A Forgotten Hero Part 6

Foremost of the group was the King. He was foremost in more senses than one, for, as is well known, Edward the First, like Saul, was higher than any of his people. Moreover, he was as spare as he was tall, which made him look almost gigantic. His forehead was large and broad, his features handsome and regular, but marred by that perpetual droop in his left eyelid which he had inherited from his father. Hair and complexion, originally fair, had been bronzed by his Eastern campaigns till the crisp curling hair was almost black, and the delicate tint had acquired a swarthy hue. He had a nose inclining to the Roman type, a broad chest, agile arms, and excessively long legs. His dark eyes were soft when he was in a good temper, but fierce as a tiger's when roused to anger; and His Majesty's temper was--well, not precisely angelic.

[Note 3.] It was like lightning, in being as sudden and fierce, but it did not resemble that natural phenomenon in disappearing as quickly as it had come. On the contrary, Edward never forgot and hardly forgave an injury. His abilities were beyond question, and, for his time, he was an unusually independent and original thinker. His moral character, however, was worse than is commonly supposed, though it did not descend to the lowest depths it reached until after the death of his fair and faithful Leonor.

The King's brother Edmund was that same Earl of Lancaster whom we have already seen at Oakham. He was a man of smaller intellectual calibre than his royal brother, but of much pleasanter disposition. Extreme gentleness was his princ.i.p.al characteristic, as it has been that of all our royal Edmunds, though in some instances it degenerated into excessive weakness. This was not the case with the Earl of Lancaster.

His great kindness of heart is abundantly attested by his own letters and his brother's State papers.

William de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, was the third member of the group, and he was the uncle of the royal brothers, being a son of their grandmother's second marriage with Hugh de Lusignan, Count de La Marche.

Though he made a deep mark upon his time, yet his character is not easy to fathom beyond two points--that his ability had in it a little element of craft, and that he took reasonable care of Number One.

Over the head of the lady who sat in the curule chair, quietly embroidering, twenty-five years had pa.s.sed since she had been styled by a poet, "the loveliest lady in all the land." She was hardly less even now, when her fifty years were nearly numbered; when, unseen by any earthly eyes, her days were drawing to their close, and the angel of death stood close beside her, ready to strike before six months should be fulfilled. Certainly, according to modern ideas of beauty, never was a queen fairer than Leonor the Faithful, and very rarely has there been one as fair. And--more unusual still--she was as good as she was beautiful. The worst loss in all her husband's life was the loss of her.

So far from seeing any sorrow looming in the future was King Edward at this moment, that he was extremely jubilant over a project which he had just brought to a successful issue.

"There!" said he, rubbing his hands in supreme satisfaction, "that parchment settles the business. When both my brother of Scotland and I are gone, our children will reign over one empire, king and queen of both. Is not that worth living for?"

"_Soit_!" [Be it so] e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed De Valence, shrugging his Provencal shoulders. "A few acres of bare moss and a handful of stags, to say nothing of the barbarians who dwell up in those misty regions. A fine matter surely to clap one's hands over!"

"Ah, fair uncle, you never travelled in Scotland," interposed the gentle Lancaster, before the King could blaze up, "and you know not what sort of country it is. From what I have heard, it would easily match your land in respect of beauty."

"Match Poitou? or Provence? Cousin, you must have taken leave of your senses. You were not born on the banks of the Isere, or you would not chatter such treason as that."

"Truly no, fair Uncle, for I was born in the City of London, just beyond," said Lancaster, with a good-humoured laugh; "and, verily, that would rival neither Scotland nor Poitou, to say nothing of Dauphine and Provence. The G.o.ddess of beauty was not in attendance when I was born."

Perhaps few would have ventured on that a.s.sertion except himself.

Edmund of Lancaster was among the most handsome of our princes.

"Beshrew you both!" cried King Edward, unfraternally; "wherever will these fellows ramble with their tongues? Who said anything about beauty? I care not, I, if the maiden Margaret were the ugliest la.s.s that ever tied a kerchief, so long as she is the heiress of Scotland.

