The Last of the Barons — Complete by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton (reading an ebook .TXT) 📖

The captains, Hilyard alone excepted, bowed with great reverence as the earl entered.

“Welcome, puissant sir and illustrious kinsman!” said Coniers, who had decided on the line to be adopted; “you are come at last to take the command of the troops raised in your name, and into your hands I resign this truncheon.”

“I accept it, Sir John Coniers,” answered Warwick, taking the place of dignity; “and since you thus constitute me your commander, I proceed at once to my stern duties. How happens it, knights and gentlemen, that in my absence ye have dared to make my name the pretext of rebellion? Speak thou, my sister’s son!”

“Cousin and lord,” said the heir of Fitzhugh, reddening but not abashed, “we could not believe but what you would smile on those who have risen to assert your wrongs and defend your life.” And he then briefly related the tale of the Duchess of Bedford’s waxen effigies, and pointed to Hilyard as the eye-witness.

“And,” began Sir Henry Nevile, “you, meanwhile, were banished, seemingly, from the king’s court; the dissensions between you and Edward sufficiently the land’s talk, the king’s vices the land’s shame!

“Nor did we act without at least revealing our intentions to my uncle and your brother, the Lord Montagu,” added the heir of Fitzhugh.

“Meanwhile,” said Robin of Redesdale, “the commons were oppressed, the people discontented, the Woodvilles plundering, and the king wasting our substance on concubines and minions. We have had cause eno’ for our rising!” The earl listened to each speaker in stern silence.

“For all this,” he said at last, “you have, without my leave or sanction, levied armed men in my name, and would have made Richard Nevile seem to Europe a traitor, without the courage to be a rebel! Your lives are in my power, and those lives are forfeit to the laws.”

“If we have incurred your disfavour from our over-zeal for you,” said the son of Lord Fitzhugh, touchingly, “take our lives, for they are of little worth.” And the young nobleman unbuckled his sword, and laid it on the table.

“But,” resumed Warwick, not seeming to heed his nephew’s humility, “I, who have ever loved the people of England, and before king and parliament have ever pleaded their cause,—I, as captain-general and first officer of these realms, here declare, that whatever motives of ambition or interest may have misled men of mark and birth, I believe that the commons at least never rise in arms without some excuse for their error. Speak out then, you, their leaders; and, putting aside all that relates to me as the one man, say what are the grievances of which the many would complain.”

And now there was silence, for the knights and gentlemen knew little of the complaints of the populace; the Lollards did not dare to expose their oppressed faith, and the squires and franklins were too uneducated to detail the grievances they had felt. But then the immense superiority of the man of the people at once asserted itself; and Hilyard, whose eye the earl had hitherto shunned, lifted his deep voice. With clear precision, in indignant but not declamatory eloquence, he painted the disorders of the time,—the insolent exactions of the hospitals and abbeys, the lawless violence of each petty baron, the weakness of the royal authority in restraining oppression, its terrible power in aiding the oppressor. He accumulated instance on instance of misrule; he showed the insecurity of property, the adulteration of the coin, the burden of the imposts; he spoke of wives and maidens violated, of industry defrauded, of houses forcibly entered, of barns and granaries despoiled, of the impunity of all offenders, if high-born, of the punishment of all complaints, if poor and lowly. “Tell us not,” he said, “that this is the necessary evil of the times, the hard condition of mankind. It was otherwise, Lord Warwick, when Edward first swayed; for you then made yourself dear to the people by your justice. Still men talk, hereabouts, of the golden rule of Earl Warwick; but since you have been, though great in office, powerless in deed, absent in Calais, or idle at Middleham, England hath been but the plaything of the Woodvilles, and the king’s ears have been stuffed with flattery as with wool. And,” continued Hilyard, warming with his subject, and, to the surprise of the Lollards, entering boldly on their master-grievance—“and this is not all. When Edward ascended the throne, there was, if not justice, at least repose, for the persecuted believers who hold that God’s word was given to man to read, study, and digest into godly deeds. I speak plainly. I speak of that faith which your great father Salisbury and many of the House of York were believed to favour,—that faith which is called the Lollard, and the oppression of which, more than aught else, lost to Lancaster the hearts of England. But of late, the Church, assuming the power it ever grasps the most under the most licentious kings (for the sinner prince hath ever the tyrant priest!), hath put in vigour old laws for the wronging man’s thought and conscience; [The Lollards had greatly contributed to seat Edward on the throne; and much of the subsequent discontent, no doubt, arose from their disappointment, when, as Sharon Turner well expresses it, “his indolence allied him to the Church,” and he became “hereticorum severissimus hostis.”—CROYL., p. 564.] and we sit at our doors under the shade, not of the vine-tree, but the gibbet. For all these things we have drawn the sword; and if now, you, taking advantage of the love borne to you by the sons of England, push that sword back into the sheath, you, generous, great, and princely though you be, well deserve the fate that I foresee and can foretell. Yes!” cried the speaker, extending his arms, and gazing fixedly on the proud face of the earl, which was not inexpressive of emotion—“yes! I see you, having deserted the people, deserted by them also in your need; I see you, the dupe of an ungrateful king, stripped of power and honour, an exile and an outlaw; and when you call in vain upon the people, in whose hearts you now reign, remember, O fallen star, son of the morning! that in the hour of their might you struck down the people’s right arm, and paralyzed their power. And now, if you will, let your friends and England’s champions glut the scaffolds of your woman-king!”

He ceased. A murmur went round the conclave; every breast breathed hard, every eye turned to Warwick. That mighty statesman mastered the effect which the thrilling voice of the popular pleader produced on him; but at that moment he had need of all his frank and honourable loyalty to remind him that he was there but to fulfil a promise and discharge a trust,—that he was the king’s delegate, not the king’s judge.

“You have spoken, bold men,” said he, “as, in an hour when the rights of princes are weighed in one scale, the subject’s sword in the other, I, were I king, would wish free men to speak. And now you, Robert Hilyard, and you, gentlemen, hear me, as envoy to King Edward IV. To all of you I promise complete amnesty and entire pardon. His highness believes you misled, not criminal, and your late deeds will not be remembered in your future services. So much for the leaders. Now for the commons. My liege the king is pleased to recall me to the high powers I once exercised, and to increase rather than to lessen them. In his name, I pledge myself to full and strict inquiry into all the grievances Robin of Redesdale hath set forth, with a view to speedy and complete redress. Nor is this all.