Kenilworth

S >> Sir Walter Scott >> Kenilworth


"My lord," said the poet, "were I permitted to explain--"

"Come to my lodging, Edmund," answered the Earl "not to-morrow, or next
day, but soon.--Ha, Will Shakespeare--wild Will!--thou hast given my
nephew Philip Sidney, love-powder; he cannot sleep without thy Venus and
Adonis under his pillow! We will have thee hanged for the veriest wizard
in Europe. Hark thee, mad wag, I have not forgotten thy matter of the
patent, and of the bears."

The PLAYER bowed, and the Earl nodded and passed on--so that age would
have told the tale; in ours, perhaps, we might say the immortal had done
homage to the mortal. The next whom the favourite accosted was one of
his own zealous dependants.

"How now, Sir Francis Denning," he whispered, in answer to his exulting
salutation, "that smile hath made thy face shorter by one-third than
when I first saw it this morning.--What, Master Bowyer, stand you back,
and think you I bear malice? You did but your duty this morning; and if
I remember aught of the passage betwixt us, it shall be in thy favour."

Then the Earl was approached, with several fantastic congees, by a
person quaintly dressed in a doublet of black velvet, curiously slashed
and pinked with crimson satin. A long cock's feather in the velvet
bonnet, which he held in his hand, and an enormous ruff; stiffened to
the extremity of the absurd taste of the times, joined with a sharp,
lively, conceited expression of countenance, seemed to body forth a
vain, harebrained coxcomb, and small wit; while the rod he held, and
an assumption of formal authority, appeared to express some sense
of official consequence, which qualified the natural pertness of his
manner. A perpetual blush, which occupied rather the sharp nose than the
thin cheek of this personage, seemed to speak more of "good life," as
it was called, than of modesty; and the manner in which he approached to
the Earl confirmed that suspicion.

"Good even to you, Master Robert Laneham," said Leicester, and seemed
desirous to pass forward, without further speech.

"I have a suit to your noble lordship," said the figure, boldly
following him.

"And what is it, good master keeper of the council-chamber door?"

"CLERK of the council-chamber door," said Master Robert Laneham, with
emphasis, by way of reply, and of correction.

"Well, qualify thine office as thou wilt, man," replied the Earl; "what
wouldst thou have with me?"

"Simply," answered Laneham, "that your lordship would be, as heretofore,
my good lord, and procure me license to attend the Summer Progress
unto your lordship's most beautiful and all-to-be-unmatched Castle of
Kenilworth."

"To what purpose, good Master Laneham?" replied the Earl; "bethink you,
my guests must needs be many."

"Not so many," replied the petitioner, "but that your nobleness will
willingly spare your old servitor his crib and his mess. Bethink you,
my lord, how necessary is this rod of mine to fright away all those
listeners, who else would play at bo-peep with the honourable council,
and be searching for keyholes and crannies in the door of the chamber,
so as to render my staff as needful as a fly-flap in a butcher's shop."

"Methinks you have found out a fly-blown comparison for the honourable
council, Master Laneham," said the Earl; "but seek not about to justify
it. Come to Kenilworth, if you list; there will be store of fools there
besides, and so you will be fitted."

"Nay, an there be fools, my lord," replied Laneham, with much glee, "I
warrant I will make sport among them, for no greyhound loves to cote a
hare as I to turn and course a fool. But I have another singular favour
to beseech of your honour."

"Speak it, and let me go," said the Earl; "I think the Queen comes forth
instantly."

"My very good lord, I would fain bring a bed-fellow with me."

"How, you irreverent rascal!" said Leicester.

"Nay, my lord, my meaning is within the canons," answered his
unblushing, or rather his ever-blushing petitioner. "I have a wife as
curious as her grandmother who ate the apple. Now, take her with me
I may not, her Highness's orders being so strict against the officers
bringing with them their wives in a progress, and so lumbering the court
with womankind. But what I would crave of your lordship is to find room
for her in some mummery, or pretty pageant, in disguise, as it were; so
that, not being known for my wife, there may be no offence."

"The foul fiend seize ye both!" said Leicester, stung into
uncontrollable passion by the recollections which this speech
excited--"why stop you me with such follies?"

The terrified clerk of the chamber-door, astonished at the burst of
resentment he had so unconsciously produced, dropped his staff of office
from his hand, and gazed on the incensed Earl with a foolish face of
wonder and terror, which instantly recalled Leicester to himself.

