When Knighthood Was in Flower Part 30

said she; "do not fear. Matters will turn out better than you think, perhaps. You know she generally manages to have her own way in the end."

"If you have any comfort to give, please give it, Jane. I feel most keenly for Brandon, heart-tied to such a wilful, changeable creature as Mary."

"Sir Edwin Caskoden, you need not take the trouble to speak to me at all unless you can use language more respectful concerning my mistress. The queen knows what she is about, but it appears that you cannot see it. I see it plainly enough, although no word has ever been spoken to me on the subject. As to Brandon being tied to her, it seems to me she is tied to him, and that he holds the reins. He could drive her into the mouth of purgatory."

"Do you think so?"

"I know it."

I remained in thought a moment or two, and concluded that she was right. In truth, the time had come to me when I believed that Jane, with her good sense and acute discernment, could not be wrong in anything, and I think so yet. So I took comfort on faith from her, and asked: "Do you remember what you said should happen before we return to England?"

Jane hung her head. "I remember."

"Well?"

She then put her hand in mine and murmured, "I am ready any time you wish."

Great heaven! I thought I should go out of my senses. She should have told me gradually. I had to do something to express my exultation, so I walked over to a bronze statue of Bacchus, about my size--that is, height--put my hat--which I had been carrying under my arm--on his head, cut a few capers in an entirely new and equally antic step, and then drew back and knocked that Bacchus down. Jane thought I had gone stark mad, and her eyes grew big with wonder, but I walked proudly back to her after my victory over Bacchus, and rea.s.sured her--with a few of Mary's messages that I had still left over, if the truth must be told. Then we made arrangements that resulted in our marriage next morning.

Accordingly, Queen Mary and one or two others went with us down to a little church, where, as fortune would have it, there was a little priest ready to join together in the holy bonds of wedlock little Jane and little me. Everything so appropriate, you see; I suppose in the whole world we couldn't have found another set of conditions so harmonious. Mary laughed and cried, and laughed again, and clapped her hands over and over, and said it was "like a play wedding"; and, as she kissed Jane, quietly slipped over her head a beautiful diamond necklace that was worth full ten thousand pounds--aside, that is, from the millions of actual value, because it came from Mary. "A play wedding" it was; and a play life it has been ever since.

We were barely settled at court in Paris when Mary began to put her plans in motion and unsettle things generally. I could not but recall Henry's sympathy toward Louis, for the young queen soon took it upon herself to make life a burden to the Father of his People; and, in that particular line, I suppose she had no equal in all the length and breadth of Christendom.

I heartily detested King Louis, largely, I think, because of prejudice absorbed from Mary, but he was, in fact, a fairly good old man, and at times I could but pity him. He was always soft in heart and softer in head, especially where women were concerned. Take his crazy attempt to seize the Countess of Croy while he was yet Duke of Orleans; and his infatuation for the Italian woman, for whom he built the elaborate burial vault--much it must have comforted her. Then his marriage to dictatorial little Anne of Brittany, for whom he had induced Pope Alexander to divorce him from the poor little crippled owlet, Joan. In consideration of this divorce he had put Caesar Borgia, Pope Alexander's son, on his feet, financially and politically. I think he must have wanted the owlet back again before he was done with Anne, because Anne was a termagant--and ruled him with the heaviest rod of iron she could lift. But this last pa.s.sion--the flickering, sputtering flame of his dotage--was the worst of all, both subjectively and objectively; both as to his senile fondness for the English princess and her impish tormenting of him. From the first he evinced the most violent delight in Mary, who repaid it by holding him off and evading him in a manner so cool, audacious and adroit that it stamped her queen of all the arts feminine and demoniac. Pardon me, ladies, if I couple these two arts, but you must admit they are at times somewhat akin. Soon she eluded him so completely that for days he would not have a glimpse of her, while she was perhaps riding, walking or coquetting with some of the court gallants, who aided and abetted her in every way they could. He became almost frantic in pursuit of his elusive bride, and would expostulate with her, when he could catch her, and smile uneasily, like a man who is the victim of a practical joke of which he does not see, or enjoy, the point. On such occasions she would laugh in his face, then grow angry--which was so easy for her to do--and, I grieve to say, would sometimes almost swear at him in a manner to make the pious, though ofttimes lax-virtued, court ladies shudder with horror. She would at other times make sport of his youthful ardor, and tell him in all seriousness that it was indecorous for him to behave so and frighten her, a poor, timid little child, with his impetuosities. Then she would manage to give him the slip; and he would go off and play a game of cards with himself, firmly convinced in his own feeble way that woman's nature had a tincture of the devil in it. He was the soul of conciliatory kindness to the young vixen, but at times she would break violently into tears, accuse him of cruelly mistreating her, a helpless woman and a stranger in his court, and threaten to go home to dear old England and tell her brother, King Henry, all about it, and have him put things to right and redress her wrongs generally. In fact, she acted the part of injured innocence so perfectly that the poor old man would apologize for the wrongs she invented, and try to coax her into a good humor.

