Форд Мэдокс Форд
The Young Lovell
As for the Young Lovell's deeds and charters they were hidden up by the Knight of Haltwhistle in his tower at that place, so that, for the moment, he could by no means come at them and it was difficult for the Bishop's advisers to say how he might have them again. For they had not even any certain evidence that those muniments were at Haltwhistle. The Young Lovell had the news of Elizabeth Campstones, his old nurse, and she was a prisoner in the Castle. It was true that the lawyer Stone had by that time come round to the side of the Young Lovell, and he was assured that those charters and deeds had been removed to the tower at Haltwhistle. Still he had not seen this done, for they had gone at dead of night.
Therefore the Bishop wrote another letter to them of the Castle, saying he was assured that they and no others held all those deeds and summoning them immediately to surrender. To this the Decies answered that he had not those deeds and papers: that they were very certainly not in that fortress as far as he commanded it: that he would very willingly surrender them, but he did not know where they were. He imagined that they might be in the White Tower over which he had no control.
The lawyer Stone said that that might very well be the truth that was in the Decies' mind. For that ignorant fool was mostly heavy with wine. The evil Knight of Wallhouses had counselled the others that they should make the Decies commander in name of that Castle at the very first, so that if any penalties should fall on any heads for the seizure it should be on the Decies'. Moreover, they had removed the muniments without telling the Decies, so that they might the more easily be rid of him when it served their turn.
Thus the Bishop's advisers said that here was a very difficult and lengthy matter to deal with. For if the Bishop should write to any one of those cunning people for those deeds he would immediately, or beforehand, pass them on to the other and say he could not surrender them since he had them not. If on the other hand he wrote to them all at once they would give the deeds to their wives or to some safe person and so make the same answer. So they must issue writs against all the county at the same moment.
So far the Bishop had got in those fourteen days. In the meantime it was the turn of the Knight of Lyonesse.
This Sir Bertram rode well attended to the Castle of Warkworth to talk with the Earl of Northumberland and to lay before him all the truth of that matter, and how the King did not wish that the North parts should be enraged against him. And at first the Earl treated this Cornish knight with little courtesy. But very soon that Sir Bertram showed to the Earl a paper that he had of the King to empower Sir Bertram to remove the Earl from the wardenship of the Eastern Marches if the Earl would not do all that Sir Bertram bade him. And Sir Bertram proved to the Earl how necessary it was, the King's purse being at that time in no good condition, to win the goodwill of the great lords of the North. He said that the Earl might take all that he could get from the poorer people, but the nobles he must keep his claws from.
Then the Earl agreed with Sir Bertram upon that matter and they set their heads together to see what they might do. And here again it was no easy matter to act by course of law. For there was no doubt that the Earl had given his judgment against the Young Lovell, and there was no process that he knew of by which he could reverse a judgment that he had once given. The Young Lovell must make an appeal to the King in Council and that was a long process. The Earl was willing – though not over-willing – to call out his own ban and arrière ban and to take Castle Lovell by due course of siege. But, if he did that, he must kill utterly the Decies, the two other knights, Sir Henry Vesey of Wallhouses, and the two sisters of the Young Lovell. Moreover, to do as much, the Earl must draw off a great number of his men, and he did not trust some of his neighbours over much. Also, if any one of those persons escaped he or she would have cause to begin endless lawsuits against the Percy for slaying the others or even for taking the Castle from them. For they had his own writ for holding it. Moreover, the Young Lovell would by no means hear of the Percy's laying siege to his Castle. For all that Sir Bertram could say, he declared that if the Percy did this he would fall upon the Percy's forces with his own men. He said that, in the first place it would be black shame to him; in the second, the Percy must needs bang Castle Lovell about more than he himself would care to see, before ever he came in; and finally the Young Lovell shrewdly doubted whether the Percy would ever come out again once he was in.