"I meant but to try if thou hadst the audacity which befits thine
office," said he hastily. "Come to Kenilworth, and bring the devil with
thee, if thou wilt."

"My wife, sir, hath played the devil ere now, in a Mystery, in Queen
Mary's time; but me shall want a trifle for properties."

"Here is a crown for thee," said the Earl,--"make me rid of thee--the
great bell rings."

Master Robert Laneham stared a moment at the agitation which he had
excited, and then said to himself, as he stooped to pick up his staff
of office, "The noble Earl runs wild humours to-day. But they who give
crowns expect us witty fellows to wink at their unsettled starts; and,
by my faith, if they paid not for mercy, we would finger them tightly!"
[See Note 6. Robert Laneham.]

Leicester moved hastily on, neglecting the courtesies he had hitherto
dispensed so liberally, and hurrying through the courtly crowd, until
he paused in a small withdrawing-room, into which he plunged to draw a
moment's breath unobserved, and in seclusion.

"What am I now," he said to himself, "that am thus jaded by the words
of a mean, weather-beaten, goose-brained gull! Conscience, thou art a
bloodhound, whose growl wakes us readily at the paltry stir of a rat
or mouse as at the step of a lion. Can I not quit myself, by one
bold stroke, of a state so irksome, so unhonoured? What if I kneel to
Elizabeth, and, owning the whole, throw myself on her mercy?"

As he pursued this train of thought, the door of the apartment opened,
and Varney rushed in.

"Thank God, my lord, that I have found you!" was his exclamation.

"Thank the devil, whose agent thou art," was the Earl's reply.

"Thank whom you will, my lord," replied Varney; "but hasten to the
water-side. The Queen is on board, and asks for you."

"Go, say I am taken suddenly ill," replied Leicester; "for, by Heaven,
my brain can sustain this no longer!"

"I may well say so," said Varney, with bitterness of expression, "for
your place, ay, and mine, who, as your master of the horse, was to have
attended your lordship, is already filled up in the Queen's barge. The
new minion, Walter Raleigh, and our old acquaintance Tressilian were
called for to fill our places just as I hastened away to seek you."

"Thou art a devil, Varney," said Leicester hastily; "but thou hast the
mastery for the present--I follow thee."

Varney replied not, but led the way out of the palace, and towards the
river, while his master followed him, as if mechanically; until, looking
back, he said in a tone which savoured of familiarity at least, if not
of authority, "How is this, my lord? Your cloak hangs on one side--your
hose are unbraced--permit me--"

"Thou art a fool, Varney, as well as a knave," said Leicester, shaking
him off, and rejecting his officious assistance. "We are best thus, sir;
when we require you to order our person, it is well, but now we want you
not."

So saying, the Earl resumed at once his air of command, and with it his
self-possession--shook his dress into yet wilder disorder--passed before
Varney with the air of a superior and master, and in his turn led the
way to the river-side.

The Queen's barge was on the very point of putting off, the seat
allotted to Leicester in the stern, and that to his master of the horse
on the bow of the boat, being already filled up. But on Leicester's
approach there was a pause, as if the bargemen anticipated some
alteration in their company. The angry spot was, however, on the Queen's
cheek, as, in that cold tone with which superiors endeavour to veil
their internal agitation, while speaking to those before whom it would
be derogation to express it, she pronounced the chilling words, "We have
waited, my Lord of Leicester."

"Madam, and most gracious Princess," said Leicester, "you, who can
pardon so many weaknesses which your own heart never knows, can best
bestow your commiseration on the agitations of the bosom, which, for a
moment, affect both head and limbs. I came to your presence a doubting
and an accused subject; your goodness penetrated the clouds of
defamation, and restored me to my honour, and, what is yet dearer, to
your favour--is it wonderful, though for me it is most unhappy, that
my master of the horse should have found me in a state which scarce
permitted me to make the exertion necessary to follow him to this place,
when one glance of your Highness, although, alas! an angry one, has had
power to do that for me in which Esculapius might have failed?"

"How is this?" said Elizabeth hastily, looking at Varney; "hath your
lord been ill?"

"Something of a fainting fit," answered the ready-witted Varney, "as
your Grace may observe from his present condition. My lord's haste would
not permit me leisure even to bring his dress into order."

"It matters not," said Elizabeth, as she gazed on the noble face and
form of Leicester, to which even the strange mixture of passions by
which he had been so lately agitated gave additional interest; "make
room for my noble lord. Your place, Master Varney, has been filled up;
you must find a seat in another barge."

Varney bowed, and withdrew.

