The Visions of England Part 12

November 5: 1640

Harsh words have been utter'd and written on her, Henrietta the Queen: She was young in a difficult part, on a cruel and difficult scene:-- Was it strange she should fail? that the King overmuch should bow down to her will?

--So of old with the women, G.o.d bless them!--it was, so will ever be still!

Rash in counsel and rash in courage, she aided and marr'd The shifting tides of the fight, the star of the Stuarts ill-starr'd.

In her the false Florentine blood,--in him the bad strain of the Guise; Suspicion against her and hate, all that malice can forge and devise;-- As a bird by the fowlers o'ernetted, she shuffles and changes her ground; No wile unlawful in war, and the foe unscrupulous round!

Woman-like overbelieving Herself and the Cause and the Man, Fights with two-edged intrigue, suicidal, plan upon plan; Till the law of this world had its way, and she fled,--like a frigate unsail'd, Unmasted, unflagg'd,--to her land; and the strength of the stronger prevail'd.

But it was not thus, not thus, in the years of thy springtide, O Queen, When thy children came in their beauty, and all their future unseen: When the kingdom had wealth and peace, one smile o'er the face of the land: England, too happy, if thou could'st thy happiness understand!

As those over Etna who slumber, and under them rankles the fire.

At her side was the gallant King, her first-love, her girlhood's desire, And around her, best jewels and dearest to brighten the steps of the throne, Three golden heads, three fair little maids, in their nursery shone.

'As the mother, so be the daughters,' they say:--nor could mother wish more For her own, than men saw in the Queen's, ere the rosebud-dawning was o'er, Heart-wise and head-wise, a joy to behold, as they knelt for her kiss,-- Best crown of a woman's life, her true vocation and bliss!-- But the flowers were pale and frail, and the mother watch'd them with dread, As the sunbeams play'd round the room on each gay, glistening head.

Anne in that garden of childhood grew nearest Elizabeth: she Tenderly tended and loved her, a babe with a babe on her knee: Slight and white from the cradle was Anne; a floweret born Rathe, out of season, a rose that peep'd out when the hedge was in thorn.

'Why should it be so with us?' thought Elizabeth oft; for in her The soul 'gainst the body protesting, was but more keenly astir: 'As saplings stunted by forest around o'ershading, we two: What work for our life, my mother,' she said, 'is left us to do?

Or is't from the evil to come, the days without pleasure, that G.o.d In mercy would spare us, over our childhood outstretching the rod?'

--So she, from her innocent heart; in all things seeing the best With the wholesome spirit of childhood; to G.o.d submitting the rest: Not seeing the desolate years, the dungeon of Carisbrook drear; Eyes dry-glazed with fever, and none to lend even a tear!

Now, all her heart to the little one goes; for, day upon day, As a rosebud in canker, she pales and pines, and the cough has its way.

And the gardens of Richmond on Thames, the fine blythe air of the vale Stay not the waning pulse, and the masters of science fail.

Then the little footsteps are faint, and a child may take her with ease; As the flowers a babe flings down she is spread on Elizabeth's knees, Slipping back to the cradle-life, in her wasting weakness and pain: And the sister prays and smiles and watches the sister in vain.

So she watch'd by the bed all night, and the lights were yellow and low, And a cold blue blink shimmer'd up from the park that was sheeted in snow: And the frost of the pa.s.sing hour, when souls from the body divide, The Sarsar-wind of the dawn, crept into the palace, and sigh'd.

And the child just turn'd her head towards Elizabeth there as she lay, And her little hands came together in haste, as though she would pray; And the words wrestled in her for speech that the fever-dry mouth cannot frame, And the strife of the soul on the delicate brow was written in flame: And Elizabeth call'd 'O Father, why does she look at me so?

Will it soon be better for Anne? her face is all in a glow':-- But with womanly speed and heed is the mother beside her, and slips Her arm 'neath the failing head, and moistens the rose of the lips, Pale and sweet as the wild rose of June, and whispers to pray To the Father in heaven, 'the one she likes best, my baby, to say': And the soul hover'd yet o'er the lips, as a dove when her pinions are spread, And the light of the after-life came again in her eyes, and she said; 'For my long prayer it is not time; for my short one I think I have breath; _Lighten mine eyes, O Lord, that I sleep not the sleep of death_.'

--O! into life, fair child, as she pray'd, her innocence slept!

'It is better for her,' they said:--and knelt, and kiss'd her, and wept.

_In her_; Henrietta's mother was by birth Mary de' Medici; the great-grandmother of Charles was Mary of Guise.

'With Charles I,' says Ranke, 'nothing was more seductive than secrecy.

The contradictions in his conduct entangled him in embarra.s.sments, in which his declarations, if always true in the sense he privately gave them, were only a hair's-breadth removed from actual, and even from intentional, untruth.'--Whether traceable to descent, or to the evil influence of Buckingham and the intriguing atmosphere of the Spanish marriage-negotiations, this defect in political honesty is, unquestionably, the one serious blot on the character of Charles I.--Yet, whilst noting it, candid students will regretfully confess that the career of Elizabeth and her counsellors is defaced by shades of bad faith, darker and more numerous.

_When the kingdom_; See Clarendon's description of England during this period, 'enjoying the greatest calm and the fullest measure of felicity that any people in any age for so long time together have been blessed with.'

_Three golden heads_; Mary, the second child of Charles and Henrietta, was born Nov. 4, 1631: Elizabeth, Dec. 28, 1635: Anne, Mar. 17, 1637. The last two were feeble from infancy. Consumption soon showed itself in Anne, and her short life, pa.s.sed at Richmond, closed in November, 1640.

