MacMillan's Reading Books Part 25

No answer was returned. None could have been expected by any one who remembered the indignant silence with which Becket had swept by when the same words had been applied by Randulf of Broc at Northampton. Fitzurse rushed forward, and, stumbling against one of the monks on the lower step, still not able to distinguish clearly in the darkness, exclaimed, "Where is the Archbishop?" Instantly the answer came: "Reginald, here I am, no traitor, but the archbishop and priest of G.o.d; what do you wish?"

and from the fourth step, which he had reached in his ascent, with a slight motion of his head--noticed apparently as his peculiar manner in moments of excitement--Becket descended to the transept. Attired, we are told, in his white rochet, with a cloak and hood thrown over his shoulders, he thus suddenly confronted his a.s.sailants. Fitzurse sprang back two or three paces, and Becket pa.s.sing by him took up his station between the central pillar and the ma.s.sive wall which still forms the south-west corner of what was then the chapel of St. Benedict. Here they gathered round him, with the cry, "Absolve the bishops whom you have excommunicated." "I cannot do other than I have done," he replied, and turning to Fitzurse, he added, "Reginald, you have received many favours at my hands; why do you come into my church armed?" Fitzurse planted the axe against his breast, and returned for answer, "You shall die--I will tear out your heart." Another, perhaps in kindness, struck him between the shoulders with the flat of his sword, exclaiming, "Fly; you are a dead man." "I am ready to die," replied the primate, "for G.o.d and the Church; but I warn you, I curse you in the name of G.o.d Almighty, if you do not let my men escape."

The well-known horror which in that age was felt at an act of sacrilege, together with the sight of the crowds who were rushing in from the town through the nave, turned their efforts for the next few moments to carrying him out of the church. Fitzurse threw down the axe, and tried to drag him out by the collar of his long cloak, calling, "Come with us--you are our prisoner." "I will not fly, you detestable fellow," was Becket's reply, roused to his usual vehemence, and wrenching the cloak out of Fitzurse's grasp. The three knights struggled violently to put him on Tracy's shoulders. Becket set his back against the pillar, and resisted with all his might, whilst Grim, vehemently remonstrating, threw his arms around him to aid his efforts. In the scuffle, Becket fastened upon Tracy, shook him by his coat of mail, and exerting his great strength, flung him down on the pavement. It was hopeless to carry on the attempt to remove him. And in the final struggle which now began, Fitzurse, as before, took the lead. He approached with his drawn sword, and waving it over his head, cried, "Strike, strike!" but merely dashed off his cap. Tracy sprang forward and struck a more decided blow.

The blood from the first blow was trickling down his face in a thin streak; he wiped it with his arm, and when he saw the stain, he said, "Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit." At the third blow, he sank on his knees--his arms falling, but his hands still joined as if in prayer. With his face turned towards the altar of St. Benedict, he murmured in a low voice, "For the name of Jesus, and the defence of the Church, I am willing to die." Without moving hand or foot, he fell fiat on his face as he spoke, and with such dignity that his mantle, which extended from head to foot, was not disarranged. In this posture he received a tremendous blow, aimed with such violence that the scalp or crown of the head was severed from the skull, and the sword snapped in two on the marble pavement. Hugh of Horsea planted his foot on the neck of the corpse, thrust his sword into the ghastly wound, and scattered the brains over the pavement. "Let us go--let us go," he said, in conclusion, "the traitor is dead; he will rise no more."

DEAN STANLEY.

[Note: _Thomas Becket_ (1119-1170). Chancellor and afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury under Henry II.; maintained a heroic, though perhaps ambitious and undesirable struggle with that king for the independence of the clergy; and ended his life by a.s.sa.s.sination at the hands of certain of Henry's servants.]

THE DEATH OF ELIZABETH

The triumph of her lieutenant, Mountjoy, flung its l.u.s.tre over the last days of Elizabeth, but no outer triumph could break the gloom which gathered round the dying queen. Lonely as she had always been, her loneliness deepened as she drew towards the grave. The statesmen and warriors of her earlier days had dropped one by one from her council board; and their successors were watching her last moments, and intriguing for favour in the coming reign. The old splendour of her court waned and disappeared. Only officials remained about her, "the other of the council and n.o.bility estrange themselves by all occasions."

