The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 An Historical Romance

CHAPTER IV.

A Star-​Cham­ber vic­tim.

His hunger be­ing some­what stayed, Sir Fran­cis now found leisure to con­sid­er the young man who had so great­ly be­friend­ed him, and, as a means of pro­mot­ing con­ver­sa­tion be­tween them, be­gan by fill­ing his glass from a flask of ex­cel­lent Bor­deaux, of which, in spite of Cy­prien's ef­forts to pre­vent him, he had con­trived to gain pos­ses­sion. The young man ac­knowl­edged his cour­tesy with a smile, praised the wine, and ex­pressed his as­ton­ish­ment at the won­der­ful va­ri­ety and ex­cel­lence of the repast, for which he said he was quite un­pre­pared. It was not Sir Fran­cis's way to feel or ex­press much in­ter­est in strangers, and he dis­liked young men, es­pe­cial­ly when they were hand­some, as was the case with his new ac­quain­tance; but there was some­thing in the youth that riv­et­ed his at­ten­tion.

From the plain­ness of his at­tire, and a cer­tain not un­pleas­ing rus­tic­ity of air, Sir Fran­cis com­pre­hend­ed at once that he was fresh from the coun­try; but he al­so felt sat­is­fied, from his bear­ing and de­port­ment, that he was a gen­tle­man: a term not quite so vague­ly ap­plied then, as it is now-​a-​days. The youth had a fine frank coun­te­nance, re­mark­able for man­ly beau­ty and in­tel­li­gence, and a fig­ure per­fect­ly pro­por­tioned and ath­let­ic. Sir Fran­cis set him down as well skilled in all ex­er­cis­es; vault­ing, leap­ing, rid­ing, and toss­ing the pike; nor was he mis­tak­en. He al­so con­clud­ed him to be fond of coun­try sports; and he was right in the sup­po­si­tion. He fur­ther imag­ined the young man had come to town to bet­ter his for­tune, and seek a place at Court; and he was not far wrong in the no­tion. As the wily knight scanned the hand­some fea­tures of his com­pan­ion, his clean-​made limbs, and sym­met­ri­cal fig­ure, he thought that suc­cess must in­fal­li­bly at­tend the pro­duc­tion of such a fair youth at a Court where per­son­al ad­van­tages were the first con­sid­er­ation.

“A like­ly gal­lant,” he re­flect­ed, “to take the fan­cy of the king; and if I aid him with means to pur­chase rich at­tire, and pro­cure him a pre­sen­ta­tion, he may not prove un­grate­ful. But of that I shall take good se­cu­ri­ty. I know what grat­itude is. He must be in­tro­duced to my La­dy Suf­folk. She will know how to treat him. In the first place, he must cast his coun­try slough. That ill-​made dou­blet of green cloth must be ex­changed for one of vel­vet slashed in the Vene­tian style like mine own, with hose stuffed and bom­bast­ed ac­cord­ing to the mode. A silk stock­ing will bring out the nice pro­por­tions of his leg; though, as I am a true gen­tle­man, the youth has so well formed a limb that even his own vil­lain­ous yarn cov­er­ings can­not dis­fig­ure it. His hair is of a good brown colour, which the king af­fects much, and seems to curl nat­ural­ly; but it wants trim­ming to the mode, for he is rough as a young colt fresh from pas­ture; and though he hath not much beard on his chin or up­per lip, yet what he hath be­comes him well, and will be­come him bet­ter, when prop­er­ly clipped and twist­ed. Al­to­geth­er he is as good­ly a youth as one would de­sire to see. What if he should sup­plant Buck­ing­ham, as Buck­ing­ham sup­plant­ed Som­er­set? Let the proud Mar­quis look to him­self! We may work his over­throw yet. And now to ques­tion him.”

Af­ter re­plen­ish­ing his glass, Sir Fran­cis ad­dressed him­self in his blan­dest ac­cents, and with his most in­sid­ious man­ner, to his youth­ful neigh­bour:--

“For a stranger to town, as I con­clude you to be, young Sir,” he said, “you have made rather a lucky hit in com­ing hith­er to-​day, since you have not on­ly got a bet­ter din­ner than I (a con­stant fre­quenter of this French or­di­nary) ev­er saw served here--(though the at­ten­dance is abom­inable, as you must have re­marked--that ras­cal­ly Cy­prien de­serves the basti­na­do,); but your ci­vil­ity and good man­ners have in­tro­duced you to one, who may, with­out pre­sump­tion, af­firm that he hath the will, and, it may be, the abil­ity to serve you; if you will on­ly point out to him the way.”

“Nay, wor­thy Sir, you are too kind,” the young man mod­est­ly replied; “I have done noth­ing to mer­it your good opin­ion, though I am hap­py to have gained it. I re­joice that ac­ci­dent has so far be­friend­ed me as to bring me here on this fes­tive oc­ca­sion; and I re­joice yet more that it has brought me ac­quaint­ed with a wor­thy gen­tle­man like your­self, to whom my rus­tic man­ners prove not to be dis­pleas­ing. I have too few friends to ne­glect any that chance may of­fer; and as I must carve my own way in the world, and fight for a po­si­tion in it, I glad­ly ac­cept any hand that may be stretched out to help me in the strug­gle.”

“Just as I would have it,” Sir Fran­cis thought, “The very man I took him for. As I am a true gen­tle­man, mine shall not be want­ing, my good youth,” he added aloud, with ap­par­ent cor­dial­ity, and af­fect­ing to re­gard the oth­er with great in­ter­est; “and when I learn the par­tic­ular di­rec­tion in which you in­tend to shape your course, I shall be the bet­ter able to ad­vise and guide you. There are many ways to for­tune.”

