Unknown to History
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Charlotte M Yonge >> Unknown to History
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37 Unknown to History
A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland
By Charlotte M Yonge.
PREFACE.
In p. 58 of vol. ii. of the second edition of Miss Strickland's Life
of Mary Queen of Scots, or p. 100, vol. v. of Burton's History of
Scotland, will be found the report on which this tale is founded.
If circumstances regarding the Queen's captivity and Babington's plot
have been found to be omitted, as well as many interesting personages
in the suite of the captive Queen, it must be remembered that the art
of the story-teller makes it needful to curtail some of the incidents
which would render the narrative too complicated to be interesting to
those who wish more for a view of noted characters in remarkable
situations, than for a minute and accurate sifting of facts and
evidence.
C. M. YONGE.
February 27, 1882.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. THE LITTLE WAIF
CHAPTER II. EVIL TIDINGS
CHAPTER III. THE CAPTIVE
CHAPTER IV. THE OAK AND THE OAKEN HALL
CHAPTER V. THE HUCKSTERING WOMAN
CHAPTER VI. THE BEWITCHED WHISTLE
CHAPTER VII. THE BLAST OF THE WHISTLE
CHAPTER VIII. THE KEY OF THE CIPHER
CHAPTER IX. UNQUIET
CHAPTER X. THE LADY ARBELL
CHAPTER XI. QUEEN MARY'S PRESENCE CHAMBER
CHAPTER XII. A FURIOUS LETTER
CHAPTER XIII. BEADS AND BRACELETS
CHAPTER XIV. THE MONOGRAMS
CHAPTER XV. MOTHER AND CHILD
CHAPTER XVI. THE PEAK CAVERN
CHAPTER XVII. THE EBBING WELL
CHAPTER XVIII. CIS OR SISTER
CHAPTER XIX. THE CLASH OF SWORDS
CHAPTER XX. WINGFIELD MANOR
CHAPTER XXI. A TANGLE
CHAPTER XXII. TUTBURY
CHAPTER XXIII. THE LOVE TOKEN
CHAPTER XXIV. A LIONESS AT BAY
CHAPTER XXV. PAUL'S WALK
CHAPTER XXVI. IN THE WEB
CHAPTER XXVII. THE CASTLE WELL
CHAPTER XXVIII. HUNTING DOWN THE DEER
CHAPTER XXIX. THE SEARCH
CHAPTER XXX. TETE-A-TETE
CHAPTER XXXI. EVIDENCE
CHAPTER XXXII. WESTMINSTER HALL
CHAPTER XXXIII. IN THE TOWER
CHAPTER XXXIV. FOTHERINGHAY
CHAPTER XXXV. BEFORE THE COMMISSIONERS
CHAPTER XXXVI. A VENTURE
CHAPTER XXXVII. MY LADY'S REMORSE
CHAPTER XXXVIII. MASTER TALBOT AND HIS CHARGE
CHAPTER XXXIX. THE FETTERLOCK COURT
CHAPTER XL. THE SENTENCE
CHAPTER XLI. HER ROYAL HIGHNESS
CHAPTER XLII. THE SUPPLICATION
CHAPTER XLIII. THE WARRANT
CHAPTER XLIV. ON THE HUMBER
CHAPTER XLV. TEN YEARS AFTER
UNKNOWN TO HISTORY.
Poor scape-goat of crimes, where,--her part what it may,
So tortured, so hunted to die,
Foul age of deceit and of hate,--on her head
Least stains of gore-guiltiness lie;
To the hearts of the just her blood from the dust
Not in vain for mercy will cry.
Poor scape-goat of nations and faiths in their strife
So cruel,--and thou so fair!
Poor girl!--so, best, in her misery named,--
Discrown'd of two kingdoms, and bare;
Not first nor last on this one was cast
The burden that others should share.
Visions of England, by F. T. Palgrave
CHAPTER I. THE LITTLE WAIF.
