The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 An Historical Romance

CHAPTER XX.

King James the First.

Mean­time the roy­al cav­al­cade came slow­ly up the av­enue. It was very nu­mer­ous, and all the more bril­liant in ap­pear­ance, since it com­prised near­ly as many high-​born dames as no­bles. Amongst the dis­tin­guished for­eign­ers who with their at­ten­dants swelled the par­ty were the Vene­tian lieger-​am­bas­sador Gius­tini­ano, and the Mar­quis de Tremouille, of the fam­ily des Ursins, am­bas­sador from France.

These ex­alt­ed per­son­ages rode close be­hind the King, and one or the oth­er of them was con­stant­ly en­gaged in con­ver­sa­tion with him. Gius­tini­ano had one of those dark, grave, hand­some coun­te­nances fa­mil­iar­ized to us by the por­traits of Titian and Tin­toret­to, and even the King's jests failed in mak­ing him smile. He was ap­par­elled en­tire­ly in black vel­vet, with a cloak bor­dered with the cost­ly fur of the black fox. All his fol­low­ers were sim­ilar­ly at­tired. The som­bre Vene­tian pre­sent­ed a strik­ing con­trast to his vi­va­cious com­pan­ion, the gay and grace­ful De Tremouille, who glit­tered in white satin, em­broi­dered with leaves of sil­ver, while the same colour and the same or­na­ments were adopt­ed by his ret­inue.

No or­der of prece­dence was ob­served by the court no­bles. Each rode as he list­ed. Prince Charles was ab­sent, and so was the supreme favourite Buck­ing­ham; but their places were sup­plied by some of the chief per­son­ages of the realm, in­clud­ing the Earls of Arun­del, Pem­broke, and Mont­gomery, the Mar­quis of Hamil­ton, and the Lords Hadding­ton, Fen­ton, and Don­cast­er. In­ter­min­gled with the no­bles, the courtiers of less­er rank, and the am­bas­sadors' fol­low­ers, were the ladies, most of whom claimed at­ten­tion from per­son­al charms, rich at­tire, and the grace and skill with which they man­aged their hors­es.

Per­haps the most beau­ti­ful amongst them was the young Count­ess of Ex­eter, whose mag­nif­icent black eyes did great ex­ecu­tion. The love­ly Count­ess was mount­ed on a fiery Span­ish barb, giv­en to her by De Gon­do­mar. Forced in­to a union with a gouty and de­crepit old hus­band, the Count­ess of Ex­eter might have plead­ed this cir­cum­stance in ex­ten­ua­tion of some of her fol­lies. It was un­doubt­ed­ly an ar­gu­ment em­ployed by her ad­mir­ers, who, in en­deav­our­ing to shake her fi­deli­ty to her lord, told her it was an in­famy that she should be sac­ri­ficed to such an old dotard as he. Whether these ar­gu­ments pre­vailed in more cas­es than one we shall not in­quire too nice­ly; but, if court-​scan­dal may be re­lied on, they did--Buck­ing­ham and De Gon­do­mar be­ing both re­put­ed to have been her lovers.

The last, how­ev­er, in the list, and the one who ap­peared to be most pas­sion­ate­ly en­am­oured of the beau­ti­ful Count­ess, and to re­ceive the largest share of her re­gard, was Lord Roos; and as this cul­pa­ble at­tach­ment and its con­se­quences con­nect them­selves in­ti­mate­ly with our his­to­ry we have been obliged to ad­vert to them thus par­tic­ular­ly. Lord Roos was a near rel­ative of the Earl of Ex­eter; and al­though the in­firm and gouty old peer had been ex­ces­sive­ly jeal­ous of his love­ly young wife on for­mer oc­ca­sions, when she had ap­peared to tri­fle with his hon­our, he seemed per­fect­ly easy and un­sus­pi­cious now, though there was in­finite­ly more cause for dis­trust. Pos­si­bly he had too much re­liance on Lord Roos's good feel­ings and prin­ci­ples to sus­pect him.

