The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 An Historical Romance

CHAPTER XIV.

The May-​Queen and the Pu­ri­tan's Daugh­ter.

Pop­ular sports and pas­times were wise­ly en­cour­aged by James the First, whose great con­sid­er­ation for the en­joy­ments of the hum­bler class­es of his sub­jects can­not be too high­ly com­mend­ed; and since the main pur­pose of this his­to­ry is to point out some of the abus­es preva­lent dur­ing his reign, it is but fair that at least one of the re­deem­ing fea­tures should be men­tioned. It has ev­er been the prac­tice of sour-​spir­it­ed sec­tar­ian­ism to dis­coun­te­nance recre­ations of any kind, how­ev­er harm­less, on the Sab­bath; and sev­er­al fla­grant in­stances of this sort of in­ter­fer­ence, on the part of the pu­ri­tan­ical preach­ers and their dis­ci­ples, hav­ing come be­fore James dur­ing his progress through the north­ern coun­ties of Eng­land, and es­pe­cial­ly Lan­cashire, he caused, on his re­turn to Lon­don, his fa­mous Dec­la­ra­tion con­cern­ing Law­ful Sports on Sun­days and hol­idays to be pro­mul­gat­ed; where­in a se­vere re­buke was ad­min­is­tered to the Pu­ri­tans and pre­cisians, and the cause of the peo­ple es­poused in terms, which, while most cred­itable to the monarch, are not al­to­geth­er in­ap­pli­ca­ble to oth­er times be­sides those in which they were de­liv­ered. “Where­as,” says King James, in his Man­ifesto, “We did just­ly re­buke some Pu­ri­tans and pre­cise peo­ple, and took or­der that the like un­law­ful car­riage should not be used by any of them here­after, in the pro­hibit­ing and un­law­ful pun­ish­ing of our good peo­ple for us­ing their law­ful recre­ations and hon­est ex­er­cis­es up­on Sun­days and oth­er hol­idays, af­ter the af­ter­noon ser­mon or ser­vice: we now find that two sorts of peo­ple where­with that coun­try is much in­fest­ed (we mean Pa­pists and Pu­ri­tans) have ma­li­cious­ly tra­duced those our just and hon­ourable pro­ceed­ings. And there­fore we have thought good here­by to clear and make our plea­sure to be man­ifest­ed to all our good peo­ple in those parts.” And he sums up his ar­gu­ments, in favour of the li­cense grant­ed, as fol­lows:--“For when shall the com­mon peo­ple have leave to ex­er­cise, if not up­on the Sun­days and hol­idays, see­ing they must ap­ply their labour, and win their liv­ing in all work­ing days?” Tru­ly, an unan­swer­able propo­si­tion.

At the same time that these pro­vi­sions for ra­tio­nal recre­ation were made, all un­law­ful games were pro­hib­it­ed. Con­for­mi­ty was strict­ly en­joined on the part of the Pu­ri­tans them­selves; and dis­obe­di­ence was ren­dered pun­ish­able by ex­pa­tri­ation, as in the case of re­cu­sants gen­er­al­ly. Such was the tenor of the roy­al man­date ad­dressed to the bish­op of each dio­cese and to all in­fe­ri­or cler­gy through­out the king­dom. Ar­bi­trary it might be, but it was ex­cel­lent in in­ten­tion; for stub­born-​necked per­son­ages had to be dealt with, with whom milder mea­sures would have proved in­ef­fec­tu­al. As it was, vi­olent op­po­si­tion was raised against the de­cree, and the Pu­ri­tan­ical preach­ers wore loud in its con­dem­na­tion, and as far as was con­sis­tent with safe­ty, ve­he­ment in their at­tacks up­on its roy­al au­thor.

