Kenilworth

S >> Sir Walter Scott >> Kenilworth

KENILWORTH.

by Sir Walter Scott, Bart.




INTRODUCTION

A certain degree of success, real or supposed, in the delineation of
Queen Mary, naturally induced the author to attempt something similar
respecting "her sister and her foe," the celebrated Elizabeth. He
will not, however, pretend to have approached the task with the same
feelings; for the candid Robertson himself confesses having felt the
prejudices with which a Scottishman is tempted to regard the subject;
and what so liberal a historian avows, a poor romance-writer dares not
disown. But he hopes the influence of a prejudice, almost as natural to
him as his native air, will not be found to have greatly affected the
sketch he has attempted of England's Elizabeth. I have endeavoured
to describe her as at once a high-minded sovereign, and a female of
passionate feelings, hesitating betwixt the sense of her rank and
the duty she owed her subjects on the one hand, and on the other her
attachment to a nobleman, who, in external qualifications at least,
amply merited her favour. The interest of the story is thrown upon that
period when the sudden death of the first Countess of Leicester seemed
to open to the ambition of her husband the opportunity of sharing the
crown of his sovereign.

It is possible that slander, which very seldom favours the memories
of persons in exalted stations, may have blackened the character of
Leicester with darker shades than really belonged to it. But the almost
general voice of the times attached the most foul suspicions to the
death of the unfortunate Countess, more especially as it took place so
very opportunely for the indulgence of her lover's ambition. If we can
trust Ashmole's Antiquities of Berkshire, there was but too much ground
for the traditions which charge Leicester with the murder of his wife.
In the following extract of the passage, the reader will find the
authority I had for the story of the romance:--

"At the west end of the church are the ruins of a manor, anciently
belonging (as a cell, or place of removal, as some report) to the
monks of Abington. At the Dissolution, the said manor, or lordship, was
conveyed to one--Owen (I believe), the possessor of Godstow then.

"In the hall, over the chimney, I find Abington arms cut in
stone--namely, a patonee between four martletts; and also another
escutcheon--namely, a lion rampant, and several mitres cut in stone
about the house. There is also in the said house a chamber called
Dudley's chamber, where the Earl of Leicester's wife was murdered, of
which this is the story following:--

"Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, a very goodly personage, and
singularly well featured, being a great favourite to Queen Elizabeth,
it was thought, and commonly reported, that had he been a bachelor or
widower, the Queen would have made him her husband; to this end, to free
himself of all obstacles, he commands, or perhaps, with fair flattering
entreaties, desires his wife to repose herself here at his servant
Anthony Forster's house, who then lived in the aforesaid manor-house;
and also prescribes to Sir Richard Varney (a prompter to this design),
at his coming hither, that he should first attempt to poison her, and if
that did not take effect, then by any other way whatsoever to dispatch
her. This, it seems, was proved by the report of Dr. Walter Bayly,
sometime fellow of New College, then living in Oxford, and professor of
physic in that university; whom, because he would not consent to take
away her life by poison, the Earl endeavoured to displace him the court.
This man, it seems, reported for most certain that there was a practice
in Cumnor among the conspirators, to have poisoned this poor innocent
lady, a little before she was killed, which was attempted after this
manner:--They seeing the good lady sad and heavy (as one that well
knew, by her other handling, that her death was not far off), began to
persuade her that her present disease was abundance of melancholy and
other humours, etc., and therefore would needs counsel her to take some
potion, which she absolutely refusing to do, as still suspecting the
worst; whereupon they sent a messenger on a day (unawares to her) for
Dr. Bayly, and entreated him to persuade her to take some little potion
by his direction, and they would fetch the same at Oxford; meaning to
have added something of their own for her comfort, as the doctor
upon just cause and consideration did suspect, seeing their great
importunity, and the small need the lady had of physic, and therefore
he peremptorily denied their request; misdoubting (as he afterwards
reported) lest, if they had poisoned her under the name of his potion,
he might after have been hanged for a colour of their sin, and the
doctor remained still well assured that this way taking no effect, she
would not long escape their violence, which afterwards happened thus.
For Sir Richard Varney abovesaid (the chief projector in this design),
who, by the Earl's order, remained that day of her death alone with her,
with one man only and Forster, who had that day forcibly sent away all
her servants from her to Abington market, about three miles distant from
this place; they (I say, whether first stifling her, or else strangling
her) afterwards flung her down a pair of stairs and broke her neck,
using much violence upon her; but, however, though it was vulgarly
reported that she by chance fell downstairs (but still without hurting
her hood that was upon her head), yet the inhabitants will tell you
there that she was conveyed from her usual chamber where she lay, to
another where the bed's head of the chamber stood close to a privy
postern door, where they in the night came and stifled her in her bed,
bruised her head very much broke her neck, and at length flung her down
stairs, thereby believing the world would have thought it a mischance,
and so have blinded their villainy. But behold the mercy and justice
of God in revenging and discovering this lady's murder; for one of the
persons that was a coadjutor in this murder was afterwards taken for a
felony in the marches of Wales, and offering to publish the manner
of the aforesaid murder, was privately made away in the prison by the
Earl's appointment; and Sir Richard Varney the other, dying about the
same time in London, cried miserably, and blasphemed God, and said to
a person of note (who hath related the same to others since), not long
before his death, that all the devils in hell did tear him in pieces.
Forster, likewise, after this fact, being a man formerly addicted to
hospitality, company, mirth, and music, was afterwards observed to
forsake all this, and with much melancholy and pensiveness (some say
with madness) pined and drooped away. The wife also of Bald Butter,
kinsman to the Earl, gave out the whole fact a little before her death.
Neither are these following passages to be forgotten, that as soon as
ever she was murdered, they made great haste to bury her before the
coroner had given in his inquest (which the Earl himself condemned as
not done advisedly), which her father, or Sir John Robertsett (as I
suppose), hearing of, came with all speed hither, caused her corpse to
be taken up, the coroner to sit upon her, and further inquiry to be made
concerning this business to the full; but it was generally thought that
the Earl stopped his mouth, and made up the business betwixt them; and
the good Earl, to make plain to the world the great love he bare to her
while alive, and what a grief the loss of so virtuous a lady was to his
tender heart, caused (though the thing, by these and other means, was
beaten into the heads of the principal men of the University of Oxford)
her body to be reburied in St, Mary's Church in Oxford, with great
pomp and solemnity. It is remarkable, when Dr. Babington, the Earl's
chaplain, did preach the funeral sermon, he tript once or twice in
his speech, by recommending to their memories that virtuous lady so
pitifully murdered, instead of saying pitifully slain. This Earl, after
all his murders and poisonings, was himself poisoned by that which
was prepared for others (some say by his wife at Cornbury Lodge before
mentioned), though Baker in his Chronicle would have it at Killingworth;
anno 1588." [Ashmole's Antiquities of Berkshire, vol.i., p.149. The
tradition as to Leicester's death was thus communicated by Ben Jonson to
Drummond of Hawthornden:--"The Earl of Leicester gave a bottle of liquor
to his Lady, which he willed her to use in any faintness, which she,
after his returne from court, not knowing it was poison, gave him, and
so he died."--BEN JONSON'S INFORMATION TO DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN, MS.,
SIR ROBERT SIBBALD'S COPY.]

The same accusation has been adopted and circulated by the author of
Leicester's Commonwealth, a satire written directly against the Earl of
Leicester, which loaded him with the most horrid crimes, and, among
the rest, with the murder of his first wife. It was alluded to in the
Yorkshire Tragedy, a play erroneously ascribed to Shakespeare, where
a baker, who determines to destroy all his family, throws his wife
downstairs, with this allusion to the supposed murder of Leicester's
lady,--

"The only way to charm a woman's tongue
Is, break her neck--a politician did it."

The reader will find I have borrowed several incidents as well as names
from Ashmole, and the more early authorities; but my first acquaintance
with the history was through the more pleasing medium of verse. There
is a period in youth when the mere power of numbers has a more strong
effect on ear and imagination than in more advanced life. At this season
of immature taste, the author was greatly delighted with the poems of
Mickle and Langhorne, poets who, though by no means deficient in the
higher branches of their art, were eminent for their powers of verbal
melody above most who have practised this department of poetry. One of
those pieces of Mickle, which the author was particularly pleased with,
is a ballad, or rather a species of elegy, on the subject of Cumnor
Hall, which, with others by the same author, was to be found in Evans's
Ancient Ballads (vol. iv., page 130), to which work Mickle made liberal
contributions. The first stanza especially had a peculiar species of
enchantment for the youthful ear of the author, the force of which is
not even now entirely spent; some others are sufficiently prosaic.

