into apartments by the keyhole, and leaves them through the casement -
yon black-eyed houri of the Mahometan paradise - when, I say, shall I
see her once more?"
"When your Grace has the truncheon of Lord Lieutenant of the Kingdom,"
said Christian, and left the apartment.
Buckingham stood fixed in contemplation for a moment after he was
gone. "Should I have done this?" he said, arguing the matter with
himself; "or had I the choice rather of doing aught else? Should I not
hasten to the Court, and make Charles aware of the treason which
besets him? I will, by Heaven? - Here, Jerningham, my coach, with the
despatch of light! - I will throw myself at his feet, and tell him of
all the follies which I have dreamed of with this Christian. - And then
he will laugh at me, and spurn me. - No, I have kneeled to him to-day
already, and my repulse was nothing gentle. To be spurned once in the
sun's daily round is enough for Buckingham."
Having made this reflection, he seated himself, and began hastily to
mark down the young nobles and gentlemen of quality, and others, their
very ignoble companions, who he supposed might be likely to assume him
for their leader in any popular disturbance. He had nearly completed
it, when Jerningham entered, to say the coach would be ready in an
instant, and to bring his master's sword, hat, and cloak.
"Let the coachman draw off," said the Duke, "but be in readiness. And
send to the gentlemen thou wilt find named in this list; say I am but
ill at ease, and wish their company to a light collation. Let instant
expedition be made, and care not for expense; you will find most of
them at the Club House in Fuller's Rents."[*]
[*] The place of meeting of the Green Ribbon Club. "Their place of
meeting," says Roger North, "was in a sort of Carrefour at
Chancery Lance, in a centre of business and company most proper
for such anglers of fools. The house was double balconied in
front, as may yet be seen, for the clubbers to issue forth /in
fresco/, with hats and no perukes, pipes in their mouths, merry
faces, and dilated throats for vocal encouragement of the
canaglia below on usual and unusual occasions."
The preparations for festivity were speedily made, and the intended
guests, most of them persons who were at leisure for any call that
promised pleasure, though sometimes more deaf to those of duty, began
speedily to assemble. There were many youths of the highest rank, and
with them, as is usual in those circles, many of a different class,
whom talents, or impudence, or wit, or a turn for gambling, had reared
up into companions for the great and the gay. The Duke of Buckingham
was a general patron of persons of this description; and a numerous
attendance took place on the present occasion.
The festivity was pursued with the usual appliances of wine, music,
and games of hazard; with which, however, there mingled in that period
much more wit, and a good deal more gross profligacy of conversation,
than the talents of the present generation can supply, or their taste
would permit.
The Duke himself proved the complete command which he possessed over
his versatile character, by maintaining the frolic, the laugh, and the
jest, while his ear caught up, and with eagerness, the most distant
sounds, as intimating the commencement of Christian's revolutionary
project. Such sounds were heard from time to time, and from time to
time they died away, without any of those consequences which
Buckingham expected.
At length, and when it was late in the evening, Jerningham announced
Master Chiffinch from the Court; and that worthy personage followed
the annunciation.
"Strange things have happened, my Lord Duke," he said; "your presence
at Court is instantly required by his Majesty."
"You alarm me," said Buckingham, standing up. "I hope nothing has
happened - I hope there is nothing wrong - I hope his Majesty is well?"
"Perfectly well," said Chiffinch; "and desirous to see your Grace
without a moment's delay."
"This is sudden," said the Duke. "You see I have had merry fellows
about me, and am scarce in case to appear, Chiffinch."
"Your Grace seems to be in very handsome plight," said Chiffinch; "and
you know his Majesty is gracious enough to make allowances."
"True," said the Duke, not a little anxious in his mind, touching the
cause of this unexpected summons - "True - his Majesty is most gracious
- I will order my coach."
"Mine is below," replied the royal messenger; "it will save time, if
your Grace will condescend to use it."
Forced from every evasion, Buckingham took a goblet from the table,
and requested his friends to remain at his palace so long as they
could find the means of amusement there. He expected, he said, to
return almost immediately; if not, he would take farewell of them with
his usual toast, "May all of us that are not hanged in the interval,
meet together again here on the first Monday of next month."
This standing toast of the Duke bore reference to the character of
several of his guests; but he did not drink it on the present occasion
without some anticipation concerning his own fate, in case Christian
had betrayed him. He hastily made some addition to his dress, and
attended Chiffinch in the chariot to Whitehall.
CHAPTER XLV
High feasting was there there - the gilded roofs
Rung to the wassail-health - the dancer's step
Sprung to the chord responsive - the gay gamester
To fate's disposal flung his heap of gold,
And laugh'd alike when it increased or lessen'd:
Such virtue hath court-air to teach us patience
Which schoolmen preach in vain.
- WHY COME YE NOT TO COURT?
Upon the afternoon of this eventful day, Charles held his Court in the
Queen's apartments, which were opened at a particular hour to invited
guests of a certain lower degree, but accessible without restriction
to the higher classes of nobility who had from birth, and to the
courtiers who held by office the privilege of the /entrée/.
It was one part of Charles's character, which unquestionably rendered
him personally popular, and postponed to a subsequent reign the
precipitation of his family from the throne, that he banished from his
Court many of the formal restrictions with which it was in other
reigns surrounded. He was conscious of the good-natured grace of his
manners, and trusted to it, often not in vain, to remove evil
impressions arising from actions, which he was sensible could not be
justified on the grounds of liberal or national policy.
In the daytime the King was commonly seen in the public walks alone,
or only attended by one or two persons; and his answer to the
remonstrance of his brother, on the risk of thus exposing his person,
is well known: - "Believe me, James," he said, "no one will murder
/me/, to make /you/ King."
In the same manner, Charles's evenings, unless such as were destined
to more secret pleasures, were frequently spent amongst all who had
any pretence to approach a courtly circle; and thus it was upon the
night which we are treating of. Queen Catherine, reconciled or humbled
to her fate, had long ceased to express any feelings of jealousy, nay,
seemed so absolutely dead to such a passion, that she received at her
drawing-room, without scruple, and even with encouragement, the
Duchesses of Portsmouth and Cleveland, and others, who enjoyed, though
in a less avowed character, the credit of having been royal
favourites. Constraint of every kind was banished from a circle so
composed, and which was frequented at the same time, if not by the
wisest, at least by the wittiest courtiers, who ever assembled round a
monarch, and who, as many of them had shared the wants, and shifts,
and frolics of his exile, had then acquired a sort of prescriptive
licence, which the good-natured prince, when he attained his period of
prosperity, could hardly have restrained had it suited his temper to
do so. This, however, was the least of Charles's thoughts. His manners
were such as secured him from indelicate obtrusion; and he sought no
other protection from over-familiarity, than what these and his ready
wit afforded him.
On the present occasion, he was peculiarly disposed to enjoy the scene
of pleasure which had been prepared. The singular death of Major
Coleby, which, taking place in his own presence, had proclaimed, with
the voice of a passing bell, the ungrateful neglect of the Prince for
whom he had sacrificed everything, had given Charles much pain. But,
in his own opinion at least, he had completely atoned for this
negligence by the trouble which he had taken for Sir Geoffrey Peveril
and his son, whose liberation he looked upon not only as an excellent
good deed in itself, but, in spite of the grave rebuke of Ormond, as
achieved in a very pardonable manner, considering the difficulties
with which he was surrounded. He even felt a degree of satisfaction on
receiving intelligence from the city that there had been disturbances
in the streets, and that some of the more violent fanatics had betaken
themselves to their meeting-houses, upon sudden summons, to inquire,
as their preachers phrased it, into the causes of Heaven's wrath, and
into the backsliding of the Court, lawyers, and jury, by whom the
false and bloody favourers of the Popish Plot were screened and
cloaked from deserved punishment.
The King, we repeat, seemed to hear these accounts with pleasure, even
when he was reminded of the dangerous and susceptible character of
those with whom such suspicions originated. "Will any one now assert,"
he said, with self-complacence, "that I am so utterly negligent of the
interest of friends? - You see the peril in which I place myself, and
even the risk to which I have exposed the public peace, to rescue a
man whom I have scarce seen for twenty years, and then only in his
buff-coat and bandoleers, with other Train-Band officers who kissed
hands upon the Restoration. They say Kings have long hands - I think
they have as much occasion for long memories, since they are expected
to watch over and reward every man in England, who hath but shown his
goodwill by crying 'God save the King!'"