The boon, how­ev­er, was ac­cept­ed by the ma­jor­ity of the peo­ple in the spir­it in which it was of­fered, and the li­cence af­ford­ed them was but lit­tle abused. Per­fect suc­cess, in­deed, must have at­tend­ed the be­nign mea­sure, had it not been for the ef­forts of the Pu­ri­tan­ical and Popish par­ties, who made com­mon cause against it, and strove by ev­ery means to coun­ter­act its ben­efi­cial in­flu­ence: the first be­cause in the aus­ter­ity of their faith they would not have the Sab­bath in the slight­est de­gree pro­faned, even by in­no­cent en­joy­ment; the sec­ond, not be­cause they cared about the fan­cied des­ecra­tion of the Lord's day, but be­cause they would have no oth­er re­li­gion en­joy the same priv­ileges as their own. Thus sec­tar­ian­ism and in­tol­er­ance went for once hand in hand, and open­ly or covert­ly, as they found oc­ca­sion, did their best to make the peo­ple dis­sat­is­fied with the ben­efit ac­cord­ed them, try­ing to per­suade them its ac­cep­tance would prej­udice their eter­nal wel­fare.

Such ar­gu­ments, how­ev­er, had no great weight with the mass­es, who could not be brought to see any heinous or dead­ly sin in law­ful recre­ation or ex­er­cis­es af­ter di­vine ser­vice, al­ways pro­vid­ed the ser­vice it­self were in no re­spect ne­glect­ed; and so the King's de­cree pre­vailed over all sec­tar­ian op­po­si­tion, and was ful­ly car­ried out. The mer­ry month of May be­came re­al­ly a sea­son of en­joy­ment, and was kept as a kind of flo­ral fes­ti­val in ev­ery vil­lage through­out the land. May-​games, Whit­sun-​ales, Mor­rice-​dances, were re­newed as in by­gone times; and all ro­bust and health­ful sports, as leap­ing, vault­ing, and archery, were not on­ly per­mit­ted on Sun­days by the au­thor­ities, but en­joined.

These pre­lim­inary re­marks are made for the bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of what is to fol­low.

We have al­ready stat­ed that long be­fore Jo­ce­lyn and his com­pan­ion reached Tot­ten­ham, they were made aware by the ring­ing of bells from its old ivy-​grown church tow­er, and by oth­er joy­ful sounds, that some fes­ti­val was tak­ing place there; and the na­ture of the fes­ti­val was at once re­vealed, as they en­tered the long strag­gling street, then, as now, con­sti­tut­ing the chief part of the pret­ty lit­tle vil­lage, and be­held a large as­sem­blage of coun­try folk, in hol­iday at­tire, wend­ing their way to­wards the green for the pur­pose of set­ting up a May-​pole up­on it, and mak­ing the welkin ring with their glad­some shouts.

All the youths and maid­ens of Tot­ten­ham and its vicin­ity, it ap­peared, had risen be­fore day­break that morn­ing, and sal­lied forth in­to the woods to cut green boughs, and gath­er wild--flow­ers, for the cer­emo­ni­al. At the same time they se­lect­ed and hewed down a tall, straight tree--the tallest and straight­est they could find; and, strip­ping off its branch­es, placed it on a wain, and dragged it to the vil­lage with the help of an im­mense team of ox­en, num­ber­ing as many as forty yoke. Each ox had a gar­land of flow­ers fas­tened to the tip of its horns; and the tall spar it­self was twined round with ropes of daf­fodils, blue-​bells, cowslips, prim­ros­es, and oth­er ear­ly flow­ers, while its sum­mit was sur­mount­ed with a flo­ral crown, and fes­tooned with gar­lands, var­ious-​coloured ribands, ker­chiefs, and stream­ers. The fore­most yokes of ox­en had bells hung round their necks, which they shook as they moved along, adding their blithe melody to the gen­er­al hi­lar­ious sounds.

When the fes­tive throng reached the vil­lage, all its in­hab­itants--male and fe­male, old and young--rushed forth to greet them; and such as were able to leave their dwellings for a short while joined in the pro­ces­sion, at the head of which, of course, was borne the May-​pole. Af­ter it, came a band of young men, armed with the nec­es­sary im­ple­ments for plant­ing the shaft in the ground; and af­ter them a troop of maid­ens, bear­ing bun­dles of rush­es. Next came the min­strels, play­ing mer­ri­ly on ta­bor, fife, sacbut, re­bec, and tam­bourine. Then fol­lowed the Queen of the May, walk­ing by her­self,--a rus­tic beau­ty, hight Gillian Green­ford,--fan­ci­ful­ly and pret­ti­ly ar­rayed for the oc­ca­sion, and at­tend­ed, at a lit­tle dis­tance, by Robin Hood, Maid Mar­ian, Fri­ar Tuck, the Hob­by-​horse, and a band of mor­rice-​dancers. Then came the crowd, pellmell, laugh­ing, shout­ing, and huz­zaing,--most of the young men and wom­en bear­ing green branch­es of birch and oth­er trees in their hands.