On a spring day, in the year 1568, Mistress Talbot sat in her lodging
at Hull, an upper chamber, with a large latticed window, glazed with
the circle and diamond leading perpetuated in Dutch pictures, and
opening on a carved balcony, whence, had she been so minded, she
could have shaken hands with her opposite neighbour. There was a
richly carved mantel-piece, with a sea-coal fire burning in it, for
though it was May, the sea winds blew cold, and there was a fishy
odour about the town, such as it was well to counteract. The floor
was of slippery polished oak, the walls hung with leather, gilded in
some places and depending from cornices, whose ornaments proved to an
initiated eye, that this had once been the refectory of a small
priory, or cell, broken up at the Reformation.
Of furniture there was not much, only an open cupboard, displaying
two silver cups and tankards, a sauce-pan of the same metal, a few
tall, slender, Venetian glasses, a little pewter, and some rare
shells. A few high-backed chairs were ranged against the wall; there
was a tall "armory," i.e. a linen-press of dark oak, guarded on each
side by the twisted weapons of the sea unicorn, and in the middle of
the room stood a large, solid-looking table, adorned with a brown
earthenware beau-pot, containing a stiff posy of roses, southernwood,
gillyflowers, pinks and pansies, of small dimensions. On hooks,
against the wall, hung a pair of spurs, a shield, a breastplate, and
other pieces of armour, with an open helmet bearing the dog, the
well-known crest of the Talbots of the Shrewsbury line.
On the polished floor, near the window, were a child's cart, a little
boat, some whelks and limpets. Their owner, a stout boy of three
years old, in a tight, borderless, round cap, and home-spun, madder-
dyed frock, lay fast asleep in a big wooden cradle, scarcely large
enough, however, to contain him, as he lay curled up, sucking his
thumb, and hugging to his breast the soft fragment of a sea-bird's
downy breast. If he stirred, his mother's foot was on the rocker, as
she sat spinning, but her spindle danced languidly on the floor, as
if "feeble was her hand, and silly her thread;" while she listened
anxiously, for every sound in the street below. She wore a dark blue
dress, with a small lace ruff opening in front, deep cuffs to match,
and a white apron likewise edged with lace, and a coif, bent down in
the centre, over a sweet countenance, matronly, though youthful, and
now full of wistful expectancy; not untinged with anxiety and sorrow.
Susan Hardwicke was a distant kinswoman of the famous Bess of
Hardwicke, and had formed one of the little court of gentlewomen with
whom great ladies were wont to surround themselves. There she met
Richard Talbot, the second son of a relative of the Earl of
Shrewsbury, a young man who, with the indifference of those days to
service by land or sea, had been at one time a gentleman pensioner of
Queen Mary; at another had sailed under some of the great mariners of
the western main. There he had acquired substance enough to make the
offer of his hand to the dowerless Susan no great imprudence; and as
neither could be a subject for ambitious plans, no obstacle was
raised to their wedding.
He took his wife home to his old father's house in the precincts of
Sheffield Park, where she was kindly welcomed; but wealth did not so
abound in the family but that, when opportunity offered, he was
thankful to accept the command of the Mastiff, a vessel commissioned
by Queen Elizabeth, but built, manned, and maintained at the expense
of the Earl of Shrewsbury. It formed part of a small squadron which
was cruising on the eastern coast to watch over the intercourse
between France and Scotland, whether in the interest of the
imprisoned Mary, or of the Lords of the Congregation. He had
obtained lodgings for Mistress Susan at Hull, so that he might be
with her when he put into harbour, and she was expecting him for the
first time since the loss of their second child, a daughter whom he
had scarcely seen during her little life of a few months.
Moreover, there had been a sharp storm a few days previously, and
experience had not hardened her to the anxieties of a sailor's wife.