As she pa.s.sed along in her progresses, the people, whose applause she courted, remained cold and silent. The temper of the age, in fact, was changing and isolating her as it changed. Her own England, the England which had grown up around her, serious, moral, prosaic, shrank coldly from this child of earth, and the renascence, brilliant, fanciful, unscrupulous, irreligious. She had enjoyed life as the men of her day enjoyed it, and now that they were gone she clung to it with a fierce tenacity. She hunted, she danced, she jested with her young favourites, she coquetted, and scolded, and frolicked at sixty-seven as she had done at thirty. "The queen," wrote a courtier, a few months before her death, "was never so gallant these many years, nor so set upon jollity."

She persisted, in spite of opposition, in her gorgeous progresses from country-house to country-house. She clung to business as of old, and rated in her usual fashion, "one who minded not to giving up some matter of account." But death crept on. Her face became haggard, and her frame shrank almost to a skeleton. At last, her taste for finery disappeared, and she refused to change her dresses for a week together. A strange melancholy settled down on her: "she held in her hand," says one who saw her in her last days, "a golden cup, which she often put to her lips: but in truth her heart seemed too full to need more filling." Gradually her mind gave way. She lost her memory, the violence of her temper became unbearable, her very courage seemed to forsake her. She called for a sword to lie constantly beside her, and thrust it from time to time through the arras, as if she heard murderers stirring there. Food and rest became alike distasteful. She sate day and night propped up with pillows on a stool, her finger on her lip, her eyes fixed on the floor, without a word. If she once broke the silence, it was with a flash of her old queenliness. Cecil a.s.serted that she "must" go to bed, and the word roused her like a trumpet. "Must!" she exclaimed; "is _must_ a word to be addressed to princes? Little man, little man! thy father, if he had been alive, durst not have used that word." Then, as her anger spent itself, she sank into her old dejection. "Thou art so presumptuous," she said, "because thou knowest I shall die." She rallied once more when the ministers beside her bed named Lord Beauchamp, the heir to the Suffolk claim, as a possible successor. "I will have no rogue's son," she cried hoa.r.s.ely, "in my seat." But she gave no sign, save a motion of the head, at the mention of the King of Scots. She was in fact fast becoming insensible; and early the next morning the life of Elizabeth, a life so great, so strange and lonely in its greatness, pa.s.sed quietly away.

J.R. GREEN.

[Notes: _Mountjoy_. The Queen's lieutenant in Ireland, who had had considerable success in dealing with the Irish rebels.

_This chill of ... the renascence._ In her irreligion, as well as in her brilliancy and fancy, Elizabeth might fitly be called the child or product of the Pagan renascence or new birth, as the return to the freedom of cla.s.sic literature, so powerful in the England of her day, was called.

_Thy father_ = the great Lord Burghley, who guided the counsels of the Queen throughout all the earlier part of her reign.

_The Suffolk claim, i.e.,_ the claim derived from Mary, the sister of Henry VIII., who married Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. James, who succeeded Elizabeth, was descended from the elder sister, Margaret, married to James IV. of Scotland.]

THE SAXON AND THE GAEL.

So toilsome was the road to trace, The guide, abating of his pace, Led slowly through the pa.s.s's jaws, And ask'd Fitz-James by what strange cause He sought these wilds? traversed by few, Without a pa.s.s from Roderick Dhu.

"Brave Gael, my pa.s.s, in danger tried, Hangs in my belt, and by my side; Yet sooth to tell," the Saxon said, "I dreamed not now to claim its aid.

When here but three days since, I came, Bewildered in pursuit of game, All seemed as peaceful and as still As the mist slumbering on yon hill: Thy dangerous chief was then afar, Nor soon expected back from war."

"But, Stranger, peaceful since you came, Bewildered in the mountain game, Whence the bold boast by which you show Vich-Alpine's vowed and mortal foe?"

"Warrior, but yester-morn, I knew Nought of thy Chieftain, Roderick Dhu, Save as an outlaw'd desperate man, The chief of a rebellious clan, Who in the Regent's court and sight, With ruffian dagger stabbed a knight; Yet this alone might from his part Sever each true and loyal heart."

Wrathful at such arraignment foul, Dark lowered the clansman's sable scowl.

A s.p.a.ce he paused, then sternly said,-- "And heard'st thou why he drew his blade?

Heards't thou that shameful word and blow Brought Roderick's vengeance on his foe?

What reck'd the Chieftain if he stood On Highland-heath, or Holy-Rood?

He rights such wrong where it is given, If it were in the court of heaven."

"Still was it outrage:--yet, 'tis true, Not then claimed sovereignty his due; While Albany, with feeble hand, Held borrowed truncheon of command, The young King mew'd in Stirling tower, Was stranger to respect and power.

But then, thy Chieftain's robber life!