The spot se­lect­ed for the May-​pole was a piece of green sward in the cen­tre of the vil­lage, sur­round­ed by pic­turesque habi­ta­tions, and hav­ing, on one side of it, the an­cient Cross. The lat­ter, how­ev­er, was but the rem­nant of the an­tique struc­ture, the cross hav­ing been robbed of its up­per an­gu­lar bar, and oth­er­wise mu­ti­lat­ed, at the time of the Ref­or­ma­tion, and it was now noth­ing more than a high wood­en pil­lar, part­ly cased with lead to pro­tect it from the weath­er, and sup­port­ed by four great spurs.

Ar­rived at the green, the wain was brought to a halt; the crowd form­ing a vast cir­cle round it, so as not to in­ter­fere with the pro­ceed­ings. The pole was then tak­en out, reared aloft, and so much ac­tiv­ity was dis­played, so many ea­ger hands as­sist­ed, that in an in­con­ceiv­ably short space of time it was firm­ly plant­ed in the ground; whence it shot up like the cen­tral mast of a man-​of-​war, far over­top­ping the roofs of the ad­join­ing hous­es, and look­ing very gay in­deed, with its flo­ral crown a-​top, and its ker­chiefs and stream­ers flut­ter­ing in the breeze.

Loud and re­it­er­at­ed shouts broke from the as­sem­blage on the sat­is­fac­to­ry com­ple­tion of the cer­emo­ny, the church bells pealed mer­ri­ly, and the min­strels played their most en­liven­ing strains. The rush­es were strewn on the ground at the foot of the May-​pole, and ar­bours were formed, with mar­vel­lous celer­ity, in dif­fer­ent parts of the green, with the branch­es of the trees. At the same time, the an­cient Cross was dec­orat­ed with boughs and gar­lands. The whole scene of­fered as pret­ty and cheer­ful a sight as could be de­sired; but there was one be­hold­er, as will present­ly ap­pear, who viewed it in a dif­fer­ent light.

It now came to the Queen of the May's turn to ad­vance to the pole, and sta­tion­ing her­self be­neath it, the mor­rice-​dancers and the rest of the mum­mers formed a ring round her, and, tak­ing hands, foot­ed it mer­ri­ly to the tune of “Green Sleeves.”

Long be­fore this, Jo­ce­lyn and his at­ten­dant had come up, and both were so much in­ter­est­ed that they felt no dis­po­si­tion to de­part. Gillian's at­trac­tions had al­ready fired the in­flammable heart of the ap­pren­tice, who could not with­draw his gaze from her; and so ar­dent were his looks, and so ex­pres­sive his ges­tures of ad­mi­ra­tion, that ere long he suc­ceed­ed, to his no small de­light, in at­tract­ing her no­tice in re­turn.

Gillian Green­ford was a bright-​eyed, fair-​haired young crea­ture; light, laugh­ing, ra­di­ant; with cheeks soft as peach bloom, and beau­ti­ful­ly tinged with red, lips car­na­tion-​hued, and teeth white as pearls. Her par­ti-​coloured, lin­sey-​woolsey pet­ti­coats looped up on one side dis­closed limbs with no sort of rus­tic clum­si­ness about them; but, on the con­trary, a par­tic­ular­ly neat for­ma­tion both of foot and an­kle. Her scar­let bodice, which, like the low­er part of her dress, was dec­orat­ed with span­gles, bu­gles, and tin­sel or­na­ments of var­ious kinds,--very re­splen­dent in the eyes of the sur­round­ing swains, as well as in those of Dick Tav­ern­er,--her bodice, we say, span­ning a slen­der waist, was laced across, while the snowy ker­chief be­neath it did not to­tal­ly con­ceal a very come­ly bust. A wreath of nat­ural flow­ers was twined very grace­ful­ly with­in her wav­ing and al­most lint-​white locks, and in her hand she held a shep­herdess's crook. Such was the Beau­ty of Tot­ten­ham, and the present Queen of the May. Dick Tav­ern­er thought her lit­tle less than an­gel­ic, and there were many be­sides who shared in his opin­ion.