She had been down once already to the quay, and learnt all that the
old sailors could tell her of chances and conjectures; and when her
boy began to fret from hunger and weariness, she had left her
serving-man, Gervas, to watch for further tidings. Yet, so does one
trouble drive out another, that whereas she had a few days ago
dreaded the sorrow of his return, she would now have given worlds to
hear his step.
Hark, what is that in the street? Oh, folly! If the Mastiff were
in, would not Gervas have long ago brought her the tidings? Should
she look over the balcony only to be disappointed again? Ah! she had
been prudent, for the sounds were dying away. Nay, there was a foot
at the door! Gervas with ill news! No, no, it bounded as never did
Gervas's step! It was coming up. She started from the chair,
quivering with eagerness, as the door opened and in hurried her
suntanned sailor! She was in his arms in a trance of joy. That was
all she knew for a moment, and then, it was as if something else were
given back to her. No, it was not a dream! It was substance. In
her arms was a little swaddled baby, in her ears its feeble wail,
mingled with the glad shout of little Humfrey, as he scrambled from
the cradle to be uplifted in his father's arms.
"What is this?" she asked, gazing at the infant between terror and
tenderness, as its weak cry and exhausted state forcibly recalled the
last hours of her own child.
"It is the only thing we could save from a wreck off the Spurn," said
her husband. "Scottish as I take it. The rogues seem to have taken
to their boats, leaving behind them a poor woman and her child. I
trust they met their deserts and were swamped. We saw the fluttering
of her coats as we made for the Humber, and I sent Goatley and Jaques
in the boat to see if anything lived. The poor wench was gone before
they could lift her up, but the little one cried lustily, though it
has waxen weaker since. We had no milk on board, and could only give
it bits of soft bread soaked in beer, and I misdoubt me whether it
did not all run out at the corners of its mouth."
This was interspersed with little Humfrey's eager outcries that
little sister was come again, and Mrs. Talbot, the tears running down
her cheeks, hastened to summon her one woman-servant, Colet, to bring
the porringer of milk.
Captain Talbot had only hurried ashore to bring the infant, and show
himself to his wife. He was forced instantly to return to the wharf,
but he promised to come back as soon as he should have taken order
for his men, and for the Mastiff, which had suffered considerably in
the storm, and would need to be refitted.
Colet hastily put a manchet of fresh bread, a pasty, and a stoup of
wine into a basket, and sent it by her husband, Gervas, after their
master; and then eagerly assisted her mistress in coaxing the infant
to swallow food, and in removing the soaked swaddling clothes which
the captain and his crew had not dared to meddle with.
When Captain Talbot returned, as the rays of the setting sun glanced
high on the roofs and chimneys, little Humfrey stood peeping through
the tracery of the balcony, watching for him, and shrieking with joy
at the first glimpse of the sea-bird's feather in his cap. The
spotless home-spun cloth and the trenchers were laid for supper, a
festive capon was prepared by the choicest skill of Mistress Susan,
and the little shipwrecked stranger lay fast asleep in the cradle.
All was well with it now, Mrs. Talbot said. Nothing had ailed it but
cold and hunger, and when it had been fed, warmed, and dressed, it
had fallen sweetly asleep in her arms, appeasing her heartache for
her own little Sue, while Humfrey fully believed that father had
brought his little sister back again.
The child was in truth a girl, apparently three or four months old.
She had been rolled up in Mrs. Talbot's baby's clothes, and her own
long swaddling bands hung over the back of a chair, where they had
been dried before the fire. They were of the finest woollen below,
and cambric above, and the outermost were edged with lace, whose
quality Mrs. Talbot estimated very highly.
"See," she added, "what we found within. A Popish relic, is it not?
Colet and Mistress Gale were for making away with it at once, but it
seemed to me that it was a token whereby the poor babe's friends may
know her again, if she have any kindred not lost at sea."