“Mine should be the short­est if I had any choice,” the young man re­joined with a smile.

“Right, quite right,” the crafty knight re­turned. “All men would take that road if they could find it. But with some the short­est road would not be the safest. In your case I think it might be dif­fer­ent. You have a suf­fi­cient­ly good mien, and a suf­fi­cient­ly good fig­ure, to serve you in lieu of oth­er ad­van­tages.”

“Your fair speech would put me in con­ceit with my­self, wor­thy Sir,” the young man re­joined with a well-​pleased air; “were I not too con­scious of my own de­mer­its, not to im­pute what you say of me to good na­ture, or to flat­tery.”

“There you wrong me, my good young friend--on my cred­it, you do. Were I to re­sort to adu­la­tion, I must strain the points of com­pli­ment to find phras­es that should come up to my opin­ion of your good looks; and as to my friend­ly dis­po­si­tion to­wards you, I have al­ready said that your at­ten­tions have won it, so that mere good na­ture does not prompt my words. I speak of you, as I think. May I, with­out ap­pear­ing too in­quis­itive, ask from what part of the coun­try you come?”

“I am from Nor­folk, wor­thy Sir,” the young man an­swered, “where my life has been spent among a set of men wild and un­couth, and fond of the chase as the Sher­wood archers we read of in the bal­lads. I am the son of a bro­ken gen­tle­man; the lord of a ru­ined house; with one old ser­vant left me out of fifty kept by my fa­ther, and with scarce a hun­dred acres that I can still call my own, out of the thou­sands swept away from me. Still I hunt in my fa­ther's woods; kill my fa­ther's deer; and fish in my fa­ther's lakes; since no one mo­lests me. And I keep up the lit­tle church near the old tum­ble-​down hall, in which are the tombs of my an­ces­tors, and where my fa­ther lies buried; and the ten­antry come there yet on Sun­days, though I am no longer their mas­ter; and my fa­ther's old chap­lain, Sir Oliv­er, still preach­es there, though my fa­ther's son can no longer main­tain him.”

“A sad change, tru­ly,” Sir Fran­cis said, in a tone of sym­pa­thy, and with a look of well-​feigned con­cern; “and at­tributable, I much fear, to ri­ot and pro­fu­sion on the part of your fa­ther, who so beg­gared his son.”

“Not so, Sir,” the young man grave­ly replied; “my fa­ther was a most hon­ourable man, and would have in­jured no one, much less the son on whom he doat­ed. Nei­ther was he pro­fuse; but lived boun­ti­ful­ly and well, as a coun­try gen­tle­man, with a large es­tate, should live. The cause of his ru­in was that he came with­in the clutch­es of that de­vour­ing mon­ster, which, like the in­sa­tiate drag­on of Rhodes, has swal­lowed up the sub­stance of so many fam­ilies, that our land is threat­ened with des­ola­tion. My fa­ther was ru­ined by that court, which, with a mock­ery of jus­tice, robs men of their name, their fame, their lands, and goods; which per­verts the course of law, and saps the prin­ci­ples of eq­ui­ty; which favours the knave, and op­press­es the hon­est man; which pro­motes and sup­ports ex­tor­tion and plun­der; which re­vers­es righ­teous judg­ments, and as­serts its own un­righ­teous suprema­cy, which, by means of its com­mis­sion­ers, spreads its hun­dred arms over the whole realm, to pil­lage and de­stroy--so that no one, how­ev­er dis­tant, can keep out of its reach, or es­cape its su­per­vi­sion; and which, if it be not up­root­ed, will, in the end, over­throw the king­dom. Need I say my fa­ther was ru­ined by the Star-​Cham­ber?”

“Hush! hush! my good young Sir,” Sir Fran­cis cried, hav­ing vain­ly en­deav­oured to in­ter­rupt his com­pan­ion's an­gry de­nun­ci­ation. “Pray heav­en your words have reached no oth­er ears than mine! To speak of the Star-​Cham­ber as you have spo­ken is worse than trea­son. Many a man has lost his ears, and been brand­ed on the brow, for half you have ut­tered.”

“Is free speech de­nied in this free coun­try?” the young man cried in as­ton­ish­ment. “Must one suf­fer grievous wrong, and not com­plain?”

“Certes, you must not con­temn the Star-​Cham­ber, or you will in­cur its cen­sure,” Sir Fran­cis replied in a low tone. “No court in Eng­land is so jeal­ous of its pre­rog­atives, nor so se­vere in pun­ish­ment of its ma­lign­ers. It will not have its pro­ceed­ings can­vassed, or its judg­ments ques­tioned.”

“For the plain rea­son, that it knows they will not bear in­ves­ti­ga­tion or dis­cus­sion. Such is the prac­tice of all ar­bi­trary and despot­ic rule. But will En­glish­men sub­mit to such tyran­ny?”

“Again, let me coun­sel you to put a bri­dle on your tongue, young Sir. Such mat­ters are not to be talked of at pub­lic ta­bles--scarce­ly in pri­vate. It is well you have ad­dressed your­self to one who will not be­tray you. The Star-​Cham­ber hath its spies ev­ery­where. Med­dle not with it, as you val­ue lib­er­ty. Light provo­ca­tion arous­es its anger; and once aroused, its wrath is all-​con­sum­ing.”