Windsor Castle, William Harrison Ainsworth [ereader for textbooks .TXT] 📗

you, I say," pursued Henry, extending his hand towards him, while his eyes flashed fire, "who by your outrageous pride have so long overshadowed our honour--who by your insatiate avarice and appetite for wealth have oppressed our subjects--who by your manifold acts of bribery and extortion have impoverished our realm, and by your cruelty and partiality have subverted the due course of justice and turned it to your ends--the time is come when you shall receive due punishment for your offences."

"You wrong me, my dear liege," cried Wolsey abjectly. "These are the accusations of my enemies. Grant me a patient hearing, and I will explain all."

"I would not sharpen the king's resentment against you, lord cardinal," said Anne Boleyn, "for it is keen enough; but I cannot permit you to say that these charges are merely hostile. Those who would support the king's honour and dignity must desire to see you removed from his counsels."

"I am ready to take thy place, lord cardinal," said Will Sommers; "and will exchange my bauble for thy chancellor's mace, and my fool's cap for thy cardinal's hat."

"Peace!" thundered the king. "Stand not between me and the object of my wrath. Your accusers are not one but many, Wolsey; nay, the whole of my people cry out for justice against you. And they shall have it. But you shall hear the charges they bring. Firstly, contrary to our prerogative, and for your own advancement and profit, you have obtained authority legatine from the Pope; by which authority you have not only spoiled and taken away their substance from many religious houses, but have usurped much of our own jurisdiction. You have also made a treaty with the King of France for the Pope without our consent, and concluded another friendly treaty with the Duke of Ferrara, under our great seal, and in our name, without our warrant. And furthermore you have presumed to couple yourself with our royal self in your letters and instructions, as if you were on an equality with us."

"Ha! ha! 'The king and I would have you do thus!' 'The king and I give you our hearty thanks!' Ran it not so, cardinal?" cried Will Sommers. "You will soon win the cap and bells."

"In exercise of your legatine authority," pursued the king, "you have given away benefices contrary to our crown and dignity, for the which you are in danger of forfeiture of your lands and goods."

"A premunire, cardinal," cried Will Sommers. "A premunire!--ha! ha!"

"Then it has been your practice to receive all the ambassadors to our court first at your own palace," continued Henry, "to hear their charges and intentions, and to instruct them as you might see fit. You have also so practised that all our letters sent from beyond sea have first come to your own hands, by which you have acquainted yourself with their contents, and compelled us and our council to follow your devices. You have also written to all our ambassadors abroad in your own name concerning our affairs, without our authority; and received letters in return from them by which you have sought to compass your own purposes. By your ambition and pride you have undone many of our poor subjects; have suppressed religious houses, and received their possessions; have seized upon the goods of wealthy spiritual men deceased; constrained all ordinaries yearly to compound with you; have gotten riches for yourself and servants by subversion of the laws, and by abuse of your authority in causing divers pardons of the Pope to be suspended until you, by promise of a yearly pension, chose to revive them; and also by crafty and untrue tales have sought to create dissention among our nobles."

"That we can all avouch for," cried Suffolk. "It was never merry in England while there were cardinals among us."

"Of all men in England your grace should be the last to say so," rejoined Wolsey; "for if I had not been cardinal, you would not have had a head upon your shoulders to utter the taunt."

"No more of this!" cried the king. "You have misdemeaned yourself in our court by keeping up as great state in our absence as if we had been there in person, and presumptuously have dared to join and imprint your badge, the cardinal's hat, under our arms, graven on our coins struck at York. And lastly, whenever in open Parliament allusion hath been made to heresies and erroneous sects, you have failed to correct and notice them, to the danger of the whole body of good and Christian people of this our realm."

"This last charge ought to win me favour in the eyes of one who professes the Opinions of Luther," said Wolsey to Anne. "But I deny it, as I do all the rest."

"I will listen to no defence, Wolsey," replied the king. "I will make you a terrible example to others how they offend us and our laws hereafter."

"Do not condemn me unheard!" cried the cardinal, prostrating himself.

"I have heard too much, and I will hear no more!" cried the king fiercely. "I dismiss you from my presence for ever. If you are innocent, as you aver, justice will be done you.. If you are guilty, as I believe you to be, look not for leniency from me, for I will show you none." And, seating himself, he turned to Anne, and said, in a low tone, " Are you content, sweetheart?"

"I am," she replied. "I shall not now break my vow. False cardinal," she added aloud, "your reign is at an end."

