The Armourer's Prentices
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“Come on, mistress, put a brave face on it!” the jester encouraged the girl, as he led her forward, while the king, catching sight of them, exclaimed, “Ha! there’s old Patch. What doth he there?”
But the Cardinal, impatient of interruption, spoke imperiously, “What dost thou here, Merriman? Away, this is no time for thy fooleries and frolics.”
But the King, with some pleasure in teasing, and some of the enjoyment of a schoolboy at a break in his tasks, called out, “Nay, come hither, quipsome one! What new puppet hast brought hither to play off on us?”
“Yea, brother Hal,” said the jester, “I have brought one to let thee know how Tom of Norfolk and his crew are playing the fool in the Guildhall, and to ask who will be the fool to let them wreak their spite on the best blood in London, and leave a sore that will take many a day to heal.”
“How is this, my Lord Cardinal?” said Henry; “I bade them make an example of a few worthless hinds, such as might teach the lusty burghers to hold their lads in bounds and prove to our neighbours that their churlishness was by no consent of ours.”
“I trow,” returned the Cardinal, “that one of these same hinds is a boon companion of the fool’s—hinc illæ lachrymæ, and a speech that would have befitted a wise man’s mouth.”
“There is work that may well make even a fool grave, friend Thomas,” replied the jester.
“Nay, but what hath this little wench to say?” asked the King, looking down on the child from under his plumed cap with a face set in golden hair, the fairest and sweetest, as it seemed to her, that she had ever seen, as he smiled upon her. “Methinks she is too small to be thy love. Speak out, little one. I love little maids, I have one of mine own. Hast thou a brother among these misguided lads?”
“Not so, an please your Grace,” said Dennet, who fortunately was not in the least shy, and was still too young for a maiden’s shamefastness. “He is to be my betrothed. I would say, one of them is, but the other—he saved my father’s life once.”
The latter words were lost in the laughter of the King and Cardinal at the unblushing avowal of the small, prim-faced maiden.
“Oh ho! So ’tis a case of true love, whereto a King’s face must needs show grace. Who art thou, fair suppliant, and who may this swain of thine be?”
“I am Dennet Headley, so please your Grace; my father is Giles Headley the armourer, Alderman of Cheap Ward,” said Dennet, doing her part bravely, though puzzled by the King’s tone of banter; “and see here, your Grace!”
“Ha! the hawk’s whistle that Archduke Philip gave me! What of that? I gave it—ay, I gave it to a youth that came to mine aid, and reclaimed a falcon for me! Is’t he, child?”
“Oh, sir, ’tis he who came in second at the butts, next to Barlow, ’tis Stephen Birkenholt! And he did nought! They bore no ill-will to strangers! No, they were falling on the wicked fellows who had robbed and slain good old Master Michael, who taught our folk to make the only real true Damascus blades welded in England. But the lawyers of the Inns of Court fell on them all alike, and have driven them off to Newgate, and poor little Jasper Hope too. And Alderman Mundy bears ill-will to Giles. And the cruel Duke of Norfolk and his men swear they’ll have vengeance on the Cheap, and there’ll be hanging and quartering this very morn. Oh! your Grace, your Grace, save our lads! for Stephen saved my father.”
“Thy tongue wags fast, little one,” said the King, good-naturedly, “with thy Stephen and thy Giles. Is this same Stephen, the knight of the whistle and the bow, thy betrothed, and Giles thy brother?”
“Nay, your Grace,” said Dennet, hanