Robin Tremayne Part 13

"Did we not so of his father?" asked she, with a short laugh. "There be alway that will sing loud hymns to the rising or risen sun. Sageness and wisdom, forsooth! of a lad of twelve years! He may be as sage as he will, but he will not match Dr Stephen Gardiner yet awhile."

A shudder ran through Isoult Avery at the name of the deviser of the b.l.o.o.d.y Statute. But the danger of the Protector was too serious a question to every Gospeller not to be recurred to and prayed against.

"It doth seem to me, Jack," said Isoult that evening, when the story had been told, "as though the cause of the Gospel should stand or fall with my Lord Protector. What thinkest thou?"

"Sweet wife," he answered, "if my Lord Protector were the only prop of the Gospel, it had fallen long ago. The prop of the Gospel is not my Lord or thy Lord, but the Lord of the whole earth. His strength is enough to bear it up."

"I know that, Jack," she said. "Yet G.o.d worketh by means; and my Lord Protector gone, who else is there?"

"Nay, child!" answered Dr Thorpe. "Is G.o.d so lately become unable of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham? Shall He, by whose word a nation shall be born in a day, be too weak to strengthen the King, in despite of his tender years, or to raise up another man that shall follow in the wake of my Lord Protector?"

"I know G.o.d can do miracles," said Isoult, somewhat despondingly.

"'For all but me'--is that thy thought, sweeting?" asked Avery, smiling.

"But where is there a man?" cried Isoult.

"How know I?" said Dr Thorpe. "Some whither in the Indies, it may be.

But the Lord shall surely fetch him thence when the time cometh.

Prithee, Jack, bid thy friend the Hot Gospeller to dinner, and leave us see if he (that I gather from thy talk to be mighty busy in public matters) can find us a man for the time."

Avery smiled, and said he would ask Mr Underhill to dinner. But Isoult shook her head, averring that neither Dr Thorpe nor even the Hot Gospeller could find a man for the time.

For some days, at her husband's desire, Isoult had been on the look-out for a bower-woman to replace Jennifer. She inquired from Mrs Brent and other neighbours, but could nowhere hear of a satisfactory person. On the Sunday evening following Philippa's visit, as they were coming home from Saint Botolph's, the church which stood at the top of the Minories, Isoult heard her name softly called from the crowd of dispersing worshippers. She looked up into a pair of black, pensive eyes, which she knew to belong to an old friend--a converted Jewess, who had been one of her bridesmaids, but whom she had never met since that time. The friends halted and clasped hands.

"I knew not you were in this vicinage," said Esther in her grave manner, "but methought that face could belong to none other."

"We dwell at this present in the Minories," said Isoult, "and are but now come hither, by reason of certain riots in the western parts. And where dwell you?"

"I am now abiding," she replied, "with a friend, one Mistress Little, until I may find conveniency to meet with a service: for I have left the one, and am not yet fallen in with the other."

"And I am but now looking for a bower-woman," said Isoult.

"Have you covenanted with any?" asked she quickly.

"Nay," was the answer, "I have not yet fallen in with any with whom to covenant."

"Mrs Avery, will you take me?" she said, earnestly.

"Nay," answered Isoult, "but will you come to me? I had thought you should look for a much better service than mine."

"I could not have a better, methinks," she responded, with a rather sorrowful smile. "I would right fain come to you, if that might be."

"Then it may be, dear heart!" said Isoult, much moved by her urgency.

"I would fainer have you than any which I do know, unless it were Annis Holland, that I have known from the cradle. But should it like you to follow me into Devon? for we do look to return thither when the troubles are past."

"I will follow you any whither," answered she. "I care nothing where I am, only this,--that I would liefer be out of London than in it."

So Esther came, and took up her quarters at the sign of the Lamb. Every house in London had then its sign, which served the purpose of a number.

Meanwhile the clouds gathered more darkly over the only man in power (excepting the boy-King himself), who really cared more for the welfare of England than for his own personal aggrandis.e.m.e.nt. And it was not England which forsook and destroyed Somerset. It was the so-called Lutheran faction, to the majority of whom Lutheranism was only the cloak which hid their selfish political intrigues. There had been a time when Somerset was one of them, and had sought his own advancement as they now did theirs. And the deserted regiment never pardons the deserter. The faction complained that Somerset was proud and self-willed: he worked alone; he acted on his own responsibility; he did not consult his friends. This of course meant in the case of each member of the faction (as such complaints usually do), "He did not consult _me_." Somerset might truthfully have pleaded in reply that he had not a friend to consult. The Court held no friend to him; and, worst of all, his own home held none. He had, unquestionably, a number of acquaintances, of that cla.s.s which has been well and wittily defined as consisting of "intimate enemies;" and he had a wife, who loved dearly the high t.i.tle he had given her, and the splendid fortune with which she kept it up.