In the same way the Young Lovell would have no men of the Percy to help him in the attack on his Castle, for he would not trust the Earl of Northumberland. Thus the Knight of Lyonesse did very little of what he was most minded to do. For he wished not only to help the Young Lovell and so make him a friend to the King, but he desired to reconcile him with the Earl of Northumberland that there might be peace in the North parts. However, Sir Bertram achieved this much, that the Young Lovell would let the Lord of Alnwick be in peace if the Lord of Alnwick would let him be, and that was something gained, for at first the Young Lovell had declared that he would try it out with the Percy as soon as he had achieved his first enterprise. But the Percy sent him a very courteous apology, saying that he had delivered his judgment against the Young Lovell only because he must do so as a justice according to the law as the lawyers advised him and that now he was very sorry that he had done it.
For now the raider Gib Elliott was boasting in all the market towns that he had access to, saying that he had held the Young Armstrong prisoner for three months and had ransomed him in Edinburgh. This Elizabeth Campstones, his foster-cousin, had got him to do, sending him word by a little boy and the promise of fifty French crowns. And indeed he was very glad to do it, since it might not only cause strong fellows to resort to him for the renown of it, but it might gain him the friendship of the Young Lovell, which would be a good thing for his widow when he came to be hanged at Carlisle.
And everybody was very glad of that rumour – the Bishop Palatine because it was more to the credit of the Young Lovell whom he supported; the Earl of Northumberland and Sir Bertram of Lyonesse, because it afforded them an excuse for writing broad letters to the King and his Council, asking that the former judgment given by the Earl might be reversed because of the perjury by which it was obtained. The Young Lovell was glad of it too. He thought that it was better for his bondsmen that they should not believe that their lord had spent three months gazing on a fairy woman. For that otherwise they would believe and that it was some make of sorcery, for all that the Bishop had given him absolution. The Young Lovell considered that it is not always good for the lower orders, set in their places by God, to know truths apart from the truths of Holy Church. For the lower orders have weak brains wherein too much truth is like new wine in feeble bottles.
But the Knight of Lyonesse, who had been bidden by King Henry, if he could, to establish himself in the North parts with lands and worship, and to do it, if possible, without calling upon the King to pay for it, went upon another enterprise before June was fourteen days old. For on all hands he heard that the Lady Rohtraut of Castle Lovell was the richest dowager for lands in all Northumberland, and by the disposition of his mind he was not desirous of marrying a young girl that might make a mock of him or worse. Moreover, he heard that the Lady Rohtraut was a fair enough woman of forty-three, with a good temper if she were well-used and not dishonoured, and that he thought he could do well enough. So he was doubly anxious to be of service to the Young Lovell, for, the more he heard of it, the more he was certain that this lady would make a good match for him, and that so he would please King Henry.
For her lands were broad and mostly fertile for the North; her Castle at Cramlin would be a very strong Castle after the Young Lovell had finished the repairs to it at his own expense and it stood very handy at the entrance into Northumberland, so that with help in men from the King, he might very easily work against troubles in that part, whether they came from the North or the South.
So, being in that mind, he went after ten days to pay his devoirs to the old Princess of Croy, for, after he had dwelt with her for one day, he had considered that she desired to charge him too much for his lodging and that he could do better for himself at an inn, where he could send out for his meat and have it cooked by his own man at the common fire. He had enquired of the prices of meat in that town and found that that was so.
But now he wished that he had not done that, since he might have gained more of the old Princess's favour by paying her exorbitant prices. However, he found that that was not the case, for that Princess had so great a respect for money that she esteemed a man the more for being careful of his purse strings, even though it hurt her own pocket. So she greeted him with pleasure and said that she wished her son, Lord Dacre, had been another such.
Sir Bertram had observed a great white mule – the largest he had ever seen – to stand before her door, and she told him that she was just about to set out upon a journey. For, said she, and her face bore every sign of fury, the Young Lovell, as Sir Bertram had heard, had treated her with lewd disrespect and she was minded to read him a lesson. "Madam and my Granddam and gentle Princess," he had said to her – and she mimicked his tones with so much anger that she spat on each side of her, "my mother has languished in prison during half a year and all that time you have done nothing for her."
