"Bear with you my duty to the King my lord, and tell him that I will keep his great charge in safety."

So her words ran. But her eyes said--and eyes be apt to speak truer than voices--"This day am I proudest of all the women in England, and I let not go this Seal so long as I can keep it!"

Then she called Dame Elizabeth, which received the Seal upon the knee, and the Queen bade her commit it to the great cypress coffer wherein her royal robes were kept.

Not long after that, the Queen took her chamber at the Tower afore the Lady Joan was born; and the Great Seal was then returned to the King's Wardrobe. Master Thomas de Cherleton was then Comptroller of the Wardrobe: but he was not over careful of his office, and left much in the hands of his clerks; and as at that time Jack was clerk in charge, he was truly Keeper of the Great Seal so long as the Queen abode in the Tower. He told me he would be rare thankful when the charge was over, for he might not sleep o' nights for thinking on the same. I do think folks in high place, that be set in great charge, should do their own work, and not leave it to them beneath, so that Master Comptroller hath all the credit when things go well, and poor John Clerk payeth all the wyte if things go wrong. But, dear heart! if man set forth to amend all the crooked ways of this world, when shall he ever have done? Maybe if I set a-work to amend me, Cicely, it shall be my best deed, and more than I am like to have done in any hurry.

Now come I to the Queen's journey to France in 1324, and my tale shall thereupon grow more particular. The King sent her over to remonstrate with the King of France her brother for his theft of Guienne--for it was no less; and to conclude a treaty with him to restore the same. It was in May she left England and just before that something had happened wherein I have always thought she had an hand. In the August of the year before, Sir Roger de Mortimer brake prison from the Tower, and made good his escape to Normandy; where, after tarrying a small season with his mother's kinsmen, the Seigneurs de Fienles, he shifted his refuge to Paris, where he was out of the King's jurisdiction. Now in regard of that matter it did seem to me that King Edward was full childish and unwise. Had his father been on the throne, no such thing had ever happed: he wist how to deal with traitors. But now, with so slack an hand did the King rule, that not only Sir Roger gat free of the Tower by bribing one of his keepers and drugging the rest, but twenty good days at the least were lost while he stale down to the coast and so won away.

There was indeed a hue and cry, but it wrought nothing, and even that was not for a week. There was more diligence used to seize his lands than to seize him. And at the end of all, just afore the Queen's journey, if my Lady Mortimer his wife, that had gone down to Southampton thinking to join him, was not taken and had to Skipton Castle, and the young damsels, her children, that were with her, sent to separate convents! I have ever believed that was the Queen's doing. It was she that loved not the Lady Mortimer should go to France: it should have interfered with her game. But what weakness and folly was it that the King should hearken her! Well--

"Soft you, now!"

"O Jack, how thou didst start me! I very nigh let my pen fall."

"Then shouldst thou have inked thy tunic, Sissot; and it were pity, so good Cologne sindon as it is. But whither goest thou with thy goose-quill a-flying, good wife? Who was Sir Roger de Mortimer? and what like was he?"

"Who was he, Jack?" quoth I, feeling somewhat took aback. "Why, he was--he was Sir Roger de Mortimer."

"How like a woman!" saith Jack, setting his hands in the pockets of his singlet.

"Now, Jack!" said I. "And what was he like, saidst thou? Why, he was as like a traitor, and a wastrel, and every thing that was bad, as ever I saw man in all my life."

"Horns, belike--and cloven feet--and a long tail?" quoth Jack. "I'll give it up, Sissot. Thou wert best write thy chronicle thine own way.

But it goeth about to be rarely like a woman."

"Why, how should it not, when a woman is she that writeth it?" said I, laughing. But Jack had turned away, with that comical twist of his mouth which shows him secretly diverted.

Verily, I know not who to say Sir Roger was, only that he was Lord of Wigmore and Ludlow, and son of the Lady Margaret that was born a Fienles, and husband of the Lady Joan that was born a Geneville; and the proudest caitiff and worst man that ever was, as shall be shown ere I lay down my pen. He was man that caused the loss of himself and of other far his betters, and that should have been the loss of England herself but for G.o.d's mercy. The friend of Sathanas and of all evil, the foe of G.o.d and of all good--this, and no less, it seemeth me, was Sir Roger de Mortimer of Wigmore. G.o.d pardon him as He may [if such a thing be possible]!

Note 1. A very sweet, luscious wine. Verjuice was the most acid type of vinegar.

Note 2. Quiet, calm, patient. In Lowland Scotch, to _thole_ is still to endure; and _thole-mood_ must mean calm endurance.

PART ONE, CHAPTER 2.

WHEREIN CICELY BEGINS TO SEE.

"Tempt not the Tempter; he is near enough."

Dr Horatius Bonar.

Now can any man tell what it is in folks that causeth other folks to fancy them? for I have oft-times been sorely pestered to find out.

