The White Lady of Hazelwood Part 34

Then they prayed for her everlasting rest--not joy. The thought of active bliss could hardly be a.s.sociated with that weary soul. "Jesus, grant her Thine eternal rest!" And the villagers crept round with bared heads, and whispered to one another that they were burying the White Lady--that mysterious prisoner whom no one ever saw, who never came to church, nor set foot outside the walls of her prison; and they dimly guessed some thousandth part of the past pathos of that shadowed life, and they joined in the Amen. And over her grave were set up no sculptured figure and table tomb, only one slab of pure white marble, carved with a cross, and beneath it, the sole epitaph of Marguerite of Flanders, the heroine of Hennebon,--"Mercy, Jesu!" So they left her to her rest.

Ten years later, in a quiet Manor House near Furness Abbey, a knight's wife was telling a story to her three little girls.

"And you called me after her, Mother!" said little fair-haired Margaret.

"But what became of the naughty man who didn't want to come and see his poor mother when she was so sick and unhappy, Mother?" asked compa.s.sionate little Regina.

"Naughty man!" echoed Baby Perrotine.

Lady Hylton stroked her little Margaret's hair.

"He led not a happy life, my darlings; but we will not talk about him.

Ay, little Meg, I called thee after the poor White Lady. I pray G.o.d thou mayest give thine heart to Him earlier than she did, and not have to walk with weary feet along her wilderness way. Let us thank G.o.d for our happy life, and love each other as much as we can."

A hand which she had not known was there was laid upon her head.

"Thinkest thou we can do that, my Phyllis, any better than now?" asked Sir Norman Hylton.

"We can all try," said Amphillis, softly. "And G.o.d, our G.o.d, shall bless us."

APPENDIX.

Marguerite of Flanders, Countess of Montfort, was the only daughter of Loys de Nevers, eldest surviving son of Robert the First, Count of Flanders (who predeceased his father), and of Marie or Jeanne, daughter of the Count de Rethel. She had one brother, Count Loys the First of Flanders, who fell at Crecy. Many modern writers call her Jeanne; but her name in the contemporary public records of England is invariably Margareta. Her birth probably took place about 1310, and it may have been about 1335 that she married Jean of Bretagne, Count de Montfort, a younger son of Duke Arthur the Second.

Duke Arthur, the son of Beatrice of England, had been twice married--to Marie of Limoges and Violette of Dreux, Countess of Montfort in her own right. With other issue who are not concerned in the story, he had by Marie two sons, Duke Jean the Third and Guyon; and by Violette one, Jean Count of Montfort, the husband of Marguerite. On the childless death of Jean the Third in 1341, a war of succession arose between the daughter of his deceased brother Guyon, and his half-brother the Count of Montfort. The daughter, Jeanne la Boiteuse, claimed the right to represent her father Guyon, while Montfort stood by the law of non-representation, according to which no deceased prince could be represented by his child, and the younger brother even by the half-blood was considered a nearer relative than the child of the elder. The King of France took the part of Jeanne and her husband, Charles de Blois; he captured the Count of Montfort, and imprisoned him in the Louvre. The Countess Marguerite, "who had the heart of a lion," thenceforth carried on the war on behalf of her husband and son. In the spring of 1342 she obtained the help of King Edward the Third of England, which however was fitfully rendered, as he took either side in turn to suit his own convenience. Some account of her famous exploits is given in the story, and is familiar to every reader of Froissart's Chronicle. Shortly after this the Countess brought her son to England, and betrothed him to the King's infant daughter Mary; but she soon returned to Bretagne. In 1345 the Count of Montfort escaped from his prison in the disguise of a pedlar, and arrived in England: but the King was not at that time disposed to a.s.sist him, and Montfort took the refusal so much to heart that--probably combined with already failing health--it killed him in the following September. When the war was reopened, the Countess took captive her rival Charles de Blois, and brought him to England. The King appointed her residence in Tickhill Castle, granting the very small sum of 15 pounds per annum for her expenses "there or wherever we may order her to be taken, while she remains in our custody." (Patent Roll, 25 Edward the Third, Part 3.) It is evident that while treated overtly as a guest, the Countess was in reality a prisoner: a fact yet more forcibly shown by an entry in December, 1348, recording the payment of 60 shillings expenses to John Burdon for his journey to Tickhill, "to bring up to London the d.u.c.h.ess of Bretagne and the knight who ran away with her." This seems to have been an attempt to free the prisoner, to whom, as the upholder of her husband's claim on the throne of Bretagne, the King of course accorded the t.i.tle of d.u.c.h.ess. The testimony of the records henceforward is at variance with that of the chroniclers, the latter representing Marguerite as making sundry journeys to Bretagne in company with her son and others, and as being to all intents at liberty.