But neither she nor any one else loved _him_--except One, who was sitting above the Water-floods, watching His tried child's life, and ready, when his extremity should have come, to whisper to that weary and sorrowful heart, "Come and rest with Me."

But that time was not yet. The battle must be fought before the rest could come.

On Friday, the 5th of October, a private gathering of nineteen of the Council was held at Lord Warwick's house in Holborn--that Lord Warwick of whom I have already spoken as John Dudley, the half-brother of Lady Frances Monke. No man on earth hated Somerset more heartily than Warwick, and perhaps only one other man hated him quite as much. While they were yet debating how to ruin Somerset, a letter came in the King's name from Secretary Petre, inquiring for what cause they thus gathered together: if they wished to speak with the Protector they must come peaceably. This letter sealed the fate of the conference--and of Somerset. The victim, it was evident, was awake and watching. Ruin might have served the original purpose: now only one end would serve it--death. But Warwick was one of the few who know how to wait.

In this emergency--for he manifestly feared for his life--Somerset appealed to the only friends he had, the people of England. And England responded to the appeal. Hour after hour thickened the crowd which watched round Hampton Court, where the King and Protector were; and in the middle of Sunday night, when he thought it safe, Somerset hastened to take refuge with his royal nephew in the strong-hold of Windsor [Note 4], the crowd acting as guards and journeying with them.

It was a false move. The populace were with Somerset, but the army was with Warwick. The crowd melted away; the Lords held London; and on every gate of the city a list of the charges against the Protector was posted up. The bird, struggling vainly in the toils of the serpent, was only exhausting its own life.

These were the charges (in substance), which Isoult Avery found Dr Thorpe carefully reading when she came home from the market on Monday morning. The old man was making comments as he proceeded, not very complimentary to my Lord of Warwick and his colleagues.

"One. That he hath made inward divisions.

"Two. That he hath lost his Majesty's pieces beyond the sea.

"Three. That he did enrich himself in the war, and left the King's poor soldiers unpaid of their wages.

"Four. That he hath laboured to make himself strong in all countries.

"Five. That he hath subverted all law, justice, and good order, whereby he hath fearfully shaken the chair of the King's seat.

"Six. That he hath little esteemed the grave advice of the King's good and faithful councillors.

"Seven. That he hath little regarded the order appointed by King Henry, for the government of his son.

"Eight. That he hath laboured to sow dissension in the kingdom among the n.o.bles, gentlemen, and commoners.

"Nine. That the King and kingdom hath suffered great loss by his wilful negligence."

"'Shaken the chair of the King's seat!'" cried he. "If the men be not rebels that writ this paper, I have little wit to know what a rebel is.

How dare they speak or think of shaking the King's seat, which is in the hands of G.o.d, and is accountable unto none save Him?--'Little esteemed the advice of the King's faithful councillors'--to wit, the runagates that writ this paper. 'Laboured to sow dissension betwixt the gentry and the commoners!' 'Tis the enclosures they point at, I reckon. What!

was he the only man that allowed them? and who could have thought the commons had been such dolts? Now let us see the names of these wise, good, and faithful councillors. 'R. Rich, W. Saint John, W.

Northampton, J. Warwick,'" [Note 5] and he paused a minute. "Isoult,"

said he again, "methinks that Earl of Warwick is a knave."

"I never thought him otherwise, Dr Thorpe," said Isoult quietly.

Sir Anthony Wingfield was sent by the Lords of the Council to Windsor on the following Friday. He parted the Lord Protector from the King, and set a strong guard to watch him until the coming of the Lords. On the Sat.u.r.day the Lord Chancellor and the Council rode to Windsor, and that night the Protector was set in ward in the Beauchamp Tower of Windsor Castle. And on the Monday afternoon was the Duke of Somerset (no longer Lord Protector) brought to the Tower of London, riding between the Earls of Southampton and Huntingdon, accompanied by many gentlemen, and three hundred horse. At his own desire, he came into London by way of Saint Giles in the Fields; and opposite Soper Lane were knights sitting on horseback, and all the officers with halberds. And so they led him from Holborn Bridge to Cheapside; where, with a loud voice, he cried to the bystanders, "Good people, I am as true a man to the King as any here."

In all the streets were Aldermen or their deputies, on horseback; and the householders, each man at his door, all standing with bills in their hands, as he pa.s.sed. And so he was conducted to the Tower, where he remained.

"As true a man to the King!" Poor little Edward, bewildered and deceived! He did not know there was none other half so true.

Note 1. The enclosure riots had a more religious aspect in the West than in the East or the Midland Counties.

Note 2. William Lord Grey de Wilton was an eminent General, and a staunch Gospeller. He had been a member of the Council at Calais during the persecution, and his close friendship with Lord and Lady Lisle is shown by the fact that of his three children, two bore their names.