"Nay, the rogues are even more unreasonable still," said Sedley; "for
every knave of them thinks himself entitled to your Majesty's
protection in a good cause, whether he has cried God save the King or
no."
The King smiled, and turned to another part of the stately hall, where
everything was assembled which could, according to the taste of the
age, make the time glide pleasantly away.
In one place, a group of the young nobility, and of the ladies of the
Court, listened to the reader's acquaintance Empson, who was
accompanying with his unrivalled breathings on the flute, a young
siren, who, while her bosom palpitated with pride and with fear,
warbled to the courtly and august presence the beautiful air
beginning -
"Young I am, and yet unskill'd,
How to make a lover yield," &c.
She performed her task in a manner so corresponding with the strains
of the amatory poet, and the voluptuous air with which the words had
been invested by the celebrated Purcel, that the men crowded around in
ecstasies, while most of the ladies thought it proper either to look
extremely indifferent to the words she sung, or to withdraw from the
circle as quietly as possible. To the song succeeded a concerto,
performed by a select band of most admirable musicians, which the
King, whose taste was indisputable, had himself selected.
At other tables in the apartment, the elder courtiers worshipped
Fortune, at the various fashionable games of ombre, quadrille, hazard,
and the like; while heaps of gold which lay before the players,
augmented or dwindled with every turn of a card or cast of a die. Many
a year's rent of fair estates was ventured upon the main or the odds;
which, spent in the old deserted manor-house, had repaired the ravages
of Cromwell upon its walls, and replaced the sources of good
housekeeping and hospitality, that, exhausted in the last age by fine
and sequestration, were now in a fair way of being annihilated by
careless prodigality. Elsewhere, under cover of observing the
gamester, or listening to the music, the gallantries of that all-
licensed age were practised among the gay and fair, closely watched
the whilst by the ugly or the old, who promised themselves at least
the pleasure of observing, and it may be that of proclaiming,
intrigues in which they could not be sharers.
From one table to another glided the merry Monarch, exchanging now a
glance with a Court beauty, now a jest with a Court wit, now beating
time to the music, and anon losing or winning a few pieces of gold on
the chance of the game to which he stood nearest; - the most amiable of
voluptuaries - the gayest and best-natured of companions - the man that
would, of all others, have best sustained his character, had life been
a continued banquet, and its only end to enjoy the passing hour, and
send it away as pleasantly as might be.
But Kings are least of all exempted from the ordinary lot of humanity;
and Seged of Ethiopia is, amongst monarchs, no solitary example of the
vanity of reckoning on a day or an hour of undisturbed serenity. An
attendant on the Court announced suddenly to their Majesties that a
lady, who would only announce herself as a Peeress of England, desired
to be admitted into the presence.
The Queen said, hastily, it was /impossible/. No peeress, without
announcing her title, was entitled to the privilege of her rank.
"I could be sworn," said a nobleman in attendance, "that it is some
whim of the Duchess of Newcastle."
The attendant who brought the message, said that he did indeed believe
it to be the Duchess, both from the singularity of the message, and
that the lady spoke with somewhat a foreign accent.
"In the name of madness, then," said the King, "let us admit her. Her
Grace is an entire raree-show in her own person - a universal
masquerade - indeed a sort of private Bedlam-hospital, her whole ideas
being like so many patients crazed upon the subjects of love and
literature, who act nothing in their vagaries, save Minerva, Venus,
and the nine Muses."
"Your Majesty's pleasure must always supersede mine," said the Queen.
"I only hope I shall not be expected to entertain so fantastic a
personage. The last time she came to Court, Isabella" - (she spoke to
one of her Portuguese ladies of honour) - "you had not returned from
our lovely Lisbon! - her Grace had the assurance to assume a right to
bring a train-bearer into my apartment; and when this was not allowed,
what then, think you, she did? - even caused her train to be made so
long, that three mortal yards of satin and silver remained in the
antechamber, supported by four wenches, while the other end was
attached to her Grace's person, as she paid her duty at the upper end
of the presence-room. Full thirty yards of the most beautiful silk did
her Grace's madness employ in this manner."