The token was a small gold cross, of peculiar workmanship, with a
crystal in the middle, through which might be seen some mysterious
object neither husband nor wife could make out, but which they agreed
must be carefully preserved for the identification of their little
waif. Mrs. Talbot also produced a strip of writing which she had
found sewn to the inmost band wrapped round the little body, but it
had no superscription, and she believed it to be either French,
Latin, or High Dutch, for she could make nothing of it. Indeed, the
good lady's education had only included reading, writing, needlework
and cookery, and she knew no language but her own. Her husband had
been taught Latin, but his acquaintance with modern tongues was of
the nautical order, and entirely oral and vernacular. However, it
enabled him to aver that the letter--if such it were--was neither
Scottish, French, Spanish, nor High or Low Dutch. He looked at it in
all directions, and shook his head over it.
"Who can read it, for us?" asked Mrs. Talbot. "Shall we ask Master
Heatherthwayte? he is a scholar, and he said he would look in to see
how you fared."
"At supper-time, I trow," said Richard, rather grimly, "the smell of
thy stew will bring him down in good time."
"Nay, dear sir, I thought you would be fain to see the good man, and
he lives but poorly in his garret."
"Scarce while he hath good wives like thee to boil his pot for him,"
said Richard, smiling. "Tell me, hath he heard aught of this gear?
thou hast not laid this scroll before him?"
"No, Colet brought it to me only now, having found it when washing
the swaddling-bands, stitched into one of them."
"Then hark thee, good wife, not one word to him of the writing."
"Might he not interpret it?"
"Not he! I must know more about it ere I let it pass forth from mine
hands, or any strange eye fall upon it-- Ha, in good time! I hear
his step on the stair."
The captain hastily rolled up the scroll and put it into his pouch,
while Mistress Susan felt as if she had made a mistake in her
hospitality, yet almost as if her husband were unjust towards the
good man who had been such a comfort to her in her sorrow; but there
was no lack of cordiality or courtesy in Richard's manner when, after
a short, quick knock, there entered a figure in hat, cassock, gown,
and bands, with a pleasant, though grave countenance, the complexion
showing that it had been tanned and sunburnt in early youth, although
it wore later traces of a sedentary student life, and, it might be,
of less genial living than had nourished the up-growth of that
sturdily-built frame.
Master Joseph Heatherthwayte was the greatly underpaid curate of a
small parish on the outskirts of Hull. He contrived to live on some
(pounds)10 per annum in the attic of the house where the Talbots lodged,--
and not only to live, but to be full of charitable deeds, mostly at
the expense of his own appetite. The square cut of his bands, and
the uncompromising roundness of the hat which he doffed on his
entrance, marked him as inclined to the Puritan party, which, being
that of apparent progress, attracted most of the ardent spirits of
the time.
Captain Talbot's inclinations did not lie that way, but he respected
and liked his fellow-lodger, and his vexation had been merely the
momentary disinclination of a man to be interrupted, especially on
his first evening at home. He responded heartily to Master
Heatherthwayte's warm pressure of the hand and piously expressed
congratulation on his safety, mixed with condolence on the grief that
had befallen him.
"And you have been a good friend to my poor wife in her sorrow," said
Richard, "for the which I thank you heartily, sir."
"Truly, sir, I could have been her scholar, with such edifying
resignation did she submit to the dispensation," returned the
clergyman, uttering these long words in a broad northern accent which
had nothing incongruous in it to Richard's ears, and taking advantage
of the lady's absence on "hospitable tasks intent" to speak in her
praise.
Little Humfrey, on his father's knee, comprehending that they were
speaking of the recent sorrow, put in his piece of information that
"father had brought little sister back from the sea."
"Ah, child!" said Master Heatherthwayte, in the ponderous tone of one
unused to children, "thou hast yet to learn the words of the holy
David, 'I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me.'"
"Bring not that thought forward, Master Heatherthwayte," said
Richard, "I am well pleased that my poor wife and this little lad can
take the poor little one as a solace sent them by God, as she
assuredly is."
"Mean you, then, to adopt her into your family?" asked the minister.