Very dif­fer­ent was La­dy Roos's con­duct. This un­hap­py la­dy, whom we have al­ready men­tioned as the daugh­ter of Sir Thomas Lake, Sec­re­tary of State, had the mis­for­tune to be sin­cere­ly at­tached to her hand­some but prof­li­gate hus­band, whose ne­glect and fre­quent ir­reg­ular­ities she had par­doned, un­til the ut­ter es­trange­ment, oc­ca­sioned by his pas­sion for the Count­ess of Ex­eter, filled her with such trou­ble, that, over­pow­ered at length by an­guish, she com­plained to her moth­er La­dy Lake,--an am­bi­tious and im­pe­ri­ous wom­an, whose van­ity had prompt­ed her to bring about this un­for­tu­nate match. Ex­press­ing the great­est in­dig­na­tion at the treat­ment her daugh­ter had ex­pe­ri­enced, La­dy Lake coun­selled her to re­sent it, un­der­tak­ing her­self to open the eyes of the in­jured Earl of Ex­eter to his wife's in­fi­deli­ty; but she was dis­suad­ed from her pur­pose by Sir Thomas Lake. Though gen­er­al­ly gov­erned by his wife, Sir Thomas suc­ceed­ed, in this in­stance, in over-​rul­ing her de­sign of pro­ceed­ing at once to ex­trem­ities with the guilty pair, rec­om­mend­ing that, in the first in­stance, Lord Roos should be strong­ly re­mon­strat­ed with by La­dy Lake and her daugh­ter, when per­haps his fears might be aroused, if his sense of du­ty could not be awak­ened.

This fi­nal ap­peal had not yet been made; but an in­ter­view had tak­en place be­tween La­dy Roos and her hus­band, at which, with many pas­sion­ate en­treaties, she had im­plored him to shake off the thral­dom in which he had bound him­self, and to re­turn to her, when all should be for­giv­en and for­got­ten,--but with­out ef­fect.

Thus mat­ters stood at present.

As we have seen, though the Count­ess of Ex­eter formed one of the chief or­na­ments of the hawk­ing par­ty, Lord Roos had not joined it; his ab­sence be­ing oc­ca­sioned by a sum­mons from the Conde de Gon­do­mar, with some of whose po­lit­ical in­trigues he was se­cret­ly mixed up. Whether the Count­ess missed him or not, we pre­tend not to say. All we are able to de­clare is, she was in high spir­its, and seemed in no mood to check the ad­vances of oth­er as­pi­rants to her favour. Her beau­ti­ful and ex­pres­sive fea­tures beamed with con­stant smiles, and her lus­trous black eyes seemed to cre­ate a flame wher­ev­er their beams alight­ed.

But we must quit this en­chantress and her spells, and pro­ceed with the de­scrip­tion of the roy­al par­ty. In the rear of those on horse­back walked the fal­con­ers, in liv­er­ies of green cloth, with bu­gles hang­ing from the shoul­der; each man hav­ing a hawk up­on his fist, com­plete­ly 'tired in its hood, bells, varvels, and jess­es. At the heels of the fal­con­ers, and ac­com­pa­nied by a throng of var­lets, in rus­set jerkins, car­ry­ing staves, came two packs of hounds,--one used for what was termed, in the lan­guage of fal­con­ry, the Flight at the Riv­er,--these were all wa­ter-​spaniels; and the oth­er, for the Flight at the Field. Nice mu­sic they made, in spite of the ef­forts of the var­lets in rus­set to keep them qui­et.