"And most beautiful damsels they were who bore this portentous train,"
said the King - "a train never equalled save by that of the great comet
in sixty-six. Sedley and Etherege told us wonders of them; for it is
one advantage of this new fashion brought up by the Duchess, that a
matron may be totally unconscious of the coquetry of her train and its
attendants."
"Am I to understand, then, your Majesty's pleasure is, that the lady
is to be admitted?" said the usher.
"Certainly," said the King; "that is, if the incognita be really
entitled to the honour. - It may be as well to inquire her title - there
are more madwomen abroad than the Duchess of Newcastle. I will walk
into the anteroom myself, and receive your answer."
But ere Charles had reached the lower end of the apartment in his
progress to the anteroom, the usher surprised the assembly by
announcing a name which had not for many a year been heard in these
courtly halls - "the Countess of Derby!"
Stately and tall, and still, at an advanced period of life, having a
person unbroken by years, the noble lady advanced towards her
Sovereign, with a step resembling that with which she might have met
an equal. There was indeed nothing in her manner that indicated either
haughtiness or assumption unbecoming that presence; but her
consciousness of wrongs, sustained from the administration of Charles,
and of the superiority of the injured party over those from whom, or
in whose name, the injury had been offered, gave her look dignity, and
her step firmness. She was dressed in widow's weeds, of the same
fashion which were worn at the time her husband was brought to the
scaffold; and which, in the thirty years subsequent to that event, she
had never permitted her tirewoman to alter.
The surprise was no pleasing one to the King; and cursing in his heart
the rashness which had allowed the lady entrance on the gay scene in
which they were engaged, he saw at the same time the necessity of
receiving her in a manner suitable to his own character, and her rank
in the British Court. He approached her with an air of welcome, into
which he threw all his natural grace, while he began, "/Chère Comtesse
de Derby, puissante Reine de Man, notre très auguste sœur - - /"
"Speak English, sire, if I may presume to ask such a favour," said the
Countess. "I am a Peeress of this nation - mother to one English Earl,
and widow, alas, to another! In England I have spent my brief days of
happiness, my long years of widowhood and sorrow. France and its
language are but to me the dreams of an uninteresting childhood. I
know no tongue save that of my husband and my son. Permit me, as the
widow and mother of Derby, thus to render my homage."
She would have kneeled, but the King gracefully prevented her, and,
saluting her cheek, according to the form, led her towards the Queen,
and himself performed the ceremony of introduction. "Your Majesty," he
said, "must be informed that the Countess has imposed a restriction on
French - the language of gallantry and compliment. I trust your Majesty
will, though a foreigner, like herself, find enough of honest English
to assure the Countess of Derby with what pleasure we see her at
Court, after the absence of so many years."
"I will endeavour to do so, at least," said the Queen, on whom the
appearance of the Countess of Derby made a more favourable impression
than that of many strangers, whom, at the King's request, she was in
the habit of receiving with courtesy.
Charles himself again spoke. "To any other lady of the same rank I
might put the question, why she was so long absent from the circle? I
fear I can only ask the Countess of Derby, what fortunate cause
produces the pleasure of seeing her here?"
"No fortunate cause, my liege, though one most strong and urgent."
The King augured nothing agreeable from this commencement; and in
truth, from the Countess's first entrance, he had anticipated some
unpleasant explanation, which he therefore hastened to parry, having
first composed his features into an expression of sympathy and
interest.
"If," said he, "the cause is of a nature in which we can render
assistance, we cannot expect your ladyship should enter upon it at the
present time; but a memorial addressed to our secretary, or, if it is
more satisfactory, to ourselves directly, will receive our immediate,
and I trust I need not add, our favourable construction."
The Countess bowed with some state, and answered, "My business, sire,
is indeed important; but so brief, that it need not for more than a
few minutes withdraw your ear from what is more pleasing; - yet it is
so urgent, that I am afraid to postpone it even for a moment."
"This is unusual," said Charles. "But you, Countess of Derby, are an
unwonted guest, and must command my time. Does the matter require my
private ear?"
