The Last of the Barons — Complete by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton (popular ebook readers .txt) 📗
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“Silence!” thundered the earl’s deep voice. “Who names the subject in the sovereign’s presence? Behold your king!” The men, abashed by the reproof, bowed their heads and sank on their knees, as Warwick took a taper from the table, to lead the way from the prison.
Then Henry turned slowly, and gazed with a lingering eye upon the walls which even sorrow and solitude had endeared. The little oratory, the crucifix, the relics, the embers burning low on the hearth, the rude time-piece,—all took to his thoughtful eye an almost human aspect of melancholy and omen; and the bird, roused, whether by the glare of the lights, or the recent shout of the men, opened its bright eyes, and fluttering restlessly to and fro, shrilled out its favourite sentence, “Poor Henry! poor Henry!—wicked men!—who would be a king?”
“Thou hearest it, Warwick?” said Henry, shaking his head.
“Could an eagle speak, it would have another cry than the starling,” returned the earl, with a proud smile.
“Why, look you,” said the king, once more releasing the bird, which settled on his wrist, “the eagle had broken his heart in the narrow cage, the eagle had been no comforter for a captive; it is these gentler ones that love and soothe us best in our adversities. Tray, Tray, fawn not now, sirrah, or I shall think thou hast been false in thy fondness heretofore! Cousin, I attend you.”
And with his bird on his wrist, his dog at his heels, Henry VI. followed the earl to the illuminated hall of Edward, where the table was spread for the royal repast, and where his old friends, Manning, Bedle, and Allerton, stood weeping for joy; while from the gallery raised aloft, the musicians gave forth the rough and stirring melody which had gradually fallen out of usage, but which was once the Norman’s national air, and which the warlike Margaret of Anjou had retaught her minstrels,—“THE BATTLE HYMN OF ROLLO.”
BOOK XI. THE NEW POSITION OF THE KING-MAKER
CHAPTER I. WHEREIN MASTER ADAM WARNER IS NOTABLY COMMENDED AND ADVANCED—AND GREATNESS SAYS TO WISDOM, “THY DESTINY BE MINE, AMEN.”
The Chronicles inform us, that two or three days after the entrance of Warwick and Clarence,—namely, on the 6th of October,—those two leaders, accompanied by the Lords Shrewsbury, Stanley, and a numerous and noble train, visited the Tower in formal state, and escorted the king, robed in blue velvet, the crown on his head, to public thanksgivings at St. Paul’s, and thence to the Bishop’s Palace, [not to the Palace at Westminster, as some historians, preferring the French to the English authorities, have asserted,—that palace was out of repair] where he continued chiefly to reside.
The proclamation that announced the change of dynasty was received with apparent acquiescence through the length and breadth of the kingdom, and the restoration of the Lancastrian line seemed yet the more firm and solid by the magnanimous forbearance of Warwick and his councils. Not one execution that could be termed the act of a private revenge stained with blood the second reign of the peaceful Henry. One only head fell on the scaffold,—that of the Earl of Worcester. [Lord Warwick himself did not sit in judgment on Worcester. He was tried and condemned by Lord Oxford. Though some old offences in his Irish government were alleged against him, the cruelties which rendered him so odious were of recent date. He had (as we before took occasion to relate) impaled twenty persons after Warwick’s flight into France. The “Warkworth Chronicle” says, “He was ever afterwardes greatly behated among the people for this disordynate dethe that he used, contrary to the laws of the lande.”] This solitary execution, which was regarded by all classes as a due concession to justice, only yet more illustrated the general mildness of the new rule.
It was in the earliest days of this sudden restoration that Alwyn found the occasion to serve his friends in the Tower. Warwick was eager to conciliate all the citizens, who, whether frankly or grudgingly, had supported his cause; and, amongst these, he was soon informed of the part taken in the Guildhall by the rising goldsmith. He sent for Alwyn to his house in Warwick-lane, and after complimenting him on his advance in life and repute, since Nicholas had waited on him with baubles for his embassy to France, he offered him the special rank of goldsmith to the king.
The wary, yet honest, trader paused a moment in some embarrassment before he answered,—
“My good lord, you are noble and gracious eno’ to understand and forgive me when I say that I have had, in the upstart of my fortunes, the countenance of the late King Edward and his queen; and though the public weal made me advise my fellow-citizens not to resist your entry, I would not, at least, have it said that my desertion had benefited my private fortunes.”
Warwick coloured, and his lip curled. “Tush, man, assume not virtues which do not exist amongst the sons of trade, nor, much I trow, amongst the sons of Adam. I read thy mind. Thou thinkest it unsafe openly to commit thyself to the new state. Fear not,—we are firm.”
“Nay, my lord,” returned Alwyn, “it is not so. But there are many better citizens than I, who remember that the Yorkists were ever friends to commerce. And you will find that only by great tenderness to our crafts you can win the heart of London, though you have passed its gates.”
“I shall be just to all men,” answered the earl, dryly; “but if the flat-caps are false, there are eno’ of bonnets of steel to watch over the Red Rose!”
“You are said, my lord,” returned Alwyn, bluntly, “to love the barons, the knights, the gentry, the yeomen, and the peasants, but to despise the traders,—I fear me that report in this is true.”
“I love not the trader spirit, man,—the spirit that cheats, and cringes, and haggles, and splits straws for pence, and roasts eggs by other men’s blazing rafters. Edward of York, forsooth, was a great trader! It was a sorry hour for England when such as ye, Nick Alwyn, left your green villages for loom and booth. But thus far have I spoken to you as a brave fellow, and of the north countree. I have no time to waste on words. Wilt thou accept mine offer, or name another boon in my power? The man who hath served me wrongs me,—till I have served him again!”
“My lord, yes; I will name such a boon,—safety, and, if you will, some grace and honour, to a learned scholar now in the Tower, one Adam Warner, whom—”
“Now in the Tower! Adam Warner! And wanting a friend, I no more an exile! That is my affair, not thine. Grace, honour,—ay, to his heart’s content. And his noble daughter? Mort Dieu! she shall choose her bridegroom among the best of England. Is she, too, in the fortress?”
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