Hawk­ing, in those days, was what shoot­ing is in the present; fowl­ing-​pieces be­ing scarce­ly used, if at all. Thus the va­ri­eties of the hawk-​tribe were not mere­ly em­ployed in the cap­ture of pheas­ants, par­tridges, grouse, rails, quails, and oth­er game, be­sides wa­ter-​fowl, but in the chase of hares; and in all of these pur­suits the fal­con­ers were as­sist­ed by dogs. Game, of course, could on­ly be killed at par­tic­ular sea­sons of the year; and wild-​geese, wild-​ducks, wood­cocks, and snipes in the win­ter; but spring and sum­mer pas­time was af­ford­ed by the crane, the bus­tard, the heron, the rook, and the kite; while, at the same pe­ri­ods, some of the small­er de­scrip­tion of wa­ter-​fowl of­fered ex­cel­lent sport on lake or riv­er.

A strik­ing and pic­turesque sight that cav­al­cade pre­sent­ed, with its nod­ding plumes of many colours, its glit­ter­ing silks and vel­vets, its proud ar­ray of horse­men, and its still proud­er ar­ray of love­ly wom­en, whose per­son­al graces and charms baf­fle de­scrip­tion, while they in­vite it. Pleas­ant were the sounds that ac­com­pa­nied the progress of the train: the jo­cund laugh, the mu­si­cal voic­es of wom­en, the jin­gling of bri­dles, the snort­ing and tram­pling of steeds, the bay­ing of hounds, the shouts of the var­lets, and the wind­ing of horns.

But hav­ing, as yet, omit­ted the prin­ci­pal fig­ure, we must has­ten to de­scribe him by whom the par­ty was head­ed. The King, then, was mount­ed on a su­perb milk-​white steed, with wide-​flow­ing mane and tail, and of the eas­iest and gen­tlest pace. Its colour was set off by its red chan­frein, its nod­ding crest of red feath­ers, its broad poitri­nal with red tas­sels, and its sad­dle with red hous­ings. Though de­vot­ed to the chase, as we have shown, James was but an in­dif­fer­ent horse­man; and his safe­ty in the sad­dle was as­sured by such high-​bol­stered bows in front and at the back, that it seemed next to im­pos­si­ble he could be shak­en out of them. Yet, in spite of all these pre­cau­tions, ac­ci­dents had be­fall­en him. On one oc­ca­sion, Sir Symonds D'Ewes re­lates that he was thrown head­long in­to a pond; and on an­oth­er, we learn from a dif­fer­ent source that he was cast over his horse's head in­to the New Riv­er, and nar­row­ly es­caped drown­ing, his boots alone be­ing vis­ible above the ice cov­er­ing the stream. More­over the monarch's at­tire was ex­ces­sive­ly stiff and cum­brous, and this, while it added to the nat­ural un­gain­li­ness of his per­son, pre­vent­ed all free­dom of move­ment, es­pe­cial­ly on horse­back. His dou­blet, which on the present oc­ca­sion was of green vel­vet, con­sid­er­ably frayed,--for he was by no means par­tic­ular about the new­ness of his ap­par­el,--was padded and quilt­ed so as to be dag­ger-​proof; and his hose were stuffed in the same man­ner, and pre­pos­ter­ous­ly large about the hips. Then his ruff was triple-​band­ed, and so stiffly starched, that the head was fixed im­mov­ably amidst its plaits.

