Complete Works of Ford Madox Ford, page 470
Now, upon a day, being the second day in July of the year 1486, this lady sat upon a chair resembling a high throne upon three stone steps covered with a carpet. She had behind her yet another carpet that mounted the wall and came forward over her head in the manner of a dais. This old lady inclined always to the oldest fashions.
Thus, upon her round, old head she had an immense structure that bent her face forward as if it had been that of our Father at Rome beneath the triple tiara. It was made of two pillows of scarlet velvet, covered with a net of fine gold chains uniting large pearls. Such a thing had not been seen in England for two or three score years, but the ladies at her father’s court had worn them when she had been a girl. For the rest of her, she was dressed in black wool with a girdle, from which there hung ten or a dozen keys of silver, steel, or gold inlaid with steel.
The room was fair in size, but all of stone and very dark because of the smallness of the windows. The roof went up into a peak. All painted the stone walls were, with woods and leaves, with fowlers among trees setting their nets, and maidens shaking down fruits, and men and women bathing in pools, and the vaults of the ceiling showed the history of the coffin of St. Cuthbert. Each history was divided from the other by ribs of stone painted fairly in scarlet with green scrolls. There you might see how the good monks set out from Holy Island, or how the coffin floated of itself, or how the women called one to the other about the Dun Cow. This room without doubt had formerly been some council chamber or judgment room of the Prince Bishop’s in old days. But its purpose was by now forgotten, and the Lord Dacre had bought the house lately, for he considered the practice of living always in castles to be barbarous and uncomfortable. It was his purpose to pull down this old stone house and build there a fair palace where he might dwell in comfort. But, for the time being, it suited his mother well enough to dwell there.
She was sitting in the chair like a throne, leaning forward and perusing a great book of accounts held up to her by an old fellow who knelt before her in black cloths with the badge of the Dacres upon one shoulder and the silver portcullis of Croy upon the other. The old lady puzzled over this tale of capons, pence, eggs, bolls of wheat, oats and the rest that her tenants owed her. She thought it was not enough. And consequently messengers came in from the Prince Bishop, from the Dean, from the Chapter, down to the sacristan, to ask how it was with her health after her long journey from London city to Durham. She had come there the night before. And one brought her the offering of a deer, another of two fat geese, a third a salmon, a fourth a basket of strawberries grown beneath a southern wall. And, as each of these things was brought before her, she would lean forward and look upon it, and so she would lose her place in the book of accounts and scold perpetually at the old man that held it up for her.
In one of the deep, narrow window spaces stood a notable man of forty, stout and grave, with a brown beard cut squarely, and wearing a very rich blue cloak and blue round hat with a great white plume. He said nothing at all, but pared his finger-nails with a little knife. He looked between whiles out upon the high, wooded banks of the Wear that confronted his gaze across the river, and were all ablaze with the sunlight: once the Princess Rohtraut turned her head stiffly to have sight of him. But he was standing too far in the depth of the window, her chair being between one window and the other. So she cried out in a rough voice that was at once insulting and indulgent:
“This is very easy spying for King Henry.” Then she chuckled and added, “Do you hear me, Sir Bertram of Lyonesse? This is very easy spying for King Henry.”
He made no answer to this gibe, but instead he pushed open the window and carefully surveyed the deep gorge beneath him, for this place was new to him. The night before they had come in by torch-light, over a steep bridge above a black river. The gate into the tower had been opened for them only after long parleying, but he had perceived walls well planned and formidable, great heights in the blackness, and steep, up-and-down streets amongst which they went between strong, stone houses. But he had been aware that this city of Durham was a very strong place.
He had been set to sleep that night in a room that faced inwards, and rising in the morning he had seen that just before his face were the great stones of the wall surrounding and fortifying the cathedral. Beneath his gaze were two great towers, pierced with meurtrières, which are slits through which arrows may be shot. Between these two towers was a gateway which he doubted not had a double portcullis, devices for dropping huge stones and rafters upon any enemy that should break through the first portcullis and be captured by the second, so that they would be like rats in a trap. By craning his head out of his window he could see, further along, both to his right and to his left, tall towers in this inner wall, each tower having the appearance of an arch let into its face. But this Sir Bertram was an engineer well skilled in the plans of fortresses, and he knew that what appeared to be arches led up to two slanting holes in each tower, and that the slant of each hole was directed with a fell and cunning purpose. For, to each tower foot a steep and narrow street of the town came up. So, if any enemy should have won the town itself and should come up those streets, then those in the tower would set running down these slanting holes balls of stone weighing two, three or four hundred pounds. By the direction of the slantings, those balls of stone would run bounding down those narrow streets and cause dreadful manglings, maimings and death, principally by the breaking of legs.
By those and other signs, this Sir Bertram knew that here, even within the walled town was a fortress almost impregnable and dreadful to assault. This Bishop might well be a proud and disdainful prelate. He was safe, not only from foreign foes, but from his own townsmen, which was not so often the way with Bishops. For it is the habit of townsmen to be at perpetual strife with their Bishops, seeking to break in on them by armed force and to make the Bishops give up their rights and rents and fees in the towns, which if the Bishops could not prevent was apt to render them much the poorer. But at this Prince Bishop the townsmen could never come, so strong was this citadel within the town.