Thereupon she would weep more bitterly than ever, grow hysterical, and require to be carried off by her women, when recovery and composure were usually instantaneous. Of course the court gossips soon carried stories of the quick recoveries to the king, and, when he spoke to Mary of them, she put on her injured air again and turned the tables by upbraiding him for believing such calumnies about her, who was so good to him and loved him so dearly.

I tell you it is a waste of time to fight against that a.s.sumption of injured innocence--that impregnable feminine redoubt--and when the enemy once gets fairly behind it one might as well raise the siege. I think it the most amusing, exasperating and successful defense and counter attack in the whole science of war, and every woman has it at her finger-tips, ready for immediate use upon occasion.

Mary would often pout for days together and pretend illness. Upon one occasion she kept the king waiting at her door all the morning, while she, having slipped through the window, was riding with some of the young people in the forest. When she returned--through the window--she went to the door and scolded the poor old king for keeping her waiting penned up in her room all the morning. And he apologized.

She changed the dinner hour to noon in accordance with the English custom, and had a heavy supper at night, when she would make the king gorge himself with unhealthful food and coax him "to drink as much as brother Henry," which invariably resulted in Louis de Valois finding lodgment under the table. This amused the whole court, except a few old cronies and physicians, who, of course, were scandalized beyond measure. She took the king on long rides with her on cold days, and would jolt him almost to death, and freeze him until the cold tears streamed down his poor pinched nose, making him feel like a half animated icicle, and wish that he were one in fact.

At night she would have her b.a.l.l.s, and keep him up till morning drinking and dancing, or trying to dance, with her, until his poor old heels, and his head, too, for that matter, were like to fall off; then she would slip away from him and lock herself in her room. December, say I, let May alone; she certainly will kill you. Despite which sound advice, I doubt not December will go on coveting May up to the end of the chapter; each old fellow--being such a fine man for his age, you understand--fondly believing himself an exception. Age in a fool is d.a.m.nable.

Mary was killing Louis as certainly and deliberately as if she were feeding him slow poison. He was very weak and decrepit at best, being compelled frequently, upon public occasions, such, for example, as the coronation tournament of which I have spoken, to lie upon a couch.

Mary's conduct was really cruel! but then, remember her provocation and that she was acting in self-defense. All this was easier for her than you might suppose, for the king's grasp of power, never very strong, was beginning to relax even what little grip it had. All faces were turned toward the rising sun, young Francis, duke of Angouleme, the king's distant cousin, who would soon be king in Louis's place.

As this young rising sun, himself vastly smitten with Mary, openly encouraged her in what she did, the courtiers of course followed suit, and the old king found himself surrounded by a court only too ready to be amused by his lively young queen at his expense.