"For my part," said the Countess, "the whole Court might listen; but
you Majesty may prefer hearing me in the presence of one or two of
your counsellors."
"Ormond," said the King, looking around, "attend us for an instant -
and do you, Arlington, do the same."
The King led the way into an adjoining cabinet, and, seating himself,
requested the Countess would also take a chair. "It needs not, sire,"
she replied; then pausing for a moment, as if to collect her spirits,
she proceeded with firmness.
"Your Majesty well said that no light cause had drawn me from my
lonely habitation. I came not hither when the property of my son - that
property which descended to him from a father who died for your
Majesty's rights - was conjured away from him under pretext of justice,
that it might first feed the avarice of the rebel Fairfax, and then
supply the prodigality of his son-in-law, Buckingham."
"These are over harsh terms, lady," said the King. "A legal penalty
was, as we remember, incurred by an act of irregular violence - so our
courts and our laws term it, though personally I have no objection to
call it, with you, an honourable revenge. But admit it were such, in
prosecution of the laws of honour, bitter legal consequences are often
necessarily incurred."
"I come not to argue for my son's wasted and forfeited inheritance,
sire," said the Countess; "I only take credit for my patience, under
that afflicting dispensation. I now come to redeem the honour of the
House of Derby, more dear to me than all the treasures and lands which
ever belonged to it."
"And by whom is the honour of the House of Derby impeached?" said the
King; "for on my word you bring me the first news of it."
"Has there one Narrative, as these wild fictions are termed, been
printed with regard to the Popish Plot - this pretended Plot as I will
call it - in which the honour of our house has not been touched and
tainted? And are there not two noble gentlemen, father and son, allies
of the House of Stanley, about to be placed in jeopardy of their
lives, on account of matters in which we are the parties first
impeached?"
The King looked around, and smiled to Arlington and Ormond. "The
Countess's courage, methinks, shames ours. What lips dared have called
the immaculate Plot /pretended/, or the Narrative of the witnesses,
our preservers from Popish knives, a wild fiction? - But, madam," he
said, "though I admire the generosity of your interference in behalf
of the two Peverils, I must acquaint you, that your interference is
unnecessary - they are this morning acquitted."
"Now may God be praised!" said the Countess, folding her hands. "I
have scarce slept since I heard the news of their impeachment; and
have arrived here to surrender myself to your Majesty's justice, or to
the prejudices of the nation, in hopes, by so doing, I might at least
save the lives of my noble and generous friends, enveloped in
suspicion only, or chiefly, by their connection with us. - Are they
indeed acquitted?"
"They are, by my honour," said the King. "I marvel you heard it not."
"I arrived but last night, and remained in the strictest seclusion,"
said the Countess, "afraid to make any inquiries that might occasion
discovery ere I saw your Majesty."
"And now that we /have/ met," said the King, taking her hand kindly -
"a meeting which gives me the greatest pleasure - may I recommend to
you speedily to return to your royal island with as little /éclat/ as
you came thither? The world, my dear Countess, has changed since we
were young. Men fought in the Civil War with good swords and muskets;
but now we fight with indictments and oaths, and such like legal
weapons. You are no adept in such warfare; and though I am well aware
you know how to hold out a castle, I doubt much if you have the art to
parry off an impeachment. This Plot has come upon us like a land storm
- there is no steering the vessel in the teeth of the tempest - we must
run for the nearest haven, and happy if we can reach one."
"This is cowardice, my liege," said the Countess - "Forgive the word! -
it is but a woman who speaks it. Call your noble friends around you,
and make a stand like your royal father. There is but one right and
one wrong - one honourable and forward course; and all others which
deviate are oblique and unworthy."
"Your language, my venerated friend," said Ormond, who saw the
necessity of interfering betwixt the dignity of the actual Sovereign
and the freedom of the Countess, who was generally accustomed to
receive, not to pay observance, - "your language is strong and decided,
but it applies not to the times. It might occasion a renewal of the
Civil War, and of all its miseries, but could hardly be attended with
the effects you sanguinely anticipate."
"You are too rash, my Lady Countess," said Arlington, "not only to
rush upon this danger yourself, but to desire to involve his Majesty.