CUMNOR HALL.

The dews of summer night did fall;
The moon, sweet regent of the sky,
Silver'd the walls of Cumnor Hall,
And many an oak that grew thereby,

Now nought was heard beneath the skies,
The sounds of busy life were still,
Save an unhappy lady's sighs,
That issued from that lonely pile.

"Leicester," she cried, "is this thy love
That thou so oft hast sworn to me,
To leave me in this lonely grove,
Immured in shameful privity?

"No more thou com'st with lover's speed,
Thy once beloved bride to see;
But be she alive, or be she dead,
I fear, stern Earl, 's the same to thee.

"Not so the usage I received
When happy in my father's hall;
No faithless husband then me grieved,
No chilling fears did me appal.

"I rose up with the cheerful morn,
No lark more blithe, no flower more gay;
And like the bird that haunts the thorn,
So merrily sung the livelong day.

"If that my beauty is but small,
Among court ladies all despised,
Why didst thou rend it from that hall,
Where, scornful Earl, it well was prized?

"And when you first to me made suit,
How fair I was you oft would say!
And proud of conquest, pluck'd the fruit,
Then left the blossom to decay.

"Yes! now neglected and despised,
The rose is pale, the lily's dead;
But he that once their charms so prized,
Is sure the cause those charms are fled.

"For know, when sick'ning grief doth prey,
And tender love's repaid with scorn,
The sweetest beauty will decay,--
What floweret can endure the storm?

"At court, I'm told, is beauty's throne,
Where every lady's passing rare,
That Eastern flowers, that shame the sun,
Are not so glowing, not so fair.

"Then, Earl, why didst thou leave the beds
Where roses and where lilies vie,
To seek a primrose, whose pale shades
Must sicken when those gauds are by?

"'Mong rural beauties I was one,
Among the fields wild flowers are fair;
Some country swain might me have won,
And thought my beauty passing rare.

"But, Leicester (or I much am wrong),
Or 'tis not beauty lures thy vows;
Rather ambition's gilded crown
Makes thee forget thy humble spouse.

"Then, Leicester, why, again I plead
(The injured surely may repine)--
Why didst thou wed a country maid,
When some fair princess might be thine?

"Why didst thou praise my hum'ble charms,
And, oh! then leave them to decay?
Why didst thou win me to thy arms,
Then leave to mourn the livelong day?

"The village maidens of the plain
Salute me lowly as they go;
Envious they mark my silken train,
Nor think a Countess can have woe.

"The simple nymphs! they little know
How far more happy's their estate;
To smile for joy, than sigh for woe--
To be content, than to be great.

"How far less blest am I than them?
Daily to pine and waste with care!
Like the poor plant that, from its stem
Divided, feels the chilling air.

"Nor, cruel Earl! can I enjoy
The humble charms of solitude;
Your minions proud my peace destroy,
By sullen frowns or pratings rude.

"Last night, as sad I chanced to stray,
The village death-bell smote my ear;
They wink'd aside, and seemed to say,
'Countess, prepare, thy end is near!'

"And now, while happy peasants sleep,
Here I sit lonely and forlorn;
No one to soothe me as I weep,
Save Philomel on yonder thorn.

"My spirits flag--my hopes decay--
Still that dread death-bell smites my ear;
And many a boding seems to say,
'Countess, prepare, thy end is near!'"

Thus sore and sad that lady grieved,
In Cumnor Hall, so lone and drear;
And many a heartfelt sigh she heaved,
And let fall many a bitter tear.

And ere the dawn of day appear'd,
In Cumnor Hall, so lone and drear,
Full many a piercing scream was heard,
And many a cry of mortal fear.

The death-bell thrice was heard to ring,
An aerial voice was heard to call,
And thrice the raven flapp'd its wing
Around the towers of Cumnor Hall.

The mastiff howl'd at village door,
The oaks were shatter'd on the green;
Woe was the hour--for never more
That hapless Countess e'er was seen!

And in that Manor now no more
Is cheerful feast and sprightly ball;
For ever since that dreary hour
Have spirits haunted Cumnor Hall.

The village maids, with fearful glance,
Avoid the ancient moss-grown wall;
Nor ever lead the merry dance,
Among the groves of Cumnor Hall.

Full many a traveller oft hath sigh'd,
And pensive wept the Countess' fall,
As wand'ring onward they've espied
The haunted towers of Cumnor Hall.