Though not hand­some, James's fea­tures were thought­ful and in­tel­li­gent, with a gleam of cun­ning in the eye, and an ex­pres­sion of sar­casm about the mouth, and they con­tained the type of the pe­cu­liar phys­iog­no­my that dis­tin­guished all his un­for­tu­nate line. His beard was of a yel­low­ish brown, and scant­ily cov­ered his chin, and his thin mous­tach­es were of a yet lighter hue. His hair was be­gin­ning to turn gray, but his com­plex­ion was rud­dy and hale, prov­ing that, but for his con­stant ebri­ety and in­dul­gence in the plea­sures of the ta­ble, he might have at­tained a good old age--if, in­deed, his life was not un­fair­ly abridged. His large eyes were for ev­er rolling about, and his tongue was too big for his mouth, caus­ing him to splut­ter in ut­ter­ance, be­sides giv­ing him a dis­agree­able ap­pear­ance when eat­ing; while his legs were so weak, that he re­quired sup­port in walk­ing. Notwith­stand­ing these de­fects, and his gen­er­al coarse­ness of man­ner, James was not with­out dig­ni­ty, and could, when he chose, as­sume a right roy­al air and de­port­ment. But these oc­ca­sions were rare. As is well known, his pedantry and his pre­ten­sions to su­pe­ri­or wis­dom and dis­crim­ina­tion, pro­cured him the ti­tle of the “Scot­tish Solomon.” His gen­er­al char­ac­ter will be more ful­ly de­vel­oped as we pro­ceed; and we shall show the per­fidy and dis­sim­ula­tion which he prac­tised in car­ry­ing out his schemes, and tried to soft­en down un­der the plau­si­ble ap­pel­la­tion of “King-​craft.”

James was nev­er seen to greater ad­van­tage than on oc­ca­sions like the present. His hearty en­joy­ment of the sport he was en­gaged in; his fa­mil­iar­ity with all around him, even with the mean­est var­lets by whom he was at­tend­ed, and for whom he had gen­er­al­ly some droll nick­name; his com­plete aban­don­ment of all the eti­quette which ei­ther he or his mas­ter of the cer­emonies ob­served else­where; his good-​tem­pered van­ity and boast­ing about his skill as a woods­man,--all these things cre­at­ed an im­pres­sion in his favour, which was not di­min­ished in those who were not brought much in­to con­tact with him in oth­er ways. When hunt­ing or hawk­ing, James was noth­ing more than a hearty coun­try gen­tle­man en­gaged in the like sports.

The cav­al­cade came leisure­ly on, for the King pro­ceed­ed no faster than would al­low the fal­con­ers to keep eas­ily up with those on horse­back. He was in high good hu­mour, and laughed and jest­ed some­times with one am­bas­sador, some­times with the oth­er, and hav­ing fin­ished a learned dis­cus­sion on the man­ner of flee­ing a hawk at the riv­er and on the field, as taught by the great French au­thor­ities, Mar­tin, Mal­opin, and Aimé Cas­sian, with the Mar­quis de Tremouille, had just be­gun a sim­ilar con­ver­sa­tion with Gius­tini­ano as to the Ital­ian mode of man­ning, hood­ing, and re­claim­ing a fal­con, as prac­tised by Mess­er Francesco Sforzi­no Vi­centi­no, when he caught sight of the Conde de Gon­do­mar, stand­ing where we left him at the side of the av­enue, on which he came to a sud­den halt, and the whole cav­al­cade stopped at the same time.

“Salud! Conde mag­nifi­co!” ex­claimed King James, as the Spaniard ad­vanced to make his obei­sance to him; “how is it that we find you stand­ing un­der the shade of the tree friend­ly to the vine,--_am­ic­toe vitibus ul­mi_ as Ovid hath it? Is it that yon bloom­ing Chloe,” he con­tin­ued, leer­ing sig­nif­icant­ly at Gillian, “hath more at­trac­tion for you than our court dames? Troth! the quean is not ill-​favoured; but ye ha' lost a gude day's sport, Count, for­bye ither loss­es which we sall na par­tic­ular­ize. We hae had a no­ble flight at the heron, and anither just as guid af­ter the bus­tard. God's san­ty! the run the lang-​leg­git loon gave us. La­dy Ex­eter, on her braw Span­ish barb--we ken whose gift it is--was the on­ly one able to keep with us; and it was her led­dy­ship's ain pere­grine fal­con that checked the flee­ing car­le at last. By our faith the Count­ess un­der­stands the gen­tle sci­ence weel. She cared not to soil her dain­ty gloves by re­ward­ing her hawk with a _sop­pa_, as his Ex­cel­len­cy Gius­tini­ano would term it, of the bus­tard's heart, blu­id, and brains. But wha hae ye got­ten wi' ye?” he added, for the first time notic­ing Jo­ce­lyn.