This condition of affairs Mary welcomed with her whole soul, and to accent it and nail a.s.surance, I fear, played ever so lightly and coyly upon the heart-strings of the young duke, which responded all too loudly to her velvet touch, and almost frightened her to death with their volume of sound later on. This Francis d'Angouleme, the dauphin, had fallen desperately in love with Mary at first sight, something against which the fact that he was married to Claude, daughter of Louis, in no way militated. He was a very distant relative of Louis, going away back to St. Louis for his heirs.h.i.+p to the French crown. The king had daughters in plenty, but as you know, the gallant Frenchmen say, according to their Law Salic: "The realm of France is so great and glorious a heritage that it may not be taken by a woman." Too great and glorious to be taken by woman, forsooth! France would have been vastly better off had she been governed by a woman now and then, for a country always prospers under a queen.

Francis had for many years lived at court as the recognized heir, and as the custom was, called his distant cousin Louis, "Uncle." "Uncle"

Louis in turn called Francis "_Ce Gros Garcon_," and Queen Mary called him "_Monsieur, mon beau fils_," in a mock-motherly manner that was very laughable. A mother of eighteen to a "good boy" of twenty-two! Dangerous relations.h.i.+p! And dangerous, indeed, it would have been for Mary, had she not been as pure and true as she was wilful and impetuous. "Mon beau fils" allowed neither his wife nor the respect he owed the king to stand in the way of his very marked attention to the queen. His position as heir, and his long residence at court, almost as son to Louis, gave him ample opportunities for pressing his unseemly suit. He was the first to see Mary at the meeting place this side of Abbeville, and was the king's representative on all occasions.

"Beau fils" was rather a handsome fellow, but thought himself vastly handsomer than he was; and had some talents, which he was likewise careful to estimate at their full value, to say the least. He was very well liked by women, and in turn considered himself irresistible. He was very impressionable to feminine charms, was at heart a libertine, and, as he grew older, became a debauchee whose memory will taint France for centuries to come.

Mary saw his weakness more clearly than his wickedness, being blinded to the latter by the veil of her own innocence. She laughed at, and with him, and permitted herself a great deal of his company; so much, in fact, that I grew a little jealous for Brandon's sake, and, if the truth must be told, for the first time began to have doubts of her. I seriously feared that when Louis should die, Brandon might find a much more dangerous rival in the new king, who, although married, would probably try to keep Mary at his court, even should he be driven to the extreme of divorcing Claude, as Claude's father had divorced Joan.

I believed, in case Mary should voluntarily prove false and remain in France, either as the wife or the mistress of Francis, that Brandon would quietly but surely contrive some means to take her life, and I hoped he would. I spoke to my wife, Jane, about the queen's conduct, and she finally admitted that she did not like it; so I, unable to remain silent any longer, determined to put Mary on her guard, and for that purpose spoke very freely to her on the subject.

"Oh! you goose!" she said, laughingly. "He is almost as great a fool as Henry." Then the tears came to her eyes, and half angrily, half hysterically, shaking me by the arm, she continued: "Do you not know?

Can you not see that I would give this hand, or my eyes, almost my life, just to fall upon my face in front of Charles Brandon at this moment? Do you not know that a woman with a love in her heart such as I have for him is safe from every one and everything? That it is her sheet anchor, sure and fast? Have you not wit enough to know that?"

"Yes, I have," I responded, for the time completely silenced. With her favorite tactics, she had, as usual, put me in the wrong, though I soon came again to the attack.

"But he is so base that I grieve to see you with him."

"I suppose he is not very good," she responded, "but it seems to be the way of these people among whom I have fallen, and he cannot harm me."

"Oh! but he can. One does not go near smallpox, and there is a moral contagion quite as dangerous, if not so perceptible, and equally to be avoided. It must be a wonderfully healthy moral nature, pure and chaste to the core, that will be entirely contagion-proof and safe from it."

She hung her head in thought, and then lifted her eyes appealingly to me. "Am I not that, Edwin? Tell me! Tell me frankly; am I not? It is the one thing of good I have always striven for. I am so full of other faults that if I have not that there is no good in me." Her eyes and voice were full of tears, and I knew in my heart that I stood before as pure a soul as ever came from the hand of G.o.d.

"You are, your majesty; never doubt," I answered. "It is pre-eminently the one thing in womanhood to which all mankind kneels." And I fell upon my knee and kissed her hand with a sense of reverence, faith and trust that has never left me from that day to this. As to my estimate of how Francis would act when Louis should die, you will see that I was right.