If Dick had been thus cap­ti­vat­ed on the sud­den, Jo­ce­lyn had not es­caped sim­ilar fas­ci­na­tion from an­oth­er quar­ter. It be­fel in this way:

At an open oriel win­dow, in one of the an­cient and pic­turesque habi­ta­tions be­fore de­scribed as fac­ing the green, stood a young maid­en, whose beau­ty was of so high an or­der, and so pe­cu­liar a char­ac­ter, that it at once at­tract­ed and fixed at­ten­tion. Such, at least, was the ef­fect pro­duced by it on Jo­ce­lyn. Shrink­ing from the pub­lic gaze, and, per­haps, from some mo­tive con­nect­ed with re­li­gious scru­ples, scarce­ly deem­ing it right to be a spec­ta­tor of the pass­ing scene, this fair maid­en was so placed as to be al­most screened from gen­er­al view. Yet it chanced that Jo­ce­lyn, from the cir­cum­stance of be­ing on horse­back, and from his po­si­tion, was able to com­mand a por­tion of the room in which she stood; and he watched her for some min­utes be­fore she be­came aware she was the ob­ject of his re­gards. When, at length, she per­ceived that his gaze was steadi­ly fixed up­on her, a deep blush suf­fused her cheeks, and she would have in­stant­ly re­tired, if the young man had not at once low­ered his looks. Still, he ev­er and anon ven­tured a glance to­wards the oriel win­dow, and was de­light­ed to find the maid­en still there,--nay, he fan­cied she must have ad­vanced a step or two, for he could un­ques­tion­ably dis­tin­guish her fea­tures more plain­ly. And love­ly they were--most love­ly! pen­sive in ex­pres­sion, and per­haps a thought too pale, un­til the crim­son­ing tide had mount­ed to her cheek. Thus man­tled with blush­es, her coun­te­nance might gain some­thing in beau­ty, but it lost much of the pe­cu­liar charm which it de­rived from ex­treme trans­paren­cy and white­ness of skin--a tint which set off to per­fec­tion the splen­dour of her mag­nif­icent black eyes, with their dark­ly-​fringed lids and brows, while it al­so re­lieved, in an equal de­gree, the jet­ty lus­tre of her hair. Her fea­tures were exquisite­ly chis­elled, del­icate and clas­si­cal in mould, and stamped with re­fine­ment and in­tel­li­gence. Per­fect sim­plic­ity, com­bined with a to­tal ab­sence of per­son­al or­na­ment, dis­tin­guished her at­tire; and her raven hair was plain­ly, but by no means un­be­com­ing­ly, braid­ed over her snowy fore­head. Some­thing in this sim­plic­ity of cos­tume and in her man­ner in­clined Jo­ce­lyn to think the fair maid­en must be­long to some fam­ily pro­fess­ing Pu­ri­tan­ical opin­ions; and he found, up­on in­quiry from one of his neigh­bours in the throng--an old farmer--that this was ac­tu­al­ly the case.

The young la­dy was Mis­tress Ave­line Calve­ley, his in­for­mant said, on­ly child of Mas­ter Hugh Calve­ley, who had but late­ly come to dwell in Tot­ten­ham, and of whom lit­tle was known, save that he was un­der­stood to have fought at the bat­tle of Lang­side, and served with great brav­ery, un­der Es­sex, both in Spain and in Ire­land, in the times of good Queen Bess--such times as Eng­land would nev­er see again, the old farmer par­en­thet­ical­ly re­marked, with a shake of the head. Mas­ter Hugh Calve­ley, he went on to say, was a strict Pu­ri­tan, aus­tere in his life, and mo­rose in man­ner; an open rail­er against the li­cence of the times, and the profli­ga­cy of the court min­ions,--in con­se­quence of which he had more than once got him­self in­to trou­ble. He ab­horred all such sports as were now go­ing for­ward; and had suc­cess­ful­ly in­ter­fered with the parish priest, Sir Ones­imus, who was some­what of a pre­cisian him­self, to pre­vent the set­ting up the May-​pole on the past Sun­day,--for which, the farmer added, some of the young folks owe him a grudge; and he ex­pressed a hope, at the same time, that the day might pass by with­out any ex­hi­bi­tion be­ing made of their ill-​will to­wards him.