"And you, too, our young Squire of the Cloak," added she, looking at
Raleigh, "must, for the time, go to the barge of our ladies of honour.
As for Tressilian, he hath already suffered too much by the caprice of
women that I should aggrieve him by my change of plan, so far as he is
concerned."

Leicester seated himself in his place in the barge, and close to the
Sovereign. Raleigh rose to retire, and Tressilian would have been so
ill-timed in his courtesy as to offer to relinquish his own place to his
friend, had not the acute glance of Raleigh himself, who seemed no in
his native element, made him sensible that so ready a disclamation of
the royal favour might be misinterpreted. He sat silent, therefore,
whilst Raleigh, with a profound bow, and a look of the deepest
humiliation, was about to quit his place.

A noble courtier, the gallant Lord Willoughby, read, as he thought,
something in the Queen's face which seemed to pity Raleigh's real or
assumed semblance of mortification.

"It is not for us old courtiers," he said, "to hide the sunshine from
the young ones. I will, with her Majesty's leave, relinquish for an
hour that which her subjects hold dearest, the delight of her Highness's
presence, and mortify myself by walking in starlight, while I forsake
for a brief season the glory of Diana's own beams. I will take place
in the boat which the ladies occupy, and permit this young cavalier his
hour of promised felicity."

The Queen replied, with an expression betwixt mirth and earnest, "If you
are so willing to leave us, my lord, we cannot help the mortification.
But, under favour, we do not trust you--old and experienced as you
may deem yourself--with the care of our young ladies of honour. Your
venerable age, my lord," she continued, smiling, "may be better assorted
with that of my Lord Treasurer, who follows in the third boat, and by
whose experience even my Lord Willoughby's may be improved."

Lord Willoughby hid his disappointment under a smile--laughed, was
confused, bowed, and left the Queen's barge to go on board my Lord
Burleigh's. Leicester, who endeavoured to divert his thoughts from all
internal reflection, by fixing them on what was passing around, watched
this circumstance among others. But when the boat put off from the
shore--when the music sounded from a barge which accompanied them--when
the shouts of the populace were heard from the shore, and all reminded
him of the situation in which he was placed, he abstracted his thoughts
and feelings by a strong effort from everything but the necessity of
maintaining himself in the favour of his patroness, and exerted his
talents of pleasing captivation with such success, that the Queen,
alternately delighted with his conversation, and alarmed for his health,
at length imposed a temporary silence on him, with playful yet anxious
care, lest his flow of spirits should exhaust him.

"My lords," she said, "having passed for a time our edict of silence
upon our good Leicester, we will call you to counsel on a gamesome
matter, more fitted to be now treated of, amidst mirth and music, than
in the gravity of our ordinary deliberations. Which of you, my lords,"
said she, smiling, "know aught of a petition from Orson Pinnit,
the keeper, as he qualifies himself, of our royal bears? Who stands
godfather to his request?"

"Marry, with Your Grace's good permission, that do I," said the Earl of
Sussex. "Orson Pinnit was a stout soldier before he was so mangled by
the skenes of the Irish clan MacDonough; and I trust your Grace will
be, as you always have been, good mistress to your good and trusty
servants."

"Surely," said the Queen, "it is our purpose to be so, and in especial
to our poor soldiers and sailors, who hazard their lives for little pay.
We would give," she said, with her eyes sparkling, "yonder royal palace
of ours to be an hospital for their use, rather than they should call
their mistress ungrateful. But this is not the question," she said,
her voice, which had been awakened by her patriotic feelings, once more
subsiding into the tone of gay and easy conversation; "for this Orson
Pinnit's request goes something further. He complains that, amidst the
extreme delight with which men haunt the play-houses, and in especial
their eager desire for seeing the exhibitions of one Will Shakespeare
(whom I think, my lords, we have all heard something of), the manly
amusement of bear-baiting is falling into comparative neglect, since men
will rather throng to see these roguish players kill each other in
jest, than to see our royal dogs and bears worry each other in bloody
earnest.--What say you to this, my Lord of Sussex?"

"Why, truly, gracious madam," said Sussex, "you must expect little from
an old soldier like me in favour of battles in sport, when they are
compared with battles in earnest; and yet, by my faith, I wish Will
Shakespeare no harm. He is a stout man at quarter-staff, and single
falchion, though, as I am told, a halting fellow; and he stood, they
say, a tough fight with the rangers of old Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecot,
when he broke his deer-park and kissed his keeper's daughter."