And now, the old woman said, she was going to do something for her daughter that the Young Lovell would never dare to do. For upon a pillion on that mule, behind her old steward, she was about to ride to Castle Lovell. No guards she would take and no bowman, and there was no other Christian in the City of Durham that dare do as much in those dangerous lands. And being come to Castle Lovell, she would release her daughter with her own hands and all alone, and what make of a boasting fool would that Young Lovell appear then!
The Knight of Cornwall, when he heard those words, bent one knee on the ground and begged that that Princess would take him with her, for he would gladly do so much for that fair lady as well as witness the Princess doing these things. The Princess looked at him sideways in a queer glance and said that he might do if he would bring no men-at-arms to spoil the fame of her feat. He answered that he had the courage for that, but he said gravely that it might be for the comfort of the Lady Rohtraut, who had not the courage of her mother and would fear to travel alone, if his men-at-arms to the number of forty followed behind them, and so, meeting them at Belford or somewhere in that neighbourhood, guarded them on the homeward road. The Princess said that he might do that.
So they rode out and in four days' time they came to Castle Lovell. The Princess was on the white mule behind her steward and Sir Bertram was on a little horse. For, although he would have presented a more splendid appearance to the Lady Rohtraut upon a charger, he did not wish to be at the charges for horsefeed for such a great animal, whereas the galloway could subsist off the grass and herbs that it found by the roadway, though all green things were by that time much withered by the drought. Such weather had never been known in the North parts.
They met with no robbers; only, as they went near the sea to avoid the town of Morpeth so that the Young Lovell should not hear of this adventure, he being at Cramlin all this time – near High Clibburn and just north of Widdrington Castle there met with them Adam Swinburn, a broken gentleman with ten fellows and would have robbed them. But when he heard how they were going to rescue the Lady Rohtraut that all the world was talking of he burst into an immoderate fit of laughter. For he had never had such cause for amusement as to see this fat old woman holding on behind a lean old servingman, with a man all in silks and colours with a great brown beard upon a little horse beside her, his feet brushing the ground. And these three were going to storm a mighty Castle that no forces before ever had sufficed to take. So, when he had done laughing, he rode with them a great piece of the way, even as far as Lesbury and past Warkworth. For he said that if the Earl of Northumberland saw them he would certainly rob them and so deprive that countryside of a great jest. Sir Bertram found this Adam – who was red-headed like all the Swinburns – very pleasant company, and when they parted Sir Bertram swore that when it came to hanging that Adam he would pray the King, if he could not save his life, at least to let it be done with a silken rope.
So, on the fourteenth day of June, at eleven in the morning – and that was seven hours after the Young Lovell took and burned the tower of Cullerford – the mule being very tired and the galloway none too fresh, that company of five, men and beasts, climbed wearily up the hill to Castle Lovell. The captain of the tower called Wanshot where the gate was, let them pass, for he could not see any danger from this old woman and the man in silks. At the door of the keep the Princess slid down from her mule, and pushing the guards there in the chest with her crutch, she went past them into the great hall and the guards let Sir Bertram follow her. In the hall, and crossing it, they found Sir Henry Vesey devising beside a pillar with his sister-in-law Douce that was a little woman. The Princess with a furious voice bade this Lady Douce fall upon her knees, for this was her granddam. That the Lady Douce did, for she could think of no reason to excuse her from it.
Then the Princess Rohtraut began to call out for the keys of her daughter's room, and various men came running in as well as the Lady Isopel, that was the other grand-daughter. There was a great noise, and so Sir Bertram of Lyonesse drew Sir Henry Vesey behind a pillar, and in a low voice strongly enjoined on him to let the Lady Rohtraut go. For he said that he was the King's commissioner and that all that were in that Castle were in a very evil case, for very likely it would soon be taken and all the men there hanged. And he said that Sir Henry was in a different case from the other leaders and that he, Sir Bertram, promised to save his life and gain favour for him with the King if he would let the Lady Rohtraut go. Moreover, he whispered that, Sir Symonde his brother being dead, Sir Henry might have his lands and be free to love his sister-in-law as he listed. For the rumour went that this evil knight was over-fond of the Lady Douce, and it was in that way Elizabeth Campstones saved her life. For, when there was talk of hanging her for having talked to the Young Lovell, she told the Lady Douce that she would inform against her to her husband – which well she could do. So the Lady Douce begged her life of the others.