“These Pu­ri­tans are not in favour with our youth,” the old man said; “and no great mar­vel they be not; for they check them in their plea­sures, and re­prove them for harm­less mirth. Now, as to Mis­tress Ave­line her­self, she is de­vout and good; but she takes no part in the en­joy­ments prop­er to her years, and leads a life more like a nun in a con­vent, or a recluse in a cell, than a mar­riage­able young la­dy. She nev­er stirs forth with­out her fa­ther, and, as you may sup­pose, goes more fre­quent­ly to lec­ture, or to church, or to some con­ven­ti­cle, than any­where else. Such a life would not suit my grand­child, Gillian, at all. Nev­er­the­less, Mis­tress Ave­line is a sweet young la­dy, much beloved for her kind­ness and good­ness; and her gen­tle words have healed many a wound oc­ca­sioned by the harsh speech and se­vere re­proofs of her fa­ther. There, Sir,--you may be­hold her fair and saint­ly coun­te­nance now. She seems pleased with the scene, and I am sure she well may be; for it is al­ways a pleas­ant and a heart-​cheer­ing sight to see folks hap­py and en­joy­ing them­selves; and I can­not think that the benef­icent Pow­er above ev­er in­tend­ed we should make our­selves mis­er­able on earth, in or­der to win a place in heav­en. I am an old man, Sir; and feel­ing this to be true, I have ev­er in­cul­cat­ed my opin­ions up­on my chil­dren and grand­chil­dren. Yet I con­fess I am sur­prised--know­ing what I do of her fa­ther's char­ac­ter--that Mis­tress Ave­line should in­dulge her­self with be­hold­ing this pro­fane spec­ta­cle, which ought, by rights, to be odi­ous in her eyes.”

The lat­ter part of this speech was ut­tered with a sly chuck­le on the part of the old farmer, not al­to­geth­er agree­able to Jo­ce­lyn. The grow­ing in­ter­est he felt in the fair Pu­ri­tan ren­dered him sus­cep­ti­ble. The eyes of the two young per­sons had met again more than once, and were not quite so quick­ly with­drawn on ei­ther side as be­fore; per­haps, be­cause Ave­line was less alarmed by the young man's ap­pear­ance, or more at­tract­ed by it; and per­haps, on his part, be­cause he had grown a lit­tle bold­er. We know not how this might be; but we _do_ know that the fair Pu­ri­tan had grad­ual­ly ad­vanced to­wards the front of the win­dow, and was now lean­ing slight­ly out of it, so that her charms of face and fig­ure were more ful­ly re­vealed.

Mean­while, the May-​pole had been plant­ed, and the first dance round it con­clud­ed. At its close, Gillian, quit­ting her post of hon­our near the tree, and leav­ing the mor­rice-​dancers and mum­mers to re­sume their mer­ry rounds, un­sanc­tioned by her sovereign pres­ence, took a tam­bourine from one of the min­strels, and pro­ceed­ed to col­lect gra­tu­ities with­in it in­tend­ed for the hired per­form­ers in the cer­emo­ny. She was very suc­cess­ful in her ef­forts, as the num­ber of coins, soon vis­ible with­in the tam­bourine, showed. Not with­out blush­ing and some hes­ita­tion did the May Queen ap­proach Dick Tav­ern­er. The 'pren­tice made a pre­tence of fum­bling in his pouch in or­der to pro­long the in­ter­view, which chance had thus pro­cured him; and af­ter ut­ter­ing all the com­pli­men­ta­ry phras­es he could muster, and look­ing a great deal more than he said, he wound up his speech by declar­ing he would be­stow a mark (and that was no slight sum, for the high­est coin yet giv­en was a sil­ver groat) up­on the min­strels, if they would play a live­ly dance for him, and she, the May Queen, would grace him with her hand in it. En­cour­aged by the laugh­ter of the by­standers, and doubt­less en­ter­tain­ing no great dis­like to the pro­pos­al, Gillian, with a lit­tle af­fect­ed coy­ness, con­sent­ed; and the mark was im­me­di­ate­ly de­posit­ed in the tam­bourine by Dick, who, trans­port­ed by his suc­cess, sprang from his sad­dle, and com­mit­ting his steed to the care of a youth near him, whom he promised to re­ward for his trou­ble, fol­lowed close af­ter the May Queen, as she pro­ceed­ed with her col­lec­tion. Ere long she came to Jo­ce­lyn, and held out the tam­bourine to­wards him. An idea just then oc­curred to the young man.