"We know not if she hath any kin," said Richard, and at that moment
Susan entered, followed by the man and maid, each bearing a portion
of the meal, which was consumed by the captain and the clergyman as
thoroughly hungry men eat; and there was silence till the capon's
bones were bare and two large tankards had been filled with Xeres
sack, captured in a Spanish ship, "the only good thing that ever came
from Spain," quoth the sailor.
Then he began to tell how he had weathered the storm on the
Berwickshire coast; but he was interrupted by another knock, followed
by the entrance of a small, pale, spare man, with the lightest
possible hair, very short, and almost invisible eyebrows; he had a
round ruff round his neck, and a black, scholarly gown, belted round
his waist with a girdle, in which he carried writing tools.
"Ha, Cuthbert Langston, art thou there?" said the captain, rising.
"Thou art kindly welcome. Sit down and crush a cup of sack with
Master Heatherthwayte and me."
"Thanks, cousin," returned the visitor, "I heard that the Mastiff was
come in, and I came to see whether all was well."
"It was kindly done, lad," said Richard, while the others did their
part of the welcome, though scarcely so willingly. Cuthbert Langston
was a distant relation on the mother's side of Richard, a young
scholar, who, after his education at Oxford, had gone abroad with a
nobleman's son as his pupil, and on his return, instead of taking
Holy Orders, as was expected, had obtained employment in a merchant's
counting-house at Hull, for which his knowledge of languages
eminently fitted him. Though he possessed none of the noble blood of
the Talbots, the employment was thought by Mistress Susan somewhat
derogatory to the family dignity, and there was a strong suspicion
both in her mind and that of Master Heatherthwayte that his change of
purpose was due to the change of religion in England, although he was
a perfectly regular church-goer. Captain Talbot, however, laughed at
all this, and, though he had not much in common with his kinsman,
always treated him in a cousinly fashion. He too had heard a rumour
of the foundling, and made inquiry for it, upon which Richard told
his story in greater detail, and his wife asked what the poor mother
was like.
"I saw her not," he answered, "but Goatley thought the poor woman to
whom she was bound more like to be nurse than mother, judging by her
years and her garments."
"The mother may have been washed off before," said Susan, lifting the
little one from the cradle, and hushing it.
"Weep not, poor babe, thou hast found a mother here."
"Saw you no sign of the crew?" asked Master Heatherthwayte.
"None at all. The vessel I knew of old as the brig Bride of Dunbar,
one of the craft that ply between Dunbar and the French ports."
"And how think you? Were none like to be saved?"
"I mean to ride along the coast to-morrow, to see whether aught can
be heard of them, but even if their boats could live in such a sea,
they would have evil hap among the wreckers if they came ashore. I
would not desire to be a shipwrecked man in these parts, and if I had
a Scottish or a French tongue in my head so much the worse for me."
"Ah, Master Heatherthwayte," said Susan, "should not a man give up
the sea when he is a husband and father?"
"Tush, dame! With God's blessing the good ship Mastiff will ride out
many another such gale. Tell thy mother, little Numpy, that an
English sailor is worth a dozen French or Scottish lubbers."
"Sir," said Master Heatherthwayte, "the pious trust of the former
part of your discourse is contradicted by the boast of the latter
end."
"Nay, Sir Minister, what doth a sailor put his trust in but his God
foremost, and then his good ship and his brave men?"
It should be observed that all the three men wore their hats, and
each made a reverent gesture of touching them. The clergyman seemed
satisfied by the answer, and presently added that it would be well,
if Master and Mistress Talbot meant to adopt the child, that she
should be baptized.
"How now?" said Richard, "we are not so near any coast of Turks or
Infidels that we should deem her sprung of heathen folk."
"Assuredly not," said Cuthbert Langston, whose quick, light-coloured
eyes had spied the reliquary in Mistress Susan's work-basket, "if
this belongs to her. By your leave, kinswoman," and he lifted it in
his hand with evident veneration, and began examining it.