Let me say plainly, that, in this jealous time, you have done but ill
to exchange the security of Castle Rushin for the chance of a lodging
in the Tower of London."
"And were I to kiss the block there," said the Countess, "as did my
husband at Bolton-on-the-Moors, I would do so willingly, rather than
forsake a friend! - and one, too, whom, as in the case of the younger
Peveril, I have thrust upon danger."
"But have I not assured you that both of the Peverils, elder and
younger, are freed from peril?" said the King; "and, my dear Countess,
what can else tempt you to thrust /yourself/ on danger, from which,
doubtless, you expect to be relieved by my intervention? Methinks a
lady of your judgment should not voluntarily throw herself into a
river, merely that her friends might have the risk and merit of
dragging her out."
The Countess reiterated her intention to claim a fair trial. - The two
counsellors again pressed their advice that she should withdraw,
though under the charge of absconding from justice, and remain in her
own feudal kingdom.
The King, seeing no termination to the debate, gently reminded the
Countess that her Majesty would be jealous if he detained her ladyship
longer, and offered her his hand to conduct her back to the company.
This she was under the necessity of accepting, and returned
accordingly to the apartments of state, where an event occurred
immediately afterwards, which must be transferred to the next chapter.
CHAPTER XLVI
Here stand I tight and trim,
Quick of eye, though little of limb;
He who denieth the word I have spoken,
Betwixt him and me shall lances be broken.
- LAY OF THE LITTLE JOHN DE SAINTRE.
When Charles had reconducted the Countess of Derby into the presence-
chamber, before he parted with her, he entreated her, in a whisper, to
be governed by good counsel, and to regard her own safety; and then
turned easily from her, as if to distribute his attentions equally
among the other guests.
These were a good deal circumscribed at the instant, by the arrival of
a party of five or six musicians; one of whom, a German, under the
patronage of the Duke of Buckingham, was particularly renowned for his
performance on the violoncello, but had been detained in inactivity in
the antechamber by the non-arrival of his instrument, which had now at
length made its appearance.
The domestic who placed it before the owner, shrouded as it was within
its wooden case, seemed heartily glad to be rid of his load, and
lingered for a moment, as if interested in discovering what sort of
instrument was to be produced that could weigh so heavily. His
curiosity was satisfied, and in a most extraordinary manner; for,
while the musician was fumbling with the key, the case being for his
greater convenience placed upright against the wall, the case and
instrument itself at once flew open, and out started the dwarf,
Geoffrey Hudson, - at sight of whose unearthly appearance, thus
suddenly introduced, the ladies shrieked, and ran backwards; the
gentlemen started, and the poor German, on seeing the portentous
delivery of his fiddle-case, tumbled on the floor in an agony,
supposing, it might be, that his instrument was metamorphosed into the
strange figure which supplied its place. So soon, however, as he
recovered, he glided out of the apartment, and was followed by most of
his companions.
"Hudson!" said the King - "My little old friend, I am not sorry to see
you; though Buckingham, who I suppose is the purveyor of this jest,
hath served us up but a stale one."
"Will your Majesty honour me with one moment's attention?" said
Hudson.
"Assuredly, my good friend," said the King. "Old acquaintances are
springing up in every quarter to-night; and our leisure can hardly be
better employed than in listening to them. - It was an idle trick of
Buckingham," he added, in a whisper to Ormond, "to send the poor thing
hither, especially as he was to-day tried for the affair of the plot.
At any rate he comes not to ask protection from us, having had the
rare fortune to come off /Plot-free/. He is but fishing, I suppose,
for some little present or pension."
The little man, precise in Court etiquette, yet impatient of the
King's delaying to attend to him, stood in the midst of the floor,
most valorously pawing and prancing, like a Scots pony assuming the
airs of a war-horse, waving meanwhile his little hat with the
tarnished feather, and bowing from time to time, as if impatient to be
heard.
"Speak on, then, my friend," said Charles; "if thou hast some poetical
address penned for thee, out with it, that thou mayst have time to
repose these flourishing little limbs of thine."
"No poetical speech have I, most mighty Sovereign," answered the
dwarf; "but, in plain and most loyal prose, I do accuse, before this
company, the once noble Duke of Buckingham of high treason!"