Not long after this Lady Caskoden and I were given permission to return to England, and immediately prepared for our homeward journey.

Ah! it was pretty to see Jane bustling about, making ready for our departure--superintending the packing of our boxes and also superintending me. That was her great task. I never was so thankful for riches as when they enabled me to allow Jane full sway among the Paris shops. But at last, all the fine things being packed, and Mary having kissed us both--mind you, both--we got our little retinue together and out we went, through St. Denis, then ho! for dear old England.

As we left, Mary placed in my hands a letter for Brandon, whose bulk was so rea.s.suring that I knew he had never been out of her thoughts. I looked at the letter a moment and said, in all seriousness: "Your majesty, had I not better provide an extra box for it?"

She gave a nervous little laugh, and the tears filled her eyes, as she whispered huskily: "I fancy there is one who will not think it too large. Good-bye! good-bye!" So we left Mary, fair, sweet girl-queen, all alone among those terrible strangers; alone with one little English maiden, seven years of age--Anne Boleyn.

_CHAPTER XXI_

_Letters from a Queen_

Upon our return to England I left Jane down in Suffolk with her uncle, Lord Bolingbroke, having determined never to permit her to come within sight of King Henry again, if I could prevent it. I then went up to London with the twofold purpose of seeing Brandon and resigning my place as Master of the Dance.

When I presented myself to the king and told him of my marriage, he flew into a great pa.s.sion because we had not asked his consent. One of his whims was that everyone must ask his permission to do anything; to eat, or sleep, or say one's prayers; especially to marry, if the lady was of a degree ent.i.tled to be a king's ward. Jane, fortunately, had no estate, the king's father having stolen it from her when she was an infant; so all the king could do about our marriage was to grumble, which I let him do to his heart's content.

"I wish also to thank your majesty for the thousand kindnesses you have shown me," I said, "and, although it grieves me to the heart to separate from you, circ.u.mstances compel me to tender my resignation as your Master of Dance." Upon this he was kind enough to express regret, and ask me to reconsider; but I stood my ground firmly, and then and there ended my official relations with Henry Tudor forever.

Upon taking my leave of the king I sought Brandon, whom I found comfortably ensconced in our old quarters, he preferring them to much more pretentious apartments offered him in another part of the palace.

The king had given him some new furnis.h.i.+ngs for them, and as I was to remain a few days to attend to some matters of business, he invited me to share his comfort with him, and I gladly did so.

Those few days with Brandon were my farewell to individuality.

Thereafter I was to be so mysteriously intermingled with Jane that I was only a part--and a small part at that I fear--of two. I did not, of course, regret the change, since it was the one thing in life I most longed for, yet the period was tinged with a faint sentiment of pathos at parting from the old life that had been so kind to me, and which I was leaving forever. I say I did not regret it, and though I was leaving my old haunts and companions and friends so dear to me, I was finding them all again in Jane, who was friend as well as wife.

Mary's letter was in one of my boxes which had been delayed, and Jane was to forward it to me when it should come. When I told Brandon of it, I dwelt with emphasis upon its bulk, and he, of course, was delighted, and impatient to have it. I had put the letter in the box, but there was something else which Mary had sent to him that I had carried with me. It was a sum of money sufficient to pay the debt against his father's estate, and in addition, to buy some large tracts of land adjoining. Brandon did not hesitate to accept the money, and seemed glad that it had come from Mary, she, doubtless, being the only person from whom he would have taken it.

One of Brandon's sisters had married a rich merchant at Ipswich, and another was soon to marry a Scotch gentleman. The brother would probably never marry, so Brandon would eventually have to take charge of the estates. In fact, he afterwards lived there many years, and as Jane and I had purchased a little estate near by, which had been generously added to by Jane's uncle, we saw a great deal of him. But I am getting ahead of my story again.

The d'Angouleme complication troubled me greatly, notwithstanding my faith in Mary, and although I had resolved to say nothing to Brandon about it, I soon told him plainly what I thought and feared.