CHAPTER III.
THE TRADER AND THE GENTLE; OR, THE CHANGING GENERATION.
"No, my dear foster-brother," said the Nevile, "I do not yet
comprehend the choice you have made. You were reared and brought up
with such careful book-lere, not only to read and to write--the which,
save the mark! I hold to be labour eno'--but chop Latin and logic and
theology with Saint Aristotle (is not that his hard name?) into the
bargain, and all because you had an uncle of high note in Holy Church.
I cannot say I would be a shaveling myself; but surely a monk with the
hope of preferment is a nobler calling to a lad of spirit and ambition
than to stand out at a door and cry, 'Buy, buy,' 'What d'ye lack?' to
spend youth as a Flat-cap, and drone out manhood in measuring cloth,
hammering metals, or weighing out spices?"
"Fair and softly, Master Marmaduke," said Alwyn, "you will understand
me better anon. My uncle, the sub-prior, died,--some say of
austerities, others of ale,--that matters not; he was a learned man
and a cunning. 'Nephew Nicholas,' said he on his death-bed, 'think
twice before you tie yourself up to the cloister; it's ill leaping
nowadays in a sackcloth bag. If a pious man be moved to the cowl by
holy devotion, there is nothing to be said on the subject; but if he
take to the Church as a calling, and wish to march ahead like his
fellows, these times show him a prettier path to distinction. The
nobles begin to get the best things for themselves; and a learned
monk, if he is the son of a yeoman, cannot hope, without a specialty
of grace, to become abbot or bishop. The king, whoever he be, must be
so drained by his wars, that he has little land or gold to bestow on
his favourites; but his gentry turn an eye to the temporalities of the
Church, and the Church and the king wish to strengthen themselves by
the gentry. This is not all; there are free opinions afloat. The
House of Lancaster has lost ground, by its persecutions and burnings.
Men dare not openly resist, but they treasure up recollections of a
fried grandfather, or a roasted cousin,--recollections which have done
much damage to the Henries, and will shake Holy Church itself one of
these days. The Lollards lie hid, but Lollardism will never die.
There is a new class rising amain, where a little learning goes a
great way, if mixed with spirit and sense. Thou likest broad pieces
and a creditable name,--go to London and be a trader. London begins
to decide who shall wear the crown, and the traders to decide what
king London shall befriend. Wherefore, cut thy trace from the
cloister, and take thy road to the shop.' The next day my uncle gave
up the ghost.--They had better clary than this at the convent, I must
own; but every stone has its flaw."
"Yet," said Marmaduke, "if you took distaste to the cowl, from reasons
that I pretend not to judge of, but which seem to my poor head very
bad ones, seeing that the Church is as mighty as ever, and King Edward
is no friend to the Lollards, and that your uncle himself was at least
a sub-prior--"
"Had he been son to a baron, he had been a cardinal," interrupted
Nicholas, "for his head was the longest that ever came out of the
north country. But go on; you would say my father was a sturdy
yeoman, and I might have followed his calling?"
"You hit the mark, Master Nicholas."
"Hout, man. I crave pardon of your rank, Master Nevile. But a yeoman
is born a yeoman, and he dies a yeoman--I think it better to die Lord
Mayor of London; and so I craved my mother's blessing and leave, and a
part of the old hyde has been sold to pay for the first step to the
red gown, which I need not say must be that of the Flat-cap. I have
already taken my degrees, and no longer wear blue. I am headman to my
master, and my master will be sheriff of London."
"It is a pity," said the Nevile, shaking his head; "you were ever a
tall, brave lad, and would have made a very pretty soldier."
"Thank you, Master Marmaduke, but I leave cut and thrust to the
gentles. I have seen eno' of the life of a retainer. He goes out on
foot with his shield and his sword, or his bow and his quiver, while
Sir Knight sits on horseback, armed from the crown to the toe, and the
arrow slants off from rider and horse, as a stone from a tree. If the
retainer is not sliced and carved into mincemeat, he comes home to a
heap of ashes, and a handful of acres, harried and rivelled into a
common; Sir Knight thanks him for his valour, but he does not build up
his house; Sir Knight gets a grant from the king, or an heiress for
his son, and Hob Yeoman turns gisarme and bill into ploughshares.
Tut, tut, there's no liberty, no safety, no getting on, for a man who
has no right to the gold spurs, but in the guild of his fellows; and
London is the place for a born Saxon like Nicholas Alwyn."
As the young aspirant thus uttered the sentiments, which though others
might not so plainly avow and shrewdly enforce them, tended towards
that slow revolution, which, under all the stormy events that the
superficial record we call HISTORY alone deigns to enumerate, was
working that great change in the thoughts and habits of the people,
--that impulsion of the provincial citywards, that gradual formation
of a class between knight and vassal,--which became first
constitutionally visible and distinct in the reign of Henry VII.,
Marmaduke Nevile, inly half-regretting and half-despising the
reasonings of his foster-brother, was playing with his dagger, and
glancing at his silver arrow.
"Yet you could still have eno' of the tall yeoman and the stout
retainer about you to try for this bauble, and to break half a dozen
thick heads with your quarter-staff!"
"True," said Nicholas; "you must recollect we are only, as yet,
between the skin and the selle,--half-trader, half-retainer. The old
leaven will out,--'Eith to learn the cat to the kirn,' as they say in
the North. But that's not all; a man, to get on, must win respect
from those who are to jostle him hereafter, and it's good policy to
show those roystering youngsters that Nick Alwyn, stiff and steady
though he be, has the old English metal in him, if it comes to a
pinch; it's a lesson to yon lords too, save your quality, if they ever
wish to ride roughshod over our guilds and companies. But eno' of
me.--Drawer, another stoup of the clary--Now, gentle sir, may I make
bold to ask news of yourself? I saw, though I spake not before of it,
that my Lord Montagu showed a cold face to his kinsman. I know
something of these great men, though I be but a small one,--a dog is
no bad guide in the city he trots through."
"My dear foster-brother," said the Nevile, "you had ever more brains
than myself, as is meet that you should have, since you lay by the
steel casque,--which, I take it, is meant as a substitute for us
gentlemen and soldiers who have not so many brains to spare; and I
will willingly profit by your counsels. You must know," he said,
drawing nearer to the table, and his frank, hardy face assuming a more
earnest expression, "that though my father, Sir Guy, at the
instigation of his chief, the Earl of Westmoreland, and of the Lord
Nevile, bore arms at the first for King Henry--"
"Hush! hush! for Henry of Windsor!"
"Henry of Windsor!--so be it! yet being connected, like the nobles I
have spoken of, with the blood of Warwick and Salisbury, it was ever
with doubt and misgiving, and rather in the hope of ultimate
compromise between both parties (which the Duke of York's moderation
rendered probable) than of the extermination of either. But when, at
the battle of York, Margaret of Anjou and her generals stained their
victory by cruelties which could not fail to close the door on all
conciliation; when the infant son of the duke himself was murdered,
though a prisoner, in cold blood; when my father's kinsman, the Earl
of Salisbury, was beheaded without trial; when the head of the brave
and good duke, who had fallen in the field, was, against all knightly
and king-like generosity, mockingly exposed, like a dishonoured
robber, on the gates of York, my father, shocked and revolted,
withdrew at once from the army, and slacked not bit or spur till he
found himself in his hall at Arsdale. His death, caused partly by his
travail and vexation of spirit, together with his timely withdrawal
from the enemy, preserved his name from the attainder passed on the
Lords Westmoreland and Nevile; and my eldest brother, Sir John,
accepted the king's proffer of pardon, took the oaths of allegiance to
Edward, and lives safe, if obscure, in his father's halls. Thou
knowest, my friend, that a younger brother has but small honour at
home. Peradventure, in calmer times, I might have bowed my pride to
my calling, hunted my brother's dogs, flown his hawks, rented his
keeper's lodge, and gone to my grave contented. But to a young man,
who from his childhood had heard the stirring talk of knights and
captains, who had seen valour and fortune make the way to distinction,
and whose ears of late had been filled by the tales of wandering
minstrels and dissours, with all the gay wonders of Edward's court,
such a life soon grew distasteful. My father, on his death-bed (like
thy uncle, the sub-prior), encouraged me little to follow his own
footsteps. 'I see,' said he, 'that King Henry is too soft to rule his
barons, and Margaret too fierce to conciliate the commons; the only
hope of peace is in the settlement of the House of York. Wherefore,
let not thy father's errors stand in the way of thy advancement;' and
therewith he made his confessor--for he was no penman himself, the
worthy old knight!--indite a letter to his great kinsman, the Earl of
Warwick, commending me to his protection. He signed his mark, and set
his seal to this missive, which I now have at mine hostelrie, and died
the same day. My brother judged me too young then to quit his roof;
and condemned me to bear his humours till, at the age of twenty-three,
I could bear no more! So having sold him my scant share in the
heritage, and turned, like thee, bad land into good nobles, I joined a
party of horse in their journey to London, and arrived yesterday at
Master Sackbut's hostelrie in Eastchepe. I went this morning to my
Lord of Warwick; but he was gone to the king's, and hearing of the
merry-makings here, I came hither for kill-time. A chance word of my
Lord of Montagu--whom Saint Dunstan confound!--made me conceit that a
feat of skill with the cloth-yard might not ill preface my letter to
the great earl. But, pardie! it seems I reckoned without my host, and
in seeking to make my fortunes too rashly, I have helped to mar them."
Wherewith he related the particulars of his interview with Montagu.
Nicholas Alwyn listened to him with friendly and thoughtful interest,
and, when he had done, spoke thus,--
"The Earl of Warwick is a generous man, and though hot, bears little
malice, except against those whom he deems misthink or insult him; he
is proud of being looked up to as a protector, especially by those of
his own kith and name. Your father's letter will touch the right
string, and you cannot do better than deliver it with a plain story.
A young partisan like thee is not to be despised. Thou must trust to
Lord Warwick to set matters right with his brother; and now, before I
say further, let me ask thee, plainly, and without offence, Dost thou
so love the House of York that no chance could ever make thee turn
sword against it? Answer as I ask,--under thy breath; those drawers
are parlous spies!"
And here, in justice to Marmaduke Nevile and to his betters, it is
necessary to preface his reply by some brief remarks, to which we must
crave the earnest attention of the reader. What we call PATRIOTISM,
in the high and catholic acceptation of the word, was little if at all
understood in days when passion, pride, and interest were motives
little softened by reflection and education, and softened still less
by the fusion of classes that characterized the small States of old,
and marks the civilization of a modern age. Though the right by
descent of the House of York, if genealogy alone were consulted, was
indisputably prior to that of Lancaster, yet the long exercise of
power in the latter House, the genius of the Fourth Henry, and the
victories of the Fifth, would no doubt have completely superseded the
obsolete claims of the Yorkists, had Henry VI. possessed any of the
qualities necessary for the time. As it was, men had got puzzled by
genealogies and cavils; the sanctity attached to the king's name was
weakened by his doubtful right to his throne, and the Wars of the
rival Roses were at last (with two exceptions, presently to be noted)
the mere contests of exasperated factions, in which public
considerations were scarcely even made the blind to individual
interest, prejudice, or passion.
Thus, instances of desertion, from the one to the other party, even by
the highest nobles, and on the very eve of battle, had grown so common
that little if any disgrace was attached to them; and any knight or
captain held an affront to himself an amply sufficient cause for the
transfer of his allegiance. It would be obviously absurd to expect in
any of the actors of that age the more elevated doctrines of party
faith and public honour, which clearer notions of national morality,
and the salutary exercise of a large general opinion, free from the
passions of single individuals, have brought into practice in our more
enlightened days. The individual feelings of the individual MAN,
strong in himself, became his guide, and he was free in much from the
regular and thoughtful virtues, as well as from the mean and plausible
vices, of those who act only in bodies and corporations. The two
exceptions to this idiosyncrasy of motive and conduct were, first, in
the general disposition of the rising middle class, especially in
London, to connect great political interests with the more popular
House of York. The commons in parliament had acted in opposition to
Henry the Sixth, as the laws they wrung from him tended to show, and
it was a popular and trading party that came, as it were, into power
under King Edward. It is true that Edward was sufficiently arbitrary
in himself; but a popular party will stretch as much as its
antagonists in favour of despotism,--exercised, on its enemies. And
Edward did his best to consult the interests of commerce, though the
prejudices of the merchants interpreted those interests in a way
opposite to that in which political economy now understands them. The
second exception to the mere hostilities of individual chiefs and
feudal factions has, not less than the former, been too much
overlooked by historians. But this was a still more powerful element
in the success of the House of York. The hostility against the Roman
Church and the tenets of the Lollards were shared by an immense part
of the population. In the previous century an ancient writer computes
that one half the population were Lollards; and though the sect were
diminished and silenced by fear, they still ceased not to exist, and
their doctrines not only shook the Church under Henry VIII., but
destroyed the throne by the strong arm of their children, the
Puritans, under Charles I. It was impossible that these men should
not have felt the deepest resentment at the fierce and steadfast
persecution they endured under the House of Lancaster; and without
pausing to consider how far they would benefit under the dynasty of
York, they had all those motives of revenge which are mistaken so
often for the counsels of policy, to rally round any standard raised
against their oppressors. These two great exceptions to merely
selfish policy, which it remains for the historian clearly and at
length to enforce, these: and these alone will always, to a sagacious
observer, elevate the Wars of the Roses above those bloody contests
for badges which we are at first sight tempted to regard them. But
these deeper motives animated very little the nobles and the knightly
gentry; [Amongst many instances of the self-seeking of the time, not
the least striking is the subservience of John Mowbray, the great Duke
of Norfolk, to his old political enemy, the Earl of Oxford, the moment
the last comes into power, during the brief restoration of Henry VI.