So he would become ever richer, not only for that reason but because of the great shrines of St. Cuthbert and of the Venerable Bede. To these, year in, year out, at all seasons and in all weathers, thousands resorted with offerings and tolls and tributes.
So this Sir Bertram perceived it would be no easy thing to humble this Palatine Prince even though the Percy had reported to King Henry VII that he could smoke out Bishop Sherwood at very little cost.
It was true that, as the Percy thought, King Henry VII heartily desired the downfall of this Bishop Sherwood. He had supported Richard Crookback and loved little King Henry. And indeed, Sir Bertram knew, for he had the King’s private thoughts, that the King would very willingly see the downfall not only of the Bishop Sherwood but of this whole see of Durham. For it was contrary to that Prince’s idea of kingship to have within his realm a Palatine county with a Bishop there having such sovereign powers that it was as if there was no King at all in the realm. But, to be rid of the bishopric, even King Henry thought would be impossible since it would raise against him all the Church and get him called heretic and interdicted as King John had been. So that the King would very willingly have had the Percy to act as his catspaw and make civil war upon Bishop Sherwood and so drive him out of the land. That might impoverish and weaken the see a little, but not much. For a Bishop is not like a temporal baron; though Sherwood be cast out another must succeed him and have all his rights and grow as strong or stronger.
It was upon these things that this Sir Bertram — a cool and quiet knight, loving King Henry and beloved by him above most men — meditated whilst that old lady cast up her accounts, and he trimmed his finger nails. So, when he leaned out of that bright window, he perceived how steeply perched was the house in which he was. Sheer down to the river ran rocky paths with here and there a tree. At the bottom was a high wall well battlemented and slit for archers to hold it. The river ran very swiftly. On it there was a fisherman casting his nets from an anchored boat. The boat tugged and tore so at its chain that even the practised fisherman had difficulty to stand. So the river must be very swift, and there would be no mining there.
On the other side of the river the banks rose as steeply and were clothed with trees. There cannon might be set against the town. But to shoot so far they must be great guns and the Percy had none of these, nor were there any large enough nearer than Windsor. If the Percy had them, it was difficult to think that he could drag them there into position, and all that would take a year or two years. So, this Sir Bertram, who had been sent there by the King to advise him, considered, as his first thoughts, that if the Earl of Northumberland attacked this Bishop Palatine he might take the city, but hardly the inner citadel, and never at all the castle within. Or, if the King lent him cannon, he might break the wall of the citadel.
On the other hand, having the Bishop shut up in the castle the Earl might starve him out — but this he could not do unless all the country round were friendly to the Earl and hated the Bishop. Without that there would be no doing it. And the same might be said of any project for dragging cannon on to those heights. For the cannon must be brought up narrow valleys where ambushes very easily could lie, and that could not be thought of in a hostile country.
The Percy had reported himself to King Henry as being cock of all the North parts; if that were true, he might very well be loosed upon the Bishop. But from conversations that he had had with the Lords Dacre and Ogle, as well as with the Abbot of Alnwick and lesser men, this Sir Bertram thought it was possible that the Earl Percy was not so strong nor yet so beloved in those parts as he would have the King believe. In that case, if he relied upon this Earl and this Earl’s faith, the King might get great discredit and no profit either in those parts or elsewhere. It was in order to study and inquire into these things that this cautious Sir Bertram was come into those parts. So he leaned upon the sill of the window and looked down upon the river that appeared two hundred feet below.
After he had watched the river and reflected a long time, for he was a slow thinker, adding point to point in his mind, to have as it were a strong platform on which to build, he heard a woman’s voice say highly:
“I tell you, ah, gentle Princess, that there is no man more hated in these North parts, and if you will lend your sanction and your wealth we may speedily have down not only these robbers that hold your daughter imprisoned by his encouragement but also that flail of the North himself.”
Sir Bertram turned slowly on his elbow, leaning upon the sill and looked into the room. There he saw a monstrous beautiful young lady that kneeled with her voluminous rich gown all about her and held out her two hands towards the Princess whom he could not see. The Princess did not speak, and that lady held her peace, so that knight moved softly and deliberately forward, and when he was near the younger lady he asked her:
“Even who is this man who is so hated in the North parts?”
That young lady looked at him with astonished lowering and resentful eyes, as much as to say, who was he that he should ask her such a question? The Princess had been leaning back in her chair with both elbows upon the arms and a hand caressing her chin, for all the world as if she had been an old man considering a knotty point. But, when she saw Sir Bertram and heard his voice, she said hastily and harshly:
“Get up, child and your ladyship. It is not decent that a lady of high rank and my kinswoman should be spoken to kneeling by a Cornish knight of nowhere and yesterday, God help me, if he be ten times a King’s spy!” And so she bade the lady, who was the Lady Margaret of Glororem, to fetch a stool from a corner of the room and set it by her throne on the step. And there she had the Lady Margaret sit beside her and that Sir Bertram fetch off his hat with the large feather and so stand before them. “For,” said she to that knight, “you may well be the King’s companion, but in this place the King’s writ does not run and I am a royal Princess and this is my cousin and niece.”
