Robin Tremayne Part 38

"Call him a king!" said Dr Thorpe, who appeared somewhat put out. "On my word, I have seen many a mason and carpenter a deal fairer men, and vastly taller fellows of their hands. He should be 'shamed to be a king, and so slender and pitiful a fellow."

Isoult could not help laughing, and so did Thekla.

"Now give us thine opinion, Jack," said his wife.

"Well," replied he, "methinks his Highness is somewhat taller than Kate; but truly he is under the common height of men. His limbs be well made and lithe, and his person of fair proportions. His hair is somewhat too deep to call it yellow, yet fair; his eyes grey, with a weak look thereabout, as though he might not bear overmuch light; his brow not ill-made for wit, yet drawing backward; his lips large, very red, and thick like all of his house [Note 7]. He hath a fair beard and mustachio, and his complexion is fair, yet not clear, but rather of a Cain-colour." [Note 8].

"Ah, the lip of the House of Austria--how well I know it! It maketh me to shudder to hear you," said Mrs Rose. "Yet if his complexion be Cain-colour, he is changed from what he was. In his young years was it very fair and clear,--as fair as Walter."

"He is mighty unlike Walter now," said Dr Thorpe.

"And what is thy view, Robin?"

"I have not to add to what Father hath said," replied he, "saving that I thought there was a gloomy and careworn look upon the King's face. He is stately and majestical of his carriage; but his nether part of his face cometh forward in a fas.h.i.+on rather strong than seemly. It struck me he should be a man not easily turned from his purpose."

Mr Underhill presented himself in the evening.

"Well," said he, "saw you our goodly King Philip?"

"Nay," said Dr Thorpe, "I saw a mighty ill-favoured."

Mr Underhill laughed. "Verily," said he, "I would be bond that I could match him for beauty with any the first man I should meet withal in the City. There were two swords carried afore him--"

"Ay," said Dr Thorpe, "to cut off all heads withal that be left yet unmown."

"I fear so much," answered Mr Underhill, more gravely than was his wont.

"Were you forth this even?"

"No," said John; "we have all sat at home sithence my home-coming."

"In the streets to-night," said he, "I count I have met four Spaniards for every Englishman. If the King bring all Spain over hither, we shall be sweetly off. As I was coming hither, I protest unto you, I heard more Spanish talked than mine own tongue. I trust some of you have that tongue, or you shall find you in a foreign country--yea, even in the heart of London."

"I have it," said John, "and so hath Mrs Rose; but methinks we stand alone."

"No, Mr Avery, you do not so," quietly said Esther. [Note 9].

"Marry, I never learned any tongue save mine own, nor never repented thereof," answered Dr Thorpe; "saving, of course, so much Latin as a physician must needs pick up withal. I count I could bray like a jacka.s.s an' I tried, and that were good enough for any strange-born companion as ever c.u.mbered the soil of merry England."

Mr Underhill laughed, as did John and Robin.

"Dr Thorpe, you are exceedingly courteous, and I thank you heartily,"

said Mrs Rose, smiling almost for the first time.

"Body o' me! what is a man to do when he falleth into the ditch o' this manner?" said he, with a comical look. "Mrs Rose, I am an a.s.s by nature, and shall find little hards.h.i.+p in braying. I do beseech you of pardon, for that I meant not to offend you; and in very deed, I scarce ever do remember that you are not my countrywoman. You are good enough for an English woman, and I would you were--There! I am about to make yet again a fool of myself. Heed not, I pray you, an old man in his dotage."

"My good friend, say not one other word," answered Mrs Rose, kindly. "I do feel most delighted that you should say I am good enough for an English woman. I can see that is very much from you."

Spaniards were everywhere. England had become a nation of Spaniards in her streets, as she was a province of Spain in her government. And Englishmen knew that Spain, like Rome, whose true daughter she was, never unloosed her hand from any thing she had once grasped. Isoult begged her husband to teach her Spanish; but Kate desired to know why they were all come.

"Is there no meat ne drink in their country, that they come to eat up ours?" she asked in her simplicity.

Her mother told her "they were come to wait on the King, which was a gentleman of their nation."

"But wherefore so?" said she. "Could the Queen not marry an Englishman, that could have talked English? I am sure our Robin is good enough for any Queen that ever carried a crown on her head."

A view of the subject which so greatly tickled Robin that he could not speak for laughing. He was, and always had been, very fond of Kate, and she of him.

A fresh rumour now ran that five thousand more Spaniards would shortly be brought over; and some of them preferred to the vacated benefices and sees.

On the 30th of September, Gardiner preached at the Cross, the Bishop of London bearing his crosier before him. All the Council _were_ present who were then at Court. He spoke much of charity, which is commonly lauded by false teachers; and said that "great heresy had heretofore been preachen at that place, by preachers in King Edward's time, which did preach no thing but voluptuousness and blasphemous lies." Then he touched upon the Pharisees, who stood, said he, "for such men as will reason and dispute in the stead of obeying." And lastly, he spoke of the King; praised his dominion and riches, and "willed all so obediently to order them that he might still tarry with them."