"It is Babylonish gold, an accursed thing!" exclaimed Master
Heatherthwayte. "Beware, Master Talbot, and cast it from thee."
"Nay," said Richard," that shall I not do. It may lead to the
discovery of the child's kindred. Why, my master, what harm think
you it will do to us in my dame's casket? Or what right have we to
make away with the little one's property?"
His common sense was equally far removed from the horror of the one
visitor as from the reverence of the other, and so it pleased
neither. Master Langston was the first to speak, observing that the
relic made it evident that the child must have been baptized.
"A Popish baptism," said Master Heatherthwayte, "with chrism and
taper and words and gestures to destroy the pure simplicity of the
sacrament."
Controversy here seemed to be setting in, and the infant cause of it
here setting up a cry, Susan escaped under pretext of putting Humfrey
to bed in the next room, and carried off both the little ones. The
conversation then fell upon the voyage, and the captain described the
impregnable aspect of the castle of Dumbarton, which was held for
Queen Mary by her faithful partisan, Lord Flemyng. On this, Cuthbert
Langston asked whether he had heard any tidings of the imprisoned
Queen, and he answered that it was reported at Leith that she had
well-nigh escaped from Lochleven, in the disguise of a lavender or
washerwoman. She was actually in the boat, and about to cross the
lake, when a rude oarsman attempted to pull aside her muffler, and
the whiteness of the hand she raised in self-protection betrayed her,
so that she was carried back. "If she had reached Dumbarton," he
said, "she might have mocked at the Lords of the Congregation. Nay,
she might have been in that very brig, whose wreck I beheld."
"And well would it have been for Scotland and England had it been the
will of Heaven that so it should fall out," observed the Puritan.
"Or it may be," said the merchant, "that the poor lady's escape was
frustrated by Providence, that she might be saved from the rocks of
the Spurn."
"The poor lady, truly! Say rather the murtheress," quoth
Heatherthwayte.
"Say rather the victim and scapegoat of other men's plots," protested
Langston.
"Come, come, sirs," says Talbot, "we'll have no high words here on
what Heaven only knoweth. Poor lady she is, in all sooth, if
sackless; poorer still if guilty; so I know not what matter there is
for falling out about. In any sort, I will not have it at my table."
He spoke with the authority of the captain of a ship, and the two
visitors, scarce knowing it, submitted to his decision of manner, but
the harmony of the evening seemed ended. Cuthbert Langston soon rose
to bid good-night, first asking his cousin at what hour he proposed
to set forth for the Spurn, to which Richard briefly replied that it
depended on what had to be done as to the repairs of the ship.
The clergyman tarried behind him to say, "Master Talbot, I marvel
that so godly a man as you have ever been should be willing to
harbour one so popishly affected, and whom many suspect of being a
seminary priest."
"Master Heatherthwayte," returned the captain, "my kinsman is my
kinsman, and my house is my house. No offence, sir, but I brook not
meddling."
The clergyman protested that no offence was intended, only caution,
and betook himself to his own bare chamber, high above. No sooner
was he gone than Captain Talbot again became absorbed in the
endeavour to spell out the mystery of the scroll, with his elbows on
the table and his hands over his ears, nor did he look up till he was
touched by his wife, when he uttered an impatient demand what she
wanted now.
She had the little waif in her arms undressed, and with only a
woollen coverlet loosely wrapped round her, and without speaking she
pointed to the little shoulder-blades, where two marks had been
indelibly made--on one side the crowned monogram of the Blessed
Virgin, on the other a device like the Labarum, only that the upright
was surmounted by a fleur-de-lis.
Richard Talbot gave a sort of perplexed grunt of annoyance to
acknowledge that he saw them.
"Poor little maid! how could they be so cruel? They have been
branded with a hot iron," said the lady.
"They that parted from her meant to know her again," returned Talbot.
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