"I cry you mercy, my Lord of Sussex," said Queen Elizabeth, interrupting
him; "that matter was heard in council, and we will not have this
fellow's offence exaggerated--there was no kissing in the matter, and
the defendant hath put the denial on record. But what say you to his
present practice, my lord, on the stage? for there lies the point, and
not in any ways touching his former errors, in breaking parks, or the
other follies you speak of."

"Why, truly, madam," replied Sussex, "as I said before, I wish the
gamesome mad fellow no injury. Some of his whoreson poetry (I crave your
Grace's pardon for such a phrase) has rung in mine ears as if the lines
sounded to boot and saddle. But then it is all froth and folly--no
substance or seriousness in it, as your Grace has already well touched.
What are half a dozen knaves, with rusty foils and tattered targets,
making but a mere mockery of a stout fight, to compare to the royal game
of bear-baiting, which hath been graced by your Highness's countenance,
and that of your royal predecessors, in this your princely kingdom,
famous for matchless mastiffs and bold bearwards over all Christendom?
Greatly is it to be doubted that the race of both will decay, if
men should throng to hear the lungs of an idle player belch forth
nonsensical bombast, instead of bestowing their pence in encouraging the
bravest image of war that can be shown in peace, and that is the sports
of the Bear-garden. There you may see the bear lying at guard, with his
red, pinky eyes watching the onset of the mastiff, like a wily captain
who maintains his defence that an assailant may be tempted to venture
within his danger. And then comes Sir Mastiff, like a worthy champion,
in full career at the throat of his adversary; and then shall Sir Bruin
teach him the reward for those who, in their over-courage, neglect the
policies of war, and, catching him in his arms, strain him to his breast
like a lusty wrestler, until rib after rib crack like the shot of a
pistolet. And then another mastiff; as bold, but with better aim and
sounder judgment, catches Sir Bruin by the nether lip, and hangs fast,
while he tosses about his blood and slaver, and tries in vain to shake
Sir Talbot from his hold. And then--"

"Nay, by my honour, my lord," said the Queen, laughing, "you have
described the whole so admirably that, had we never seen a bear-baiting,
as we have beheld many, and hope, with Heaven's allowance, to see many
more, your words were sufficient to put the whole Bear-garden before our
eyes.--But come, who speaks next in this case?--My Lord of Leicester,
what say you?"

"Am I then to consider myself as unmuzzled, please your Grace?" replied
Leicester.

"Surely, my lord--that is, if you feel hearty enough to take part in our
game," answered Elizabeth; "and yet, when I think of your cognizance of
the bear and ragged staff, methinks we had better hear some less partial
orator."

"Nay, on my word, gracious Princess," said the Earl, "though my brother
Ambrose of Warwick and I do carry the ancient cognizance your Highness
deigns to remember, I nevertheless desire nothing but fair play on all
sides; or, as they say, 'fight dog, fight bear.' And in behalf of the
players, I must needs say that they are witty knaves, whose rants and
jests keep the minds of the commons from busying themselves with
state affairs, and listening to traitorous speeches, idle rumours,
and disloyal insinuations. When men are agape to see how Marlow,
Shakespeare, and other play artificers work out their fanciful plots, as
they call them, the mind of the spectators is withdrawn from the conduct
of their rulers."

"We would not have the mind of our subjects withdrawn from the
consideration of our own conduct, my lord," answered Elizabeth; "because
the more closely it is examined, the true motives by which we are guided
will appear the more manifest."

"I have heard, however, madam," said the Dean of St. Asaph's, an eminent
Puritan, "that these players are wont, in their plays, not only to
introduce profane and lewd expressions, tending to foster sin and
harlotry; but even to bellow out such reflections on government, its
origin and its object, as tend to render the subject discontented, and
shake the solid foundations of civil society. And it seems to be,
under your Grace's favour, far less than safe to permit these naughty
foul-mouthed knaves to ridicule the godly for their decent gravity,
and, in blaspheming heaven and slandering its earthly rulers, to set at
defiance the laws both of God and man."

"If we could think this were true, my lord," said Elizabeth, "we should
give sharp correction for such offences. But it is ill arguing against
the use of anything from its abuse. And touching this Shakespeare, we
think there is that in his plays that is worth twenty Bear-gardens;
and that this new undertaking of his Chronicles, as he calls them, may
entertain, with honest mirth, mingled with useful instruction, not only
our subjects, but even the generation which may succeed to us."