"Well spoken, and manfully - Get on, man," said the King, who never
doubted that this was the introduction to something burlesque or
witty, not conceiving that the charge was made in solemn earnest.
A great laugh took place among such courtiers as heard, and among many
who did not hear, what was uttered by the dwarf; the former
entertained by the extravagant emphasis and gesticulation of the
little champion, and the others laughing not the less loud that they
laughed for example's sake, and upon trust.
"What matter is there for all this mirth?" said he, very indignantly -
"Is it fit subject for laughing, that I, Geoffrey Hudson, Knight, do,
before King and nobles, impeach George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham,
of high treason?"
"No subject of mirth, certainly," said Charles, composing his
features; "but great matter of wonder. - Come, cease this mouthing, and
prancing, and mummery. - If there be a jest, come out with it, man; and
if not, even get thee to the beaffet, and drink a cup of wine to
refresh thee after thy close lodging."
"I tell you, my liege," said Hudson impatiently, yet in a whisper,
intended only to be audible by the King, "that if you spend overmuch
time in trifling, you will be convinced by dire experience of
Buckingham's treason. I tell you, - I asseverate to your Majesty, - two
hundred armed fanatics will be here within the hour, to surprise the
guards."
"Stand back, ladies," said the King, "or you may hear more than you
will care to listen to. My Lord of Buckingham's jests are not always,
you know, quite fitted for female ears; besides, we want a few words
in private with our little friend. You, my Lord of Ormond - you,
Arlington" (and he named one or two others), "may remain with us."
The gay crowd bore back, and dispersed through the apartment - the men
to conjecture what the end of this mummery, as they supposed it, was
likely to prove; and what jest, as Sedley said, the bass-fiddle had
been brought to bed of - and the ladies to admire and criticise the
antique dress, and richly embroidered ruff and hood of the Countess of
Derby, to whom the Queen was showing particular attention.
"And now, in the name of Heaven, and amongst friends," said the King
to the dwarf, "what means all this?"
"Treason, my lord the King! - Treason to his Majesty of England! - When
I was chambered in yonder instrument, my lord, the High-Dutch fellows
who bore me, carried me into a certain chapel, to see, as they said to
each other, that all was ready. Sire, I went where bass-fiddle never
went before, even into a conventicle of Fifth-Monarchists; and when
they brought me away, the preacher was concluding his sermon, and was
within a 'Now to apply' of setting off like the bell-wether at the
head of his flock, to surprise your Majesty in your royal Court! I
heard him through the sound-holes of my instrument, when the fellow
set me down for a moment to profit by this precious doctrine."
"It would be singular," said Lord Arlington, "were there some reality
at the bottom of this buffoonery; for we know these wild men have been
consulting together to-day, and five conventicles have held a solemn
fast."
"Nay," said the King, "if that be the case, they are certainly
determined on some villainy."
"Might I advise," said the Duke of Ormond, "I would summon the Duke of
Buckingham to this presence. His connections with the fanatics are
well known, though he affects to conceal them."
"You would not, my lord, do his Grace the injustice to treat him as a
criminal on such a charge as this?" said the King. "However," he
added, after a moment's consideration, "Buckingham is accessible to
every sort of temptation, from the flightiness of his genius. I should
not be surprised if he nourished hopes of an aspiring kind - I think we
had some proof of it lately. - Hark ye, Chiffinch; go to him instantly,
and bring him here on any fair pretext thou canst devise. I would fain
save him from what lawyers call an overt act. The Court would be dull
as a dead horse were Buckingham to miscarry."
"Will not your Majesty order the Horse Guards to turn out?" said young
Selby, who was present, and an officer.
"No, Selby," said the King, "I like not horse-play. But let them be
prepared; and let the High Bailiff collect his civil officers, and
command the Sheriffs to summon their worshipful attendants from
javelin-men to hangmen, and have them in readiness, in case of any
sudden tumult - double the sentinels on the doors of the palace - and
see no strangers get in."
"Or /out/," said the Duke of Ormond. "Where are the foreign fellows
who brought in the dwarf?"