“A young gen­tle­man in whom I am much in­ter­est­ed, and whom I would crave per­mis­sion to present to your Majesty,” replied De Gon­do­mar.

“Saul of our body, Count, the per­mis­sion is read­ily grant­ed,” replied James, ev­ident­ly much pleased with the young man's ap­pear­ance. "Ye shall bring him to us in the privy-​cham­ber be­fore we gang to sup­per, and more­over ye shall hae full li­cence to ad­vance what you please in his be­hoof. He is a weel-​grown, weel-​favoured lad­die, al­most as much sae as our ain dear dog Stee­nie; but we wad say to him, in the words of the Ro­man bard,

'O for­mose puer, nim­ium ne crede col­ori!'

Gude pairts are bet­ter than gude looks; not that the lat­ter are to be un­der­val­ued, but baith should ex­ist in the same per­son. We shall soon dis­cov­er whether the young man hath been weel nur­tured, and if all cor­re­spond we shall not refuse him the light of our coun­te­nance."

“I ten­der your Majesty thanks for the favour you have con­ferred up­on him,” replied De Gon­do­mar.

“But ye have not yet tauld us the youth's name, Count?” said the King.

“Your Majesty, I trust, will not think I make a mys­tery where none is need­ed, if I say that my pro­tegé claims your gra­cious per­mis­sion to pre­serve, for the mo­ment, his incog­ni­to,” De Gon­do­mar replied. “When I present him of course his name will be de­clared.”

“Be it as you will, Count,” James replied. “We ken fu' weel ye hae gude rea­son for a' ye do. Fail not in your at­ten­dance on us at the time ap­point­ed.”

As De Gon­do­mar with a pro­found obei­sance drew back, the King put his steed in mo­tion. Gen­er­al at­ten­tion hav­ing been thus called to Jo­ce­lyn, all eyes were turned to­wards him, his ap­pear­ance and at­tire were crit­icised, and much spec­ula­tion en­sued as to what could be the Span­ish Am­bas­sador's mo­tive for un­der­tak­ing the pre­sen­ta­tion.

Mean­while, Lord Roos had tak­en ad­van­tage of the brief halt of the hunt­ing par­ty to ap­proach the Count­ess of Ex­eter, and point­ing out Gillian to her, in­quired in a low tone, and in a few words, to which, how­ev­er, his looks im­part­ed sig­nif­icance, whether she would take the pret­ty damsel in­to her ser­vice as tire-​wom­an or hand­maid­en. The Count­ess seemed sur­prised at the re­quest, and, af­ter glanc­ing at the Beau­ty of Tot­ten­ham, was about to refuse it, when Lord Roos urged in a whis­per, “'T is for De Gon­do­mar I ask the favour.”

“In that case I read­ily as­sent,” the Count­ess replied. “I will go speak to the damsel at once, if you de­sire it. How pret­ty she is! No won­der his in­flammable Ex­cel­len­cy should be smit­ten by her.” And de­tach­ing her barb, as she spoke, from the cav­al­cade, she moved to­wards Gillian, ac­com­pa­nied by Lord Roos. The pret­ty damsel was cov­ered with fresh con­fu­sion at the great la­dy's ap­proach; and was, in­deed, so great­ly alarmed, that she might have tak­en to her heels, if she had been on the ground, and not on the pil­lion be­hind her grand­sire.

“Be not abashed, my pret­ty maid­en,” the Count­ess said, in a kind and en­cour­ag­ing tone; “there is noth­ing to be afraid of. Aware that I am in want of a damsel like your­self, to tire my hair and at­tend up­on me, Lord Roos has drawn my at­ten­tion to you; and if I may trust to ap­pear­ances--as I think I may,” she added, with a very flat­ter­ing and per­sua­sive smile, “in your case--you are the very per­son to suit me, pro­vid­ed you are will­ing to en­ter my ser­vice. I am the Count­ess of Ex­eter.”