ARBOTSFORD, 1st March 1831.




KENILWORTH



CHAPTER I.

I am an innkeeper, and know my grounds,
And study them; Brain o' man, I study them.
I must have jovial guests to drive my ploughs,
And whistling boys to bring my harvests home,
Or I shall hear no flails thwack. THE NEW INN.

It is the privilege of tale-tellers to open their story in an inn, the
free rendezvous of all travellers, and where the humour of each displays
itself without ceremony or restraint. This is specially suitable when
the scene is laid during the old days of merry England, when the
guests were in some sort not merely the inmates, but the messmates
and temporary companions of mine Host, who was usually a personage of
privileged freedom, comely presence, and good-humour. Patronized by him
the characters of the company were placed in ready contrast; and they
seldom failed, during the emptying of a six-hooped pot, to throw off
reserve, and present themselves to each other, and to their landlord,
with the freedom of old acquaintance.

The village of Cumnor, within three or four miles of Oxford, boasted,
during the eighteenth of Queen Elizabeth, an excellent inn of the old
stamp, conducted, or rather ruled, by Giles Gosling, a man of a goodly
person, and of somewhat round belly; fifty years of age and upwards,
moderate in his reckonings, prompt in his payments, having a cellar of
sound liquor, a ready wit, and a pretty daughter. Since the days of
old Harry Baillie of the Tabard in Southwark, no one had excelled Giles
Gosling in the power of pleasing his guests of every description; and so
great was his fame, that to have been in Cumnor without wetting a cup
at the bonny Black Bear, would have been to avouch one's-self utterly
indifferent to reputation as a traveller. A country fellow might as well
return from London without looking in the face of majesty. The men of
Cumnor were proud of their Host, and their Host was proud of his house,
his liquor, his daughter, and himself.

It was in the courtyard of the inn which called this honest fellow
landlord, that a traveller alighted in the close of the evening, gave
his horse, which seemed to have made a long journey, to the hostler,
and made some inquiry, which produced the following dialogue betwixt the
myrmidons of the bonny Black Bear.

"What, ho! John Tapster."

"At hand, Will Hostler," replied the man of the spigot, showing himself
in his costume of loose jacket, linen breeches, and green apron, half
within and half without a door, which appeared to descend to an outer
cellar.

"Here is a gentleman asks if you draw good ale," continued the hostler.

"Beshrew my heart else," answered the tapster, "since there are but four
miles betwixt us and Oxford. Marry, if my ale did not convince the
heads of the scholars, they would soon convince my pate with the pewter
flagon."

"Call you that Oxford logic?" said the stranger, who had now quitted the
rein of his horse, and was advancing towards the inn-door, when he was
encountered by the goodly form of Giles Gosling himself.

"Is it logic you talk of, Sir Guest?" said the host; "why, then, have at
you with a downright consequence--

'The horse to the rack,
And to fire with the sack.'"

"Amen! with all my heart, my good host," said the stranger; "let it be a
quart of your best Canaries, and give me your good help to drink it."

"Nay, you are but in your accidence yet, Sir Traveller, if you call on
your host for help for such a sipping matter as a quart of sack; Were it
a gallon, you might lack some neighbouring aid at my hand, and yet call
yourself a toper."

"Fear me not." said the guest, "I will do my devoir as becomes a man who
finds himself within five miles of Oxford; for I am not come from the
field of Mars to discredit myself amongst the followers of Minerva."

As he spoke thus, the landlord, with much semblance of hearty welcome,
ushered his guest into a large, low chamber, where several persons were
seated together in different parties--some drinking, some playing at
cards, some conversing, and some, whose business called them to be early
risers on the morrow, concluding their evening meal, and conferring with
the chamberlain about their night's quarters.

The entrance of a stranger procured him that general and careless sort
of attention which is usually paid on such occasions, from which the
following results were deduced:--The guest was one of those who, with
a well-made person, and features not in themselves unpleasing, are
nevertheless so far from handsome that, whether from the expression
of their features, or the tone of their voice, or from their gait and
manner, there arises, on the whole, a disinclination to their society.
The stranger's address was bold, without being frank, and seemed eagerly
and hastily to claim for him a degree of attention and deference which
he feared would be refused, if not instantly vindicated as his right.
His attire was a riding-cloak, which, when open, displayed a handsome
jerkin overlaid with lace, and belted with a buff girdle, which
sustained a broadsword and a pair of pistols.