It was nonsense and a tyranny, but Sir Bertram did it with calmness. He cared little about forms when there was news to be had that could help him and only one old woman and one very beautiful and proud one before whom to abase himself. So he made an apology, saying that he had not known that lady to be of such high rank, she being in the dim room and not over plain to his eyes which had been gazing on the sunlight. He bent one knee and stood there composedly with his hat in his hands before him.
Then that old Princess, who had affected anger affected now a complaisance towards that gentleman. She spoke as follows, formally to the Lady Margaret:
“This Sir Bertram of Lyonesse,” she said,— “though God knows where Lyonesse is; I have heard it is some poor islands in Scilly or Cornwall or where you will, — so this Sir Bertram of Lyonesse is the King’s commissioner to inquire into the state of these North parts. And if you will ask me what make of a thing a commissioner is, I will answer you that he is what you and I and other simple folk do call a spy. But the King calls him his commissioner and that is very well.”
She looked upon Sir Bertram maliciously to see if he winced. But that knight turned his face composedly to the Lady Margaret.
“Ah, gentle lady,” said he, “you may count that for truth. I am here to find out what I can.”
The old Princess liked this Sir Bertram, in truth, very well. She counted him so low, on account of his obscure and distant birth and his former poverty, that she could jest with him as if he had been a peasant boy. She considered English lords as of so low a rank against her own that she thought not much about them, one with another, except may be it was the Dacres and their kin. So she was very glad to keep this Sir Bertram, if she could do it without trouble or expense, and have some amusement from it.
She turned upon the Lady Margaret and said again:
“You must know that, though in a concealed manner, this Sir Bertram is of great worth in the counsels of King Henry VII. Why this should be so, God knows, for one says one thing and one will say another. But so it is; in all matters in which a king may be advised this new knight rules the King.”
Then again Sir Bertram looked upon the Lady Margaret:
“Ah, gentle lady,” he said, “to dispel what may appear of mystery in this royal Princess’s account of me, let me say this — for I would not have you think evil of me: I have twice saved this King’s life, once by discovering assassins sent to murder him in France before he was King and once, since, at Windsor where I caught by the wrist a man with a knife that came behind him when he walked in the gardens. And I have farmed the King’s private lands to greater profit than came to him before and, having studied the art of fortifying of a pupil of the monk Olberitz that made most of the strong castles of France, I have designed or strengthened successfully certain strong places for this King. If I could say I had saved this King’s life in gallant battles I would rather say it, for it would gain me greater honour in your sight. But I am rather a man of the exchequer board than of the tented field. It is for caution, defence and prudence that the King trusts me rather than for things more gallant that should stir your pulse in the recital. I wish it were the other way, but that is not the truth of it.”
“Well, it is true what this knight says,” the old Princess confirmed him. “He has twice saved the King’s life by caution and has increased the King’s gear and so on. Now he is sent here as the King’s spy — the King’s reconciler or the King’s trumpeter or what you will. For his mission is to take a survey of these North parts first and then to prove to them that the King is a mild, loving, gracious and economical sovereign.”
“Well, that is my mission,” Sir Bertram said to the Lady Margaret, “and I hope I may do it.”
“I will tell you what I think of it,” the Lady Margaret said then, “as soon as I have your opinion on certain words I said two nights ago to Henry Percy, my cousin, Earl of Northumberland.”
“I shall hear them very gladly,” Sir Bertram answered.
Then, in her own way, the old Princess exposed all these matters to Sir Bertram of Lyonesse, how certain filthy rogues had taken prisoner her daughter Rohtraut, and the rest. Sir Bertram had heard all that before. The King had ordered him to travel to the North with the Princess of Croy, protecting her the better with his train and bearing a share of her expenses, so that he might the better make out the affairs of the Dacres, what was their wealth, who resorted to them, and whether they seemed to conspire with other rebels. And, upon the road, in three various towns, three delayed messengers had met the Princess of Croy, coming from that very Lady Margaret with broad letters in which she told the story of the things that passed at Castle Lovell. So Sir Bertram had heard most of the tale before, nevertheless he heard it very gladly again, more particularly as the Lady Margaret corrected the old Princess here and there and made things the plainer.
It was a very long congress that they held in that room with the vaulted ceiling and the painted walls, that were all sprays of leaves and dark green boskage with the figures of men and women in scarlets and whites and blues, holding bows and fowling nets and fish nets and falcons. For, when the Princess had told that story she was impatient to know, but with sarcastic and hard words, what this adviser of the King would advise her to do. For her own part, she said, it was her purpose to go with a small train, and unarmed, up to that Castle Lovell and in at the door. And she did not think it was those robbers who would withstand her when she set free her daughter, opening the door of her prison with her own hands, and so leading her out into the light of day and so there to Durham, where she might dwell till justice was done about the lands and other things that were in dispute.