“A Count­ess!” ex­claimed Gillian. “Do you hear that, grand­sire? The beau­ti­ful la­dy is a count­ess. What an hon­our it would be to serve her!”

“It might be,” the old man replied, with hes­ita­tion, and in a whis­per; “yet I do not ex­act­ly like the man­ner of it.”

“Don't ac­cept the of­fer, Gillian. Don't go,” said Dick Tav­ern­er, whose breast was full of un­easi­ness.

“Your an­swer, my pret­ty maid­en?” the Count­ess said, with a win­ning smile.

“I am much be­hold­en to you, my la­dy,” Gillian replied, “and it will de­light me to serve you as you pro­pose--that is, if I have my grand­sire's con­sent to it.”

“And the good man, I am sure, has your wel­fare too much at heart to with­hold it,” the Count­ess replied. “But fol­low me to the palace, and we will con­fer fur­ther up­on the mat­ter. In­quire for the Count­ess of Ex­eter's apart­ments.” And with an­oth­er gra­cious smile, she re­joined the cav­al­cade, leav­ing Lord Roos be­hind. He thanked her with a look for her com­plai­sance.

“O Gillian, I am sure ill will come of this,” Dick Tav­ern­er ex­claimed.

“Where­fore should it?” she re­joined, al­most be­side her­self with de­light at the bril­liant prospect sud­den­ly opened be­fore her. “My for­tune is made.”

“You are right, my pret­ty damsel, it is,” Lord Roos re­marked. “Fail not to do as the Count­ess has di­rect­ed you, and I will an­swer for the rest.”

“You hear what the kind young no­ble­man says, grand­sire?” Gillian whis­pered in his ear. “You can­not doubt his as­sur­ance?”

“I hear it all,” old Green­ford replied; “but I know not what to think. I sup­pose we must go to the palace.”

“To be sure we must,” Gillian cried; “I will go there alone, if you will not go with me.”

Sat­is­fied with what he had heard, Lord Roos moved away, nod­ding ap­proval at Gillian.

The cav­al­cade, as we have said, was once more in mo­tion, but be­fore it had pro­ceed­ed far, it was again, most un­ex­pect­ed­ly, brought to a halt.

Sud­den­ly step­ping from be­hind a large tree which had con­cealed him from view, a man in mil­itary ha­bil­iments, with griz­zled hair and beard, and an ex­ceed­ing­ly res­olute and stern cast of coun­te­nance, plant­ed him­self di­rect­ly in the monarch's path, and ex­tend­ing his hand to­wards him, ex­claimed, in a loud voice,

“Stand! O King!”

“Who art thou, fel­low? and what wouldst thou?” de­mand­ed James, who had checked his horse with such sud­den­ness as al­most to throw him­self out of his high-​hol­stered sad­dle.

“I have a mes­sage to de­liv­er to thee from Heav­en,” replied Hugh Calve­ley.

“Aha!” ex­claimed James, re­cov­er­ing in some de­gree, for he thought he had a mad­man to deal with. “What may thy mes­sage be?”

And will­ing to gain a char­ac­ter for courage, though it was whol­ly for­eign to his na­ture, he mo­tioned those around him to keep back. “Thy mes­sage, fel­low!” he re­peat­ed.

“Hear, then, what Heav­en saith to thee,” the Pu­ri­tan replied. “Have I not brought thee out of a land of famine in­to a land of plen­ty? Thou ought­est, there­fore, to have judged my peo­ple righ­teous­ly! But thou hast per­vert­ed jus­tice, and not re­lieved the op­pressed. There­fore, un­less thou re­pent, I will rend thy king­dom from thee, and from thy pos­ter­ity af­ter thee! Thus saith the Lord, whose mes­sen­ger I am.”