For her last words, we are indebted to Fuller, who adds: 'This done, the little lamb gave up the ghost.'

The affection and care of the royal parents is well attested. 'Their arrival,' when visiting the nursery, 'was the signal of a general rejoicing.'

In the latter portion of this piece I have ventured, it will be seen, on an ideal treatment. The main facts, and the words of the dear child, are historical:--for the details I appeal to any mother who has suffered similar loss whether they could have been much otherwise.

_Not seeing_; See the _Captive Child_.

_The frost_; It is noticed that death, the _Sarsar-wind_ of Southey's _Thalaba_, often occurs at the turn between night and day, when the atmosphere is wont to be at the coldest.

AFTER CHALGROVE FIGHT

June 18: 1643

Flags c.r.a.pe-smother'd and arms reversed, With one sad volley lay him to rest: Lay him to rest where he may not see This England he loved like a lover accursed By lawlessness masking as liberty, By the despot in Freedom's panoply drest:-- Bury him, ere he be made duplicity's tool and slave, Where he cannot see the land that he could not save!

Bury him, bury him, bury him With his face downward!

Chalgrove! Name of patriot pain!

O'er thy fresh fields that summer pa.s.s'd The brand of war's red furnace blast, Till heaven's soft tears wash'd out the blackening stain;-- Wash'd out and wept;--But could not so restore England's gallant son: Ere the fray was done The stately head bow'd down; shatter'd; his warfare o'er.

Bending to the saddle-bow With leaden arm that idle hangs, Faint with the lancing torture-pangs, He drops the rein; he lets the battle go:-- There, where the wife of his first love he woo'd Turning for retreat;-- Memories bitter-sweet Through death's fast-rising mist in youth's own light renew'd.

Then, as those who drown, perchance, And all their years, a waking dream, Flash pictured by in lightning gleam, His childhood home appears, the mother's glance, The hearth-side smile; the fragrance of the fields: --Now, war's iron knell Wakes the hounds of h.e.l.l, Whilst o'er the realm her scourge the rushing Fury wields!

Doth he now the day lament When those who stemm'd despotic might O'erstrode the bounds of law and right, And through the land the torch of ruin sent?

Or that great rival statesman as he stood Lion-faced and grim, Hath he sight of him, Strafford--the meteor-axe--the fateful Hill of Blood?

--Heroes both! by pa.s.sion led, In days perplex'd 'tween new and old, Each at his will the realm to mould; This, basing sovereignty on the single head, This, on the many voices of the Hall:-- Each for his own creed Prompt to die at need: His side of England's shield each saw, and took for all.

Heroes both! For Order one And one for Freedom dying!--We May judge more justly both, than ye Could, each, his brother, ere the strife was done!

--O G.o.ddess of that even scale and weight, In whose awful eyes Truest mercy lies, This hero-dirge to thee I vow and dedicate!

--Slanting now,--the foe is by,-- Through Hazeley mead the warrior goes, And hardly fords the brook that flows Bearing to Thame its cool, sweet, summer-cry.

Here take thy rest; here bind the broken heart!

By death's mercy-doom Hid from ills to come, Great soul, and greatly vex'd, Hampden!--in peace depart!

In the heart of the fields he loved and the hills, Look your last, and lay him to rest, With the faded flower, the wither'd gra.s.s; Where the blood-face of war and the myriad ills Of England dear like phantoms pa.s.s And touch not the soul that is with the Blest.

Bury him in the night and peace of the holy grave, Where he cannot see the land that he could not save!

Bury him, bury him, bury him With his face downward!

John Hampden met his death at Chalgrove in an attempt to check the raids which Prince Rupert was making from Oxford. Struck at the onset in the shoulder by two carabine b.a.l.l.s, he rode off before the action was ended by Hazeley towards Thame, finding it impossible to reach Pyrton, the home of his father-in-law. The body was carried to his own house amid the woods and hills of the Chiltern country, and buried in the church close by.

_With his face downward_; This was the dying request of some high-minded Spaniard of old, unwilling, even in the grave, as it were, to look on the misfortunes of his country.

_O'erstrode the bounds_; 'After every allowance has been made,' says Hallam, speaking of the Long Parliament from a date so early as August, 1641, 'he must bring very heated pa.s.sions to the records of those times, who does not perceive in the conduct of that body a series of glaring violations, not only of positive and const.i.tutional, but of those higher principles which are paramount to all immediate policy': (_Const. Hist_.

ch. ix).

_The axe_; A clear and impartial sketch of Stafford's trial will be found in Ranke (B. viii): who deals dispa.s.sionately and historically with an event much obscured by declamation in popular narratives. Even in Hallam's hand the balance seems here to waver a little.

_Heroes both_;--_Each his side_; See _Appendix_ B.

A CHURCHYARD IN OXFORDSHIRE

September: 1643

Sweet air and fresh; glades yet unsear'd by hand Of Midas-finger'd Autumn, ma.s.sy-green; Bird-haunted nooks between, Where feathery ferns, a fairy palmglove, stand, An English-Eastern band:-- While e'en the stealthy squirrel o'er the gra.s.s Beside me to the beech-clump dares to pa.s.s:-- In this still precinct of the happy dead, The sanctuary of silence,--Blessed they!

I cried, who 'neath the gray Peace of G.o.d's house, each in his mounded bed Sleep safe, nor reck how the great world runs on; Peasant with n.o.ble here alike unknown.