And after Sir Bertram had talked for a time to Sir Henry Vesey, making him those fair promises, Sir Henry sent a boy for the keys of Wanshot Tower. When he had them he begged that Princess very courteously to follow him, saying that he would take her to her daughter and so set her free. Then began a great clamour between the Ladies Douce and Isopel. The Lady Isopel said that Sir Henry should not do this, the Lady Douce that he should, for she was in all things the slave of Sir Henry, and that the Lady Isopel told her very loudly. But the Knights of Cullerford and Haltwhistle had ridden out to see if they could have news of the Young Lovell, for they knew that he was gathering his forces to come against them.
So Sir Henry did not at all heed the clamour of the Lady Isopel, but walked very grandly before the Princess Rohtraut to Wanshot Tower, and sparks of triumph came from that hobbling old woman's eyes. So when he was come to the door on the inner side of the wall Sir Henry gave into the hands of the Princess the two keys, one of that door and one of the room where the Lady Rohtraut was. Then the Princess went into that tower, and after a space down she came again, and with her were the Lady Rohtraut and Elizabeth Campstones. The Lady Rohtraut took nothing away with her but the clothes she had on her back. Only in her great sleeves she had her little lapdog called Butterfly.
They went as fast as they could up the Belford road, for they were afraid of meeting with Cullerfurd or Haltwhistle. But they had only been gone a little way – the Lady Rohtraut and Elizabeth Campstones riding on Sir Bertram's galloway – when they came upon Sir Bertram's men that were riding over the lea to find him.
That was the first sight Sir Bertram had of that lady whom afterwards, to the scandal of all the North parts, he married. For he was accounted a man of very mean birth and she a very noble lady. But he made her a very good husband, doing her proper honour and very ably conducting her lawsuits, so that she had never a word to say against him.
As for Sir Henry Vesey, when the Knights of Cullerford and Haltwhistle came back, the Lady Isopel cried out against him, calling him a false traitor. But Sir Henry said that the King's commissioner had given him very good reasons why they should let the Lady Rohtraut go. As thus: The Young Lovell, as they had known for a week, held that lady's Castle of Cramlin as well as her houses of Plessey and Killingworth and all her lands. They, on the other hand, held her title deeds, so that was all they could have. If they could have known of the taking of Castle Cramlin earlier, they might have taken it again, by going there in a hurry, but now the Young Lovell sat there, and he was a very difficult commander, and every day more men came in to his orders. They could never get him out of that Castle.
But they held that lady only in order to force her willingly to resign those very lands to them. What, then, would it avail them to hold her any longer, since, if she resigned them twenty times over, the Young Lovell would never let them go? As for threatening to slay that lady if the Young Lovell did not give them her lands, that was more than they dare, so it would enrage all that countryside against them. Even as it was, some that they had counted on as being their friends had fallen away and, if that went further, they would never be able to have fresh meat from their towers.
So Sir Henry gave them many excellent reasons for his action. The Knight of Cullerford would have grumbled against him, for his wife, the Lady Isopel, set him to it. But his brother, Sir Symonde, said he had done very well, for his wife made him say that. The Decies was drunk and took no part in that council. Moreover, they were all afraid of Sir Henry Vesey, and he treated them like children that must do his bidding.
II
Indeed they had few of them much joy in that Castle where at first they had thought to have had great mirth. Only three days before Adam Swinburn, that had sworn to stand their friend, had ridden to a knoll near at hand and had asked to have speech with Sir Symonde Vesey, who was more his friend than the others. So Sir Symonde had gone to a little window that was near the ground in the tower called Constance, and from there had spoken with him. And Adam Swinburn had said that in no way could he any longer promise to aid them, for it was grown too dangerous. He preferred to rob upon the roads. And he counselled them very strongly to make a peace with the Young Lovell who was gathering many men, all the countryside being his friends, and had sworn to hang every man of them that was a leader from the White Tower, and to put his sisters into nunneries. And he said that John of Rokehope and James Cra'ster the younger, as well as Haggerston and Lame Cresswell, who desired to make their peace with King Henry, were all of like mind with him.
