nobles, in their furred cloaks, proceeded on through Cheapside, and so forth to Westminster. As the Count looked round him, he might have suspected that his master Philip was in no respect welcome to the English. There were many people, notwithstanding the cold, in the streets; but none of them shouted or waved their hats, but on the contrary held down their heads and turned aside, well knowing that his visit boded no good to their country. Still more hateful were the thoughts of the marriage to the people when the terms of the treaty became known. The boys at Saint Paul’s School were the first to invent a new game, one half calling themselves Spaniards, the other English. Ernst would never consent to join the Spaniards.

“No,” he said; “they burned my father and my mother, and while I live I will never unite with them. I tell you, boys, they will burn you and your fathers and your mothers, and all you love, who dare to call themselves Protestants, if they ever get power in this country of England.”