Truly, if man be very fair, or have full winning ways, and sweet words, and so forth, then may it be seen without difficulty. I never was puzzled to know why Sir Roger or any other should have fallen o' love with Queen Isabel. But what on earth could draw her to him, that puzzled me sore. He was not young--about ten years elder than she, and she was now a woman of thirty years. Nor was he over comely, as men go,--I have seen better-favoured men, and I have seen worser. Nor were his manners sweet and winning, but the very contrary thereof, for they were rough and rude even to women, he alway seemed to me the very incarnation of pride. Men charged Sir Hugh Le Despenser with pride, but Sir Roger de Mortimer was worse than he tenfold. One of his own sons called him the King of Folly: and though the charge came ill from his lips that brought it, yet was it true as truth could be. His pride showed every where--in his dress, in the way he bore himself, in his words,--yea, in the very tones of his voice. And his temper was furious as ever I saw. Verily, he was one of the least lovesome men that I knew in all my life: yet for him, the fairest lady of that age bewrayed her own soul, and sold the n.o.blest gentleman to the death. Truly, men and women be strange gear!

I had written thus far when I laid down my pen, and fell a-meditating, on the strangeness of such things as folks be and do in this world. And as I there sat, I was aware of Father Philip in the chamber, that had come in softly and unheard of me, so lost in thought was I. He smiled when I looked up on him.

"How goeth the chronicle, my daughter?" saith he.

"Diversely, Father," I made answer. "Some days my pen will run apace, but on others it laggeth like oxen at plough when the ground is heavy with rain."

"The ground was full heavy when I entered," saith he, "for the plough was standing still."

I laughed. "So it was, trow. But I do not think I was idle, Father; I was but meditating."

"Wise meditations, that be fruitful in good works, be far away from idlesse," quoth he. "And on what wert thou thinking thus busily, my daughter?"

"On the strange ways of men and women, Father."

"Did the list include Dame Cicely de Chaucombe?" saith Father Philip, with one of his quiet smiles.

"No," I made answer. "I had not reached her."

"Or Philip de Edyngdon? Perchance thou hadst not reached him."

"Why, Father, I might never think of sitting in judgment on you. No, I was thinking of some I had wist long ago: and in especial of Dame Isabel the Queen, and other that were about her. What is it moveth folks to love one another, or to hate belike?"

"There be but three things can move thee to aught, my daughter: G.o.d, Satan, and thine own human heart."

"And my conscience?" said I.

"Men do oftentimes set down to conscience," saith he, "that which is either G.o.d or Satan. The enlightened conscience of the righteous man worketh as G.o.d's Holy Spirit move him. The defiled conscience of the evil man listeneth to the promptings of Satan. And the seared conscience is as dead, and moveth not at all."

"Father, can a man then kill his conscience?"

"He may lay it asleep for this life, daughter: may so crush it with weights thereon laid that it is as though it had the sickness of palsy, and cannot move limb. But I count, when this life is over, it shall shake off the weight, and wake up, to a life and a torment that shall never end."

"I marvel if she did," said I, rather to myself than him.

"Daughter," he made answer, "whoso _she_ be, let her be. G.o.d saith not to thee, _He_, and _she_, but _I_, and _thou_. When Christ knocketh at thy door, if thou open not, shall He take it as tideful answer that thou wert full busy watching other folks' doors to see if they would open?"

"Yet may we not learn, Father, from other folks' blunders?"

"Hast thou so learned, daughter?"

"Well, not much," said I. "A little, now and then, maybe."

"I never learned much," saith he, "from the blunders of any man save Philip de Edyngdon. What I learned from other folks' evil deeds was mostly to despise and be angered with them--not to beware for myself.

And that lore cometh not of G.o.d. Thou mayest learn from such things set down in Holy Writ: but verily it takes G.o.d to pen them, so that we may indeed profit and not scorn,--that we may win and not lose. Be sure that whenever G.o.d puts in thine hand a golden coin of His realm, with the King's image stamped fair thereon, Satan is near at hand, with a gold-washed copper counterfeit stamped with his image, and made so like that thou hast need to look close, to make sure which is the true.

'Hold not all gold that shineth'--a wise saw, my daughter, whether it be a thing heavenly or earthly."

"I will endeavour myself to profit by your good counsel, Father," said I. "But mine husband bade me write this chronicle, though, sooth to say, I had no list thereto. And if I shall leave to deal with he and she, how then may my chronicle be writ?"

"Write thy chronicle, my daughter," he answered. "But write it as G.o.d hath writ His Chronicles. Set down that which men did, that which thou sawest and heardest. Beware only of digging into men's purposes where thou knewest them not, and sawest but the half thereof. And it is rarely possible for men to see the whole of that which pa.s.seth in their own day. Beware of setting down a man as all evil for one evil thing thou mayest see him to do. We see them we live amongst something too close to judge them truly. And beware, most of all, of imagining that thou canst get behind G.o.d's purposes, and lay bare all His reasons.

Verily, the wisest saint on earth cannot reach to the thousandth part thereof. G.o.d can be fully understood, only of G.o.d."