It was upon his homeward journey from saying this that Adam Swinburn had come upon the Princess Rohtraut and Bertram of Lyonesse.
All these people, Cra'ster, Haggerston, Lame Cresswell, Adam Swinburn, and others had, in the earlier days of their being at Castle Lovell, held high revel there with them. They were mostly rude and boisterous gentry of very good family who, having been ruined fighting for or against King Edward IV, King Richard or King Henry, were outlawed and lived by robbery, which was also the case with Sir Henry Vesey, of Wallhouses. And when those of the Castle had at first seemed to be triumphing these raiders had made great cause with them. They hoped that thus they might get their lands again of the King. So they had feasted there and drunk and slept in one tower or another along the walls, and had sworn to hold those towers if ever Castle Lovell was attacked.
But, by little and little, all of these gentry had wanted money, and of that those of that Castle had very little or none at all to give them. All the old Lord Lovell's money was in the White Tower, and the bondsmen and other feudal debtors of Castle Lovell refused them their dues.
These things were very sore blows to those of the Castle. They had hoped that Richard Bek, the captain of the White Tower, would surrender that money to them so that they would have been able to give some of it to those boon companions. But Richard Bek would not even answer their summonses; and when they had begged the outlaws to aid them to take the White Tower, James Cra'ster had answered courteously for the rest that they would very willingly have done it had they had wings, but they were not gannets nor yet the angels of God, and so they could not. It was the same thing when those of the Castle asked the outlaws to ride down among the bondsmen that would not pay their rent-hens. None of them would do it.
For the truth of the matter was that Adam Swinburn and the rest were too good friends of Hugh Raket, Barty of the Comb, Corbit Jock, the Widow Taylor with her seven able sons, and the rest. They were the most capable rievers that they could find to ride under their leadership into Scotland or elsewhere. Even Sir Henry Vesey, of Wallhouses, had their aid and company at times.
For the matter of that, Sir Henry Vesey, of Wallhouses, was not so very eager to aid them of the Castle; as the time went on he grew less keen about it. For what they got out of it beyond the shelter of the stone walls he could not tell.
At the first his brother and Sir Walter Limousin had promised him his share of the plunder in the Castle and the money in the White Tower. But the plunder in the Castle had been a small matter. It was not much they had got for the armour sold to Morpeth, though he had taken some of the best pieces and sent them for safety to Wallhouses; they had got very little for such furnishings and carpets as they had sold to the German at Sunderland, and the jewels, as has been told, they could not sell at all.
They had the Castle, but in it not much more than two hundred men, which was little to hold so so great a place with. Thus they could not hold it, as castles are held, as a place from which to ride out and rob in the Borders; they could not spare the men.
So, when Adam Swinburn and the others understood how that case really was, they went, one after the other, away from the towers in the wall where they had slept with their men. They went with courtesy, saying that they would come again and defend those towers if there were need of it. But the truth of the matter was that all of the fresh meat was eaten, which is a thing very unbearable in summer; the best wine was all drunk, for they had pressed heavily on the liquors in the early days; they had tired of all the serving maids that there were in the Castle; the Lady Douce was occupied with Sir Henry Vesey; the Lady Isopel was ugly and a shrew. So they had neither desirable wine nor women; not much prospect of meat nor gold, and what else should keep them? Therefore they rode away.