Ned has beauty enough and to spare; let him stare in the gla.s.s if he cannot look at his wife."

The Queen looked up with an amused expression, and would, perhaps, have spoken, had not the tapestry been lifted by some person unseen, and a little boy of six years old bounded into the room.

No wonder that the fire in the King's eyes died into instant softness.

It would have been a wonder if the parents had not been proud of that boy, for he was one of the loveliest children on whom human eye ever rested. Did it ever cross the minds of that father and mother that the kindest deed they could have done to that darling child would have been to smother him in his cradle? Had the roll of his life been held up before them at that moment, they would have counted only thirty-seven years, written within and without in lamentation, and mourning, and woe.

King Edward lifted his little heir upon his knee.

"Look here, Ned," said he. "Seest yonder parchment?"

The blue eyes opened a little, and the fair curls shook with a nod of affirmation.

"What is it, thinkest?"

A shake of the pretty little head was the reply.

"Thy Cousin Margaret is coming to dwell with thee. That parchment will bring her."

"How old is she?" asked the Prince.

"But just a year younger than thou."

"Is she nice?"

The King laughed. "How can I tell thee? I never saw her."

"Will she play with us?"

"I should think she will. She is just between thee and Beatrice."

"Beatrice is only a baby!" remarked the Prince disdainfully. Six years old is naturally scornful of four.

"Not more of a baby than thou," said his uncle Lancaster, playfully.

"But she's a girl, and I'm a man!" cried the insulted little Prince.

King Edward, excessively amused, set his boy down on the floor. "There, run to thy mother," said he. "Thou wilt be a man one of these days, I dare say; but not just yet, Master Ned."

And no angel voice whispered to one of them that it would have been well for that child if he had never been a man, nor that ere he was six months older, the mother, whose death was a worse calamity to him than to any other, and the little Norwegian la.s.sie to whom he was now betrothed, would pa.s.s almost hand in hand into the silent land. Three months later, Margaret, Princess of Norway and Queen of Scotland, set sail from her father's coast for her mother's kingdom, whence she was to travel to England, and be brought up under the tender care of the royal Leonor as its future queen. But one of the sudden and terrible storms of the North Sea met her ere she reached the sh.o.r.e of Scotland. She just lived to be flung ash.o.r.e at Kirkwall, in the Orkneys, and there, in the pitying hands of the fishers' wives, the child breathed out her little life, having lived five years, and reigned for nearly as long.

Who of us, looking back to the probable lot that would have awaited her in England, shall dare to pity that little child?

Note 1. "Thou art my portion, O Lord."--Psalm 119, verse 57.

Note 2. "My beloved is mine."--Canticles 2, verse 16.

Note 3. Two anecdotes may be given which ill.u.s.trate this in a manner almost comical; the first has been published more than once, the latter has not to my knowledge. When his youngest daughter Elizabeth was married to the Earl of Hereford in 1302, the King, annoyed by some unfortunate remark of the bride, s.n.a.t.c.hed her coronet from her head and threw it into the fire, nor did the Princess recover it undamaged. In 1305, writing to John de Fonteyne, the physician of his second wife, Marguerite of France, who was then ill of small-pox, the King warns him not on any account to allow the Queen to exert herself until she has completely recovered, "and if you do," adds the monarch in French, of considerably more force than elegance, and not too suitable for exact quotation, "you shall pay for it!"

CHAPTER FOUR.

WAITING AND WEARY.

"Oh! for the strength of G.o.d's right hand! the way is hard and dreary, Through Him to walk and not to faint, to run and not be weary!"

E.L. Marzials.

We left the Royal party in conversation in the chamber at Westminster.

"Have you quite resolved, Sire, to expel all the Jews from England?"

asked De Valence.

"Resolved? Yes; I hope it is half done," replied the King. "You are aware, fair Uncle, that our Commons voted us a fifteenth on this condition?"

"No, I did not hear that," said De Valence.

"How many are there of those creatures?" inquired Lancaster.

"How should I know?" returned Edward, with an oath. "I only know that the Chancellor said the houses and goods were selling well to our profit."