John Paston, whose family had been sufficiently harassed by this great
duke, says, with some glee, "The Duke and Duchess (of Norfolk) sue to
him (Lord Oxford) as humbly as ever I did to them."--Paston Letters,
cccii.] and with them the governing principles were, as we have just
said, interest, ambition, and the zeal for the honour and advancement
of Houses and chiefs.
"Truly," said Marmaduke, after a short and rather embarrassed pause,
"I am little beholden as yet to the House of York. There where I see
a noble benefactor, or a brave and wise leader, shall I think my sword
and heart may best proffer allegiance."
"Wisely said," returned Alwyn, with a slight but half sarcastic smile;
"I asked thee the question because--draw closer--there are wise men in
our city who think the ties between Warwick and the king less strong
than a ship's cable; and if thou attachest thyself to Warwick, he will
be better pleased, it may be, with talk of devotion to himself than
professions of exclusive loyalty to King Edward. He who has little
silver in his pouch must have the more silk on his tongue. A word to
a Westmoreland or a Yorkshire man is as good as a sermon to men not
born so far north. One word more, and I have done. Thou art kind and
affable and gentle, my dear foster-brother, but it will not do for
thee to be seen again with the goldsmith's headman. If thou wantest
me, send for me at nightfall; I shall be found at Master Heyford's, in
the Chepe. And if," added Nicholas, with a prudent reminiscence,
"thou succeedest at court, and canst recommend my master,--there is no
better goldsmith,--it may serve me when I set up for myself, which I
look to do shortly."
"But to send for thee, my own foster-brother, at nightfall, as if I
were ashamed!"
"Hout, Master Marmaduke, if thou wert not ashamed of me, I should be
ashamed to be seen with a gay springal like thee. Why, they would say
in the Chepe that Nick Alwyn was going to ruin. No, no. Birds of a
feather must keep shy of those that moult other colours; and so, my
dear young master, this is my last shake of the hand. But hold: dost
thou know thy way back?"
"Oh, yes,--never fear!" answered Marmaduke; "though I see not why so
far, at least, we may not be companions."
"No, better as it is; after this day's work they will gossip about
both of us, and we shall meet many who know my long visage on the way
back. God keep thee; avise me how thou prosperest."
So saying, Nicholas Alwyn walked off, too delicate to propose to pay
his share of the reckoning with a superior; but when he had gone a few
paces he turned back, and accosting the Nevile, as the latter was
rebuckling his mantle, said,--
"I have been thinking, Master Nevile, that these gold nobles, which it
has been my luck to bear off, would be more useful in thy gipsire than
mine. I have sure gains and small expenses; but a gentleman gains
nothing, and his hand must be ever in his pouch, so--"
"Foster-brother," said Marmaduke, haughtily, "a gentleman never
borrows,--except of the Jews, and with due interest. Moreover, I too
have my calling; and as thy stall to thee, so to me my good sword.
Saints keep thee! Be sure I will serve thee when I can."
"The devil's in these young strips of the herald's tree," muttered
Alwyn, as he strode off; "as if it were dishonest to borrow a broad
piece without cutting a throat for it! Howbeit, money is a prolific
mother: and here is eno' to buy me a gold chain against I am alderman
of London. Hout, thus goes the world,--the knight's baubles become
the alderman's badges--so much the better!"