"Well!" said Dr Thorpe, "I count I shall not need to order me for so long time as King Philip is like to tarry with us: but afore I do go on my marrow-bones to beg him tarry, I would fain know somewhat more of what he is like to do for us."

Our friends at the Lamb were fearfully employed on the 5th of October.

For during the previous fortnight there had been so severe a search for Lutheran books, and nearly sixty persons arrested who were found to possess them, that John determined to hide all his in a secret place: one that, he said, "with G.o.d's grace these bloodhounds shall not lightly find, yet easy of access unto them that do know the way." So he buried all the books at which offence could be taken, leaving only his own law-books, and Isoult's "Romaunts" that she had when a girl, and Dr Thorpe's "Game of the Chess," and Robin's "Song of the Lady Bessy," and the "Little Gest of Robin Hood," and similar works.

In the evening came Mr Underhill, whom they told what had been their occupation.

"Why," said he, "but yesterday was I at the very same business. I sent for old Henry Daunce, the bricklayer of White Chapel (who used to preach the gospel in his garden every holiday, where I have seen a thousand persons), and got him to enclose my books in a brick wall by the chimney side in my chamber, where they shall be preserved from moulding or mice.

Mine old enemies, the Papistical spies, John a Vales and Beard, have been threatening me; but I sent them a message by means of Master Luke, the physician of Coleman Street, to let them know that if they did attempt to take me, except they had a warrant signed with four or five of the Council's hands, I would go further with them than Peter did, who strake off but the ear of Malchus, but I would surely strike off head and all."

After which message Mr John Vales and Mr Beard never meddled further with the Hot Gospeller, doubtless knowing they might trust him to keep his word, and having no desire to risk their necks.

On the 3rd of November [see note in Appendix] was born Mr Underhill's son Edward, at his house in Wood Street. This being no time to search for sponsors of rank, John Avery stood for the child, at the father's request, with Mr Ive, and Mrs Elizabeth Lydiatt, Mr Underhill's sister, who was staying with him at that time. And only a week later they were all at another christening, of Mr Holland's child, baptised by Mr Rose; and the sponsors were Lord Strange, his kinsman (by deputy), Mr Underhill, and Thekla; the child was named after Lord Strange, Henry.

[The s.e.x and name of Roger Holland's child are not recorded.] The _all_, however, did not include Mrs Rose; for she knew too well, poor soul! the dread penalty that would ensue if her husband "were taken in her company."

The year ended better than the Gospellers feared. No harm had come to the Archbishop and his brother prisoners. Mr Underhill and Mr Rose were still at liberty. Cardinal Pole had returned to the fatherland whence he had been banished for many years; but from him they hardly looked for evil. The Princess Elizabeth was restored to favour. Roger Holland had left London for his own home in Lancas.h.i.+re, to prevent his child from being re-baptised after the Roman fas.h.i.+on. He meant to leave it with his father, and return himself to London. In the Gospellers' houses, Mr Rose was still preaching: he was to administer the Sacrament on the night of New Year's Day, at Mr Sheerson's house in Bow Churchyard. And Philip had been King five months. Surely, the cloud had a silver lining! surely, they had feared more than there was need! So argued the more sanguine of the party. But it was only the dusk which hid the black clouds that had gathered; only the roar of men's work which drowned the growl of the imminent storm. They were entering--though they knew it not--on the darkest hour of the night.

Note 1.

"Brief life is here our portion, Brief sorrow, short-lived care; The life that knows no ending, The tearless life is There."

Neale's _Translation_.

Note 2. Boni-Homines--translated into various languages,--was the ancient t.i.tle of the Waldensian Church and its offshoots.

Note 3. The best of them, and the only Lutheran--Isabel Queen of Denmark--died in 1525; but of course the imprisoned mother never knew it.

Note 4. The letters yet extant in the archives of Simancas, from Denia and others, give rise to strong suspicion that the story which the world has believed so long--Juana's insane determination not to bury the coffin of her husband--was a pure invention of their own, intended to produce (as it has produced) a general belief in the insanity of the Queen.

Note 5. This sketch in words, given by Foxe, is one of the most graphic descriptions ever written.

Note 6. King Juan the Second of Castilla conferred this t.i.tle on his heir in 1389, in imitation of that of the Prince of Wales, which he greatly admired.

Note 7. This well-known feature came into the House of Austria with the Ma.s.sovian Princess Cimburgha, a strong-minded woman, who used to hammer the nails which confined her fruit-trees to the garden wall with her knuckles. She was the wife of Duke Ernest the Iron-handed, and apparently might have shared his epithet.