Then those of the Castle sat down there to wait until Richard Bek, the captain of the White Tower, should surrender, so that they might take the gold. But that was a long matter. For Richard Bek and his men had at their command a great store of the best commodities that had belonged to the late lord. He had stored them in that strong place that was made for it. Sugar even they had and pepper and pippins, and the best wine and figs in honey. They of the Castle had not even fish for Fridays or none but salted cod. But they could see Richard Bek and his men catching fish from the sea with long lines. The water did not come up far enough to let those in the Castle catch fish even at high tides; but to the foot of the White Tower which was further out it came at all times, and the Lord Lovell, under the directions of the French castle-builder, had had the rocks there hollowed away so that a boat could ride there very comfortably when the weather was not too rough. Nevertheless, over that sort of boat-house a machicolation jutted out, so that the boats of any enemy could be swamped with great stones or set burning by means of Greek fire.
Thus those in the Castle could perceive those of the Tower receiving from the sea the carcases of sheep, goats, and small bullocks, so that those men lived very well and comfortably, and there seemed little reason for their ever rendering up that place which the Lord Lovell had built very cunningly for just such an occasion. Of wheat in the Castle they had a sufficient store, and also of salt meat and stock fish.
For two of the towers in the outer wall, that called Constance and that called de Insula, after the Bishop of that name, were nothing less than the one a wheat pit and the other a brine cistern. Those towers contained a chamber each, in the upper story, but all beneath it, to the ground, was windowless space. In the brine that filled thus the tower Constance there floated the carcases of two thousand sheep, one thousand swine, five hundred goats, and five hundred oxen.
Thus they had enough of that sort of food, and in addition they had a great quantity of peas in a barn. But of fresh meat they had none at all. When they wished for it they must send for beasts to Cullerford or Haltwhistle, and on the second occasion that they did this they lost fourteen steers and a quantity of sheep and goats. For, as their men drove these beasts along by the Roman Wall, in a very lonely spot, there came springing down upon them a great number of men well armed, but with their faces blacked. These killed two of the Castle Lovell men and drove away all their cattle through a gap in the Wall towards the North. Those in the Castle thought that this had been done by Haggerston and Lame Cresswell, who were fast friends, and by Barty of the Comb and his fellows. But they had no proof of this, so they could not even fyle a bill against them in the Warden's Court. Moreover, three weeks before they had heard that a vessel was come to Hartlepool that had a number of cannon on board and more than she needed for her defence. These they desired to buy so as to try conclusions with the White Tower. They had with them at that season a Ridley of Willimoteswick as a guest. He was going by sea into Holland, and to this Ridley they confided the buying of such cannon as he could get for them from that ship as well as a great store of gunpowder, for this Ridley was a very honourable man and they could well trust him. So they gave him a hundred and fifty pounds. One or other of those knights might have gone on this errand, but by this time they were all grown very irritable and suspicious, and believed each of them that the others would work him some mischief if he went away even for a little time. For there they were kicking their heels in that fine summer weather, without comfort or occupation. They hardly dared to ride hunting without such a troop of men-at-arms as scared all the deer out of the woods, and at that season of the year they should have been riding into Scotland for their profit and to do feats of arms. Yet there they sat.
A week after that they had a letter from that Ridley of Willimoteswick to say that he had not bought their cannon and should not. For he had heard from his cousin Ridley, that was the monk Francis of Belford, how the Young Lovell was alive that they had sworn to him to be dead. Moreover, that lord had done no sorcery at all, but all that was false witnessing. Therefore Ridley of Willimoteswick counselled them very earnestly to give up that Castle to its rightful lord or he would never be their friend again. Moreover, he said that the monk Francis advised him that the hundred and fifty pounds they had given him for the purchase of cannon was no money of theirs but belonged of right to the Young Lovell. How that might be he did not know, but he was determined to buy them no cannon and to hold that money in his own hands until the rightful ownership should be determined.
Then those of the Castle cried out on the evil that there was in their world and time, and that there was neither faith nor truth in man. The heat blazed down upon them; the Castle stank, and now terror began to come into their souls so that the women wakening in the night or walking round the corners of the stony corridors would scream out suddenly. For on all hands they heard how the Young Lovell's men resorted to him and how Richard Bek had sent him basketsful of gold from the White Tower, lowering them to boats that came on his behalf in the dawn. And knowing him as well as they did, they knew that he was a very fierce and cruel man to evil-doers and destroyers of order in his lands.