Winning mean prey by causeless strife, Wrenching from ruined lowland swain His herds and harvest reared in vain, Methinks a soul like thine should scorn The spoils from such foul foray borne."

The Gael beheld him grim the while, And answered with disdainful smile,-- "Saxon, from yonder mountain high, I marked thee send delighted eye Far to the south and east, where lay Extended in succession gay, Deep waving fields and pastures green, With gentle slopes and groves between:-- These fertile plains, that softened vale, Were once the birthright of the Gael; The stranger came with iron hand, And from our fathers reft the land.

Where dwell we now? See, rudely swell Crag over crag, fell over fell.

Ask we this savage hill we tread, For fattened steer or household bread; Ask we for flocks these shingles dry, And well the mountain might reply,-- "To you, as to your sires of yore, Belong the target and claymore!

I give you shelter in my breast, Your own good blades must win the rest."

Pent in this fortress of the North, Think'st thou we will not sally forth, To spoil the spoiler as we may, And from the robber rend the prey?

Aye, by my soul!--While on yon plain The Saxon rears one shock of grain; While of ten thousand herds, there strays But one along yon river's maze,-- The Gael, of plain and river heir, Shall, with strong hand, redeem his share.

Where live the mountain Chiefs who hold That plundering Lowland field and fold Is aught but retribution true?

Seek other cause 'gainst Roderick Dhu."

Answered Fitz-James--"And, if I sought, Think'st thou no other could be brought?

What deem ye of my path waylaid, My life given o'er to ambuscade?"

"As of a meed to rashness due: Hadst thou sent warning fair and true,-- I seek my hound, or falcon strayed.

I seek, good faith, a Highland maid.-- Free hadst thou been to come and go; But secret path marks secret foe.

Nor yet, for this, even as a spy, Hadst thou unheard, been doomed to die, Save to fulfil an augury."

"Well, let it pa.s.s; nor will I now Fresh cause of enmity avow, To chafe thy mood and cloud thy brow.

Enough, I am by promise tied To match me with this man of pride: Twice have I sought Clan-Alpine's glen In peace: but when I come again, I come with banner, brand, and bow, As leader seeks his mortal foe.

For love-lorn swain, in lady's bower, Ne'er panted for the appointed hour, As I, until before me stand This rebel Chieftain and his band."

"Have, then, thy wish!"--he whistled shrill, And he was answered from the hill: Wild as the scream of the curlew, From crag to crag the signal flew.

Instant, through copse and heath, arose Bonnets and spears, and bended bows.

On right, on left, above, below, Sprung up at once the lurking foe; From shingles grey their lances start, The bracken bush sends forth the dart.

The rushes and the willow wand Are bristling into axe and brand, And every tuft of broom gives life To plaided warrior armed for strife.

That whistle garrison'd the glen At once with full five hundred men, As if the yawning hill to heaven A subterraneous host had given.

Watching their leader's beck and will, All silent there they stood and still.

Like the loose crags whose threatening ma.s.s Lay tottering o'er the hollow pa.s.s, As if an infant's touch could urge Their headlong pa.s.sage down the verge, With step and weapon forward flung.

Upon the mountain-side they hung.

The mountaineer cast glance of pride Along Benledi's living side, Then fixed his eye and sable brow Full on Fitz-James--"How says't thou now?

These are Clan-Alpine's warriors true, And, Saxon,--I am Roderick Dhu!"

Fitz-James was brave:--Though to his heart The life-blood thrilled with sudden start, He mann'd himself with dauntless air, Returned the Chief his haughty stare, His back against a rock he bore, And firmly placed his foot before:-- "Come one, come all! this rock shall fly From its firm base as soon as I."

Sir Roderick marked--and in his eyes Respect was mingled with surprise, And the stern joy which warriors feel In foemen worthy of their steel.

Short s.p.a.ce he stood--then waved his hand; Down sunk the disappearing band: Each warrior vanished where he stood, In broom or bracken, heath or wood: Sunk brand and spear, and bended bow, In osiers pale and copses low; It seemed as if their mother Earth Had swallowed up her warlike birth.

The wind's last breath had tossed in air Pennon, and plaid, and plumage fair,-- The next but swept a lone hill-side, Where heath and fern were waving wide; The sun's last glance was glinted back, From spear and glaive, from targe and jack,-- The next, all unreflected, shone On bracken green and cold grey stone.

Fitz-James looked round--yet scarce believed The witness that his sight received; Such apparition well might seem Delusion of a dreadful dream.

Sir Roderick in suspense he eyed, And to his look the Chief replied, "Fear nought--nay, that I need not say-- But--doubt not aught from mine array.