"You ride well provided, sir," said the host, looking at the weapons as
he placed on the table the mulled sack which the traveller had ordered.

"Yes, mine host; I have found the use on't in dangerous times, and I do
not, like your modern grandees, turn off my followers the instant they
are useless."

"Ay, sir?" said Giles Gosling; "then you are from the Low Countries, the
land of pike and caliver?"

"I have been high and low, my friend, broad and wide, far and near. But
here is to thee in a cup of thy sack; fill thyself another to pledge me,
and, if it is less than superlative, e'en drink as you have brewed."

"Less than superlative?" said Giles Gosling, drinking off the cup, and
smacking his lips with an air of ineffable relish,--"I know nothing
of superlative, nor is there such a wine at the Three Cranes, in the
Vintry, to my knowledge; but if you find better sack than that in the
Sheres, or in the Canaries either, I would I may never touch either pot
or penny more. Why, hold it up betwixt you and the light, you shall see
the little motes dance in the golden liquor like dust in the sunbeam.
But I would rather draw wine for ten clowns than one traveller.--I trust
your honour likes the wine?"

"It is neat and comfortable, mine host; but to know good liquor, you
should drink where the vine grows. Trust me, your Spaniard is too wise
a man to send you the very soul of the grape. Why, this now, which you
account so choice, were counted but as a cup of bastard at the Groyne,
or at Port St. Mary's. You should travel, mine host, if you would be
deep in the mysteries of the butt and pottle-pot."

"In troth, Signior Guest," said Giles Gosling, "if I were to travel only
that I might be discontented with that which I can get at home, methinks
I should go but on a fool's errand. Besides, I warrant you, there is
many a fool can turn his nose up at good drink without ever having
been out of the smoke of Old England; and so ever gramercy mine own
fireside."

"This is but a mean mind of yours, mine host," said the stranger;
"I warrant me, all your town's folk do not think so basely. You have
gallants among you, I dare undertake, that have made the Virginia
voyage, or taken a turn in the Low Countries at least. Come, cudgel your
memory. Have you no friends in foreign parts that you would gladly have
tidings of?"

"Troth, sir, not I," answered the host, "since ranting Robin of
Drysandford was shot at the siege of the Brill. The devil take the
caliver that fired the ball, for a blither lad never filled a cup
at midnight! But he is dead and gone, and I know not a soldier, or a
traveller, who is a soldier's mate, that I would give a peeled codling
for."

"By the Mass, that is strange. What! so many of our brave English hearts
are abroad, and you, who seem to be a man of mark, have no friend, no
kinsman among them?"

"Nay, if you speak of kinsmen," answered Gosling, "I have one wild slip
of a kinsman, who left us in the last year of Queen Mary; but he is
better lost than found."

"Do not say so, friend, unless you have heard ill of him lately. Many a
wild colt has turned out a noble steed.--His name, I pray you?"

"Michael Lambourne," answered the landlord of the Black Bear; "a son of
my sister's--there is little pleasure in recollecting either the name or
the connection."

"Michael Lambourne!" said the stranger, as if endeavouring to recollect
himself--"what, no relation to Michael Lambourne, the gallant cavalier
who behaved so bravely at the siege of Venlo that Grave Maurice thanked
him at the head of the army? Men said he was an English cavalier, and of
no high extraction."

"It could scarcely be my nephew," said Giles Gosling, "for he had not
the courage of a hen-partridge for aught but mischief."

"Oh, many a man finds courage in the wars," replied the stranger.

"It may be," said the landlord; "but I would have thought our Mike more
likely to lose the little he had."

"The Michael Lambourne whom I knew," continued the traveller, "was a
likely fellow--went always gay and well attired, and had a hawk's eye
after a pretty wench."

"Our Michael," replied the host, "had the look of a dog with a bottle
at its tail, and wore a coat, every rag of which was bidding good-day to
the rest."

"Oh, men pick up good apparel in the wars," replied the guest.

"Our Mike," answered the landlord, "was more like to pick it up in a
frippery warehouse, while the broker was looking another way; and, for
the hawk's eye you talk of, his was always after my stray spoons. He was
tapster's boy here in this blessed house for a quarter of a year; and
between misreckonings, miscarriages, mistakes, and misdemeanours, had
he dwelt with me for three months longer, I might have pulled down sign,
shut up house, and given the devil the key to keep."