The Rolls, on the contrary, when she is named, invariably speak of her as a prisoner in Tickhill Castle, in keeping of Sir John Delves, and after his death, of his widow Isabel. That the Rolls are the superior authority there can be no question.

The imprisonment of Charles de Blois was very severe. He offered a heavy ransom and his two elder sons as hostages; King Edward demanded 400,000 deniers, and afterwards 100,000 gold florins. In 1356 Charles was released, his sons Jean and Guyon taking his place. They were confined first in Nottingham Castle, and in 1377 were removed to Devizes, where Guyon died about Christmas 1384. In 1362 Edward and Charles agreed on a treaty, which Jeanne refused to ratify, alleging that she would lose her life, or two if she had them, rather than relinquish her claims to young Montfort. Two years later Charles was killed at the battle of Auray, and Jeanne thereon accepted a settlement which made Montfort Duke of Bretagne, reserving to herself the county of Penthievre, the city of Limoges, and a sum of ten thousand _livres Tournois_.

The only authority hitherto discovered giving any hint of the history of Marguerite after this date, is a contemporary romance, _Le Roman de la Comtesse de Montfort_, which states that she retired to the Castle of Lucinio, near Vannes, and pa.s.sed the rest of her life in tranquillity.

Even Mrs Everett Green, in her _Lives of the Princesses of England_, accepted this as a satisfactory conclusion. It was, indeed, the only one known. But two entries on the public records of England entirely dissipate this comfortable illusion. On 26th September 1369, the Patent Roll states that "we allowed 105 pounds per annum to John Delves for the keeping of the n.o.ble lady, the d.u.c.h.ess of Bretagne; and we now grant to Isabel his widow, for so long a time as the said d.u.c.h.ess shall be in her keeping, the custody of the manor of Walton-on-Trent, value 22 pounds,"

and 52 pounds from other lands. (Patent Roll, 43 Edward the Third, Part 2.) The allowance originally made had evidently been increased. The hapless prisoner, however, was not left long in the custody of Isabel Delves. She was transferred to that of Sir G.o.dfrey Foljambe, whose wife, Avena Ireland, was daughter of Avena de Holand, aunt of Joan d.u.c.h.ess of Bretagne, the second wife of young Montfort. Lastly, a Post Mortem Inquisition, taken in 1374, announces that "Margaret d.u.c.h.ess of Bretagne died at Haselwood, in the county of Derby, on the 18th of March, 48 Edward the Third, being sometime in the custody of G.o.dfrey Foljambe." (Inquisitions of Exchequer, 47-8 Edward the Third, county Derbyshire).

It is therefore placed beyond question that the Countess of Montfort died a prisoner in England, at a date when her son had been for ten years an independent sovereign, and though on friendly terms with Edward the Third, was no longer a suppliant for his favour. Can it have occurred without his knowledge and sanction? He was in England when she died, but there is no indication that he ever went to see her, and her funeral, as is shown by the silence of the Wardrobe Rolls, was without any ceremony. Considering the character of the Duke--"violent in all his feelings, loving to madness, hating to fury, and rarely overcoming a prejudice once entertained"--the suspicion is aroused that all the early sacrifices made by his mother, all the gallant defence of his dominions, the utter self-abnegation and the tender love, were suffered to pa.s.s by him as the idle wind, in order that he might revenge himself upon her for the one occasion on which she prevented him from breaking his pledged word to King Edward's daughter, and committing a _mesalliance_ with Alix de Ponteallen. For this, or at any rate for some thwarting of his will, he seems never to have forgiven her.

Marguerite left two children--Duke Jean the Fourth, born 1340, died November 1, 1399: he married thrice,--Mary of England, Joan de Holand, and Juana of Navarre--but left no issue by any but the last, and by her a family of nine children, the eldest being only twelve years old when he died. Strange to say, he named one of his daughters after his discarded mother. His sister Jeanne, who was probably his senior, was originally affianced to Jean of Blois, the long-imprisoned son of Charles and Jeanne: she married, however, Ralph, last Lord Ba.s.set of Drayton, and died childless, November 8, 1403.