“You have a pret­ty nosegay there, fair maid­en,” he said, point­ing to a bunch of pinks and oth­er fra­grant flow­ers in her breast. “I will buy it from you, if you list.”

“You shall have it and wel­come, fair Sir,” Gillian replied, de­tach­ing the bou­quet from her dress, and of­fer­ing it to him.

“Well done, Gillian,” the old farmer cried ap­prov­ing­ly.

“Ah! are you there, grand­sire!” the May Queen ex­claimed. “Come! your gift for the min­strels and mum­mers--quick! quick!”

And while old Green­ford searched for a small coin, Jo­ce­lyn placed a piece of sil­ver in the tam­bourine.

“Will you do me a favour, my pret­ty maid­en?” he said cour­te­ous­ly.

“That I will, right will­ing­ly, fair Sir,” she replied; “pro­vid­ed I may do it hon­est­ly.”

“You shall not do it else,” old Green­ford ob­served.

“Come, your gift, grand­sire--you are slow in find­ing it.”

“Have pa­tience, wench, have pa­tience. Young folks are al­ways in a hur­ry. Here 'tis!”

“On­ly a sil­ver groat!” she ex­claimed, toss­ing her head. “Why, this young man be­hind me gave a mark; and so did this gal­lant gen­tle­man on horse­back.”

“Poh! poh! go along, wench. They will take bet­ter care of their mon­ey when they grow old­er.”

“Stay, my pret­ty maid­en,” Jo­ce­lyn cried; “you have promised to do me a favour.”

“What is it?” she in­quired.

“Present this nosegay on my part to the young la­dy in yon­der win­dow.”

“What! of­fer this to Mis­tress Ave­line Calve­ley?” Gillian ex­claimed in sur­prise. “Are you sure she will ac­cept it, Sir?”

“Tut! do his bid­ding, child, with­out more ado,” old Green­ford in­ter­posed. “I shall like to see what will come of it--ha! ha!”

Gillian could not help smil­ing too, and pro­ceed­ed on her mis­sion. Jo­ce­lyn put his horse in­to mo­tion, and slow­ly fol­lowed her, al­most ex­pect­ing Ave­line to with­draw. But he was agree­ably dis­ap­point­ed by find­ing her main­tain her place at the win­dow. She must have re­marked what was go­ing for­ward, and there­fore her tar­ry­ing em­bold­ened him, and buoyed up his hopes.

Ar­rived be­neath the win­dow, Gillian com­mit­ted the tam­bourine to Dick Tav­ern­er, who still hov­ered be­hind her like her shad­ow, and fas­ten­ing the bou­quet to the end of her shep­herdess's crook held it up to­wards Ave­line, cry­ing out, in a play­ful tone, and with an arch look, “'Tis a love gift to Mis­tress Ave­line Calve­ley on the part of that young cav­alier.”

Whether the of­fer­ing, thus pre­sent­ed, would have been ac­cept­ed may be ques­tioned; but it was nev­er des­tined to reach her for whom it was in­tend­ed. Scarce­ly was the flow­er-​laden crook up­lift­ed, than a man of sin­gu­lar­ly stern as­pect, with gray hair cut close to the head, griz­zled beard, and mil­itary ha­bil­iments of an­cient make, sud­den­ly ap­peared be­hind Ave­line, and seiz­ing the nosegay, cast it an­gri­ly and con­temp­tu­ous­ly forth; so that it fell at Jo­ce­lyn's feet.