"Your Majesty's reign will need no such feeble aid to make it remembered
to the latest posterity," said Leicester. "And yet, in his way,
Shakespeare hath so touched some incidents of your Majesty's happy
government as may countervail what has been spoken by his reverence
the Dean of St. Asaph's. There are some lines, for example--I would
my nephew, Philip Sidney, were here; they are scarce ever out of his
mouth--they are spoken in a mad tale of fairies, love-charms, and I wot
not what besides; but beautiful they are, however short they may and
must fall of the subject to which they bear a bold relation--and Philip
murmurs them, I think, even in his dreams."

"You tantalize us, my lord," said the Queen--"Master Philip Sidney is,
we know, a minion of the Muses, and we are pleased it should be so.
Valour never shines to more advantage than when united with the true
taste and love of letters. But surely there are some others among our
young courtiers who can recollect what your lordship has forgotten amid
weightier affairs.--Master Tressilian, you are described to me as a
worshipper of Minerva--remember you aught of these lines?"

Tressilian's heart was too heavy, his prospects in life too fatally
blighted, to profit by the opportunity which the Queen thus offered
to him of attracting her attention; but he determined to transfer the
advantage to his more ambitious young friend, and excusing himself
on the score of want of recollection, he added that he believed the
beautiful verses of which my Lord of Leicester had spoken were in the
remembrance of Master Walter Raleigh.

At the command of the Queen, that cavalier repeated, with accent and
manner which even added to their exquisite delicacy of tact and beauty
of description, the celebrated vision of Oberon:--

"That very time I saw (but thou couldst not),
Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
Cupid, allarm'd: a certain aim he took
At a fair vestal, throned by the west;
And loos'd his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts:
But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft
Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon;
And the imperial vot'ress passed on,
In maiden meditation, fancy free."

The voice of Raleigh, as he repeated the last lines, became a little
tremulous, as if diffident how the Sovereign to whom the homage was
addressed might receive it, exquisite as it was. If this diffidence was
affected, it was good policy; but if real, there was little occasion
for it. The verses were not probably new to the Queen, for when was ever
such elegant flattery long in reaching the royal ear to which it was
addressed? But they were not the less welcome when repeated by such a
speaker as Raleigh. Alike delighted with the matter, the manner, and
the graceful form and animated countenance of the gallant young reciter,
Elizabeth kept time to every cadence with look and with finger. When
the speaker had ceased, she murmured over the last lines as if scarce
conscious that she was overheard, and as she uttered the words,

"In maiden meditation, fancy free," she dropped into the Thames the
supplication of Orson Pinnit, keeper of the royal bears, to find more
favourable acceptance at Sheerness, or wherever the tide might waft it.

Leicester was spurred to emulation by the success of the young
courtier's exhibition, as the veteran racer is roused when a
high-mettled colt passes him on the way. He turned the discourse on
shows, banquets, pageants, and on the character of those by whom these
gay scenes were then frequented. He mixed acute observation with light
satire, in that just proportion which was free alike from malignant
slander and insipid praise. He mimicked with ready accent the manners of
the affected or the clownish, and made his own graceful tone and manner
seem doubly such when he resumed it. Foreign countries--their customs,
their manners, the rules of their courts---the fashions, and even the
dress of their ladies-were equally his theme; and seldom did he conclude
without conveying some compliment, always couched in delicacy, and
expressed with propriety, to the Virgin Queen, her court, and her
government. Thus passed the conversation during this pleasure voyage,
seconded by the rest of the attendants upon the royal person, in gay
discourse, varied by remarks upon ancient classics and modern authors,
and enriched by maxims of deep policy and sound morality, by the
statesmen and sages who sat around and mixed wisdom with the lighter
talk of a female court.

When they returned to the Palace, Elizabeth accepted, or rather
selected, the arm of Leicester to support her from the stairs where they
landed to the great gate. It even seemed to him (though that might arise
from the flattery of his own imagination) that during this short
passage she leaned on him somewhat more than the slippiness of the
way necessarily demanded. Certainly her actions and words combined to
express a degree of favour which, even in his proudest day he had not
till then attained. His rival, indeed, was repeatedly graced by the
Queen's notice; but it was in manner that seemed to flow less from
spontaneous inclination than as extorted by a sense of his merit. And in
the opinion of many experienced courtiers, all the favour she showed
him was overbalanced by her whispering in the ear of the Lady Derby that
"now she saw sickness was a better alchemist than she before wotted
of, seeing it had changed my Lord of Sussex's copper nose into a golden
one."