They were sought for, but they were not to be found. They had
retreated, leaving their instruments - a circumstance which seemed to
bear hard on the Duke of Buckingham, their patron.
Hasty preparations were made to provide resistance to any effort of
despair which the supposed conspirators might be driven to; and in the
meanwhile, the King, withdrawing with Arlington, Ormond, and a few
other counsellors, into the cabinet where the Countess of Derby had
had her audience, resumed the examination of the little discoverer.
His declaration, though singular, was quite coherent; the strain of
romance intermingled with it, being in fact a part of his character,
which often gained him the fate of being laughed at, when he would
otherwise have been pitied, or even esteemed.
He commenced with a flourish about his sufferings for the Plot, which
the impatience of Ormond would have cut short, had not the King
reminded his Grace, that a top, when it is not flogged, must needs go
down of itself at the end of a definite time, while the application of
the whip may keep it up for hours.
Geoffrey Hudson was, therefore, allowed to exhaust himself on the
subject of his prison-house, which he informed the King was not
without a beam of light - an emanation of loveliness - a mortal angel -
quick of step and beautiful of eye, who had more than once visited his
confinement with words of cheering and comfort.
"By my faith," said the King, "they fare better in Newgate than I was
aware of. Who would have thought of the little gentleman being solaced
with female society in such a place?"
"I pray your Majesty," said the dwarf, after the manner of a solemn
protest, "to understand nothing amiss. My devotion to this fair
creature is rather like what we poor Catholics pay to the blessed
saints, than mixed with any grosser quality. Indeed, she seems rather
a sylphid of the Rosicrucian system, than aught more carnal; being
slighter, lighter, and less than the females of common life, who have
something of that coarseness of make which is doubtless derived from
the sinful and gigantic race of the antediluvians."
"Well, say on, man," quoth Charles. "Didst thou not discover this
sylph to be a mere mortal wench after all?"
"Who? - I, my liege? - Oh, fie!"
"Nay, little gentleman, do not be so particularly scandalised," said
the King; "I promise you I suspect you of no audacity of gallantry."
"Time wears fast," said the Duke of Ormond impatiently, and looking at
his watch. "Chiffinch hath been gone ten minutes, and ten minutes will
bring him back."
"True," said Charles gravely. "Come to the point, Hudson; and tell us
what this female has to do with your coming hither in this
extraordinary manner."
"Everything, my lord," said little Hudson. "I saw her twice during my
confinement in Newgate, and, in my thought, she is the very angel who
guards my life and welfare; for, after my acquittal, as I walked
towards the city with two tall gentlemen, who had been in trouble
along with me, and just while we stood to our defence against a
rascally mob, and just as I had taken possession of an elevated
situation, to have some vantage against the great odds of numbers, I
heard a heavenly voice sound, as it were, from a window behind me,
counselling me to take refuge in a certain house; to which measure I
readily persuaded my gallant friends the Peverils, who have always
shown themselves willing to be counselled by me."
"Showing therein their wisdom at once and modesty," said the King.
"But what chanced next? Be brief - be like thyself, man."
"For a time, sire," said the dwarf, "it seemed as if I were not the
principal object of attention. First, the younger Peveril was
withdrawn from us by a gentleman of venerable appearance, though
something smacking of a Puritan, having boots of neat's leather, and
wearing his weapon without a sword-knot. When Master Julian returned,
he informed us, for the first time, that we were in the power of a
body of armed fanatics who were, as the poet says, prompt for direful
act. And your Majesty will remark, that both father and son were in
some measure desperate, and disregardful from that moment of the
assurances which I gave them, that the star which I was bound to
worship, would, in her own time, shine forth in signal of our safety.
May it please your Majesty, in answer to my hilarious exhortations to
confidence, the father did but say /tush/, and the son /pshaw/, which
showed how men's prudence and manners are disturbed by affliction.
Nevertheless, these two gentlemen, the Peverils, forming a strong
opinion of the necessity there was to break forth, were it only to
convey a knowledge of these dangerous passages to your Majesty,
commenced an assault on the door of the apartment, I also assisting
with the strength which Heaven hath given, and some threescore years
have left me. We could not, as it unhappily proved, manage our attempt