"Your own may not be much longer, madam," rejoined Wolsey bitterly. "The shadow of the axe," he added, pointing to the reflection of a partisan on the floor, "is at your feet. Ere long it may rise to the head."

And, accompanied by Campeggio, he slowly quitted the presence- chamber.


THUS ENDS THE FOURTH BOOK OF THE CHRONICLE OF WINDSOR
CASTLE


BOOK V MABEL LYNDWOOD


I How the Earl of Surrey and the Fair Geraldine met in King James's Bower in the Moat--And how they were surprised by the Duke of Richmond.


IN order to preserve unbroken the chain of events with which the last book of this chronicle concluded, it was deemed expedient to disturb the unity of time, so far as it related to some of the less important characters; and it will now he necessary, therefore, to return to the middle of June, when the Earl of Surrey's term of captivitywas drawing to a close.

As the best means of conquering the anxiety produced by the vision exhibited to him by Herne, increased as it was by the loss of the relic he had sustained at the same time, the earl had devoted himself to incessant study, and for a whole month he remained within his chamber. The consequence of his unremitting application was that, though he succeeded in his design and completely regained his tranquillity, his strength gave way under the effort, and he was confined for some days to his couch by a low fever.

As soon as he was sufficiently recovered to venture forth, he mounted to the summit of the Round Tower, in the hope that a walk round its breezy battlements might conduce to his restoration to health. The day was bright and beautiful, and a gentle wind was stirring; and as Surrey felt the breath. of heaven upon his cheek, and gazed upon the glorious. prospect before him, he wondered that his imprisonment had not driven him mad. Everything around him, indeed,. was calculated to make the sense of captivity painful. The broad and beautiful meads, stretching out beneath him, seemed to invite a ramble over them; the silver river courted a plunge into its waves, the woods an hour's retirement into their shady recesses, The bells of Eton College rang out merrily, but their sound saddened rather than elated him. The road between Eton and Windsor, then marked by straggling cottages with gardens between them, with here and there a dwelling of a better kind, was thronged with herds of cattle and their drivers, for a fair was held that day in the town of Windsor, to which they were hastening. Then there were country maidens and youthful hinds in their holiday apparel, trooping towards the bridge. Booths were erected, near which, in the Brocas meads, the rustic sports of wrestling, running, and casting the bar were going forward, while numbers of boats shot to and fro upon the river, and strains of music proceeded from a large gilt barge moored to its banks. Nearer, and in the broad green plain lying beneath the north terrace, were a company of archers shooting at the butts. But these sights, instead of affording pleasure to Surrey, only sharpened the anguish of his feelings by the contrast they offered to his present position.

To distract his thoughts, he quitted the near view, and let his eye run along the edge of the horizon, until it rested upon a small speck, which he knew to be the lofty spire of Saint Paul's Cathedral. If, as he supposed, the Fair Geraldine was in attendance upon Anne Boleyn, at the palace at Bridewell, she must be under the shadow of this very spire; and the supposition, whether correct or not, produced such quick and stifling emotions, that the tears rushed to his eyes.

Ashamed of his weakness, he turned to the other side of the tower, and bent his gaze upon the woody heights of the great park. These recalled Herne the Hunter; and burning with resentment at the tricks practised upon him by the demon, he determined that the first use he would make of his liberty should be to seek out, and, if possible, effect the capture of this mysterious being. Some of the strange encounters between Herne and the king had been related to him by the officer on guard at the Norman Tower but these only served as stimulants to the adventure. After a couple of hours thus passed on the keep, he descended refreshed and invigorated. The next day he was there again, and the day after that; when, feeling that his restoration was well nigh complete, he requested permission to pass the following evening in the dry moat of the donjon. And this was readily accorded him.

Covered with green sod, and shaded by many tall trees growing out of the side of the artificial mound on which the keep was built, the fosse offered all the advantages of a garden to the prisoners who were allowed to take exercise within it. Here, as has been mentioned, King James the First of Scotland first beheld, from the battlements above, the lovely Jane Beaufort take her solitary walk, and by his looks and gestures contrived to make her sensible of the passion with which she inspired him; and here at last, in an arbour which, for the sake of the old and delightful legend connected with it, was kept up at the time of this chronicle, and then bore the name of the royal poet, they had secretly met, and interchanged their vows of affection.

Familiar with the story, familiar also with the poetic strains to which the monarch's passion gave birth, Surrey could not help comparing his own fate with that of the illustri6us captive who had visited the spot before him. Full of such thoughts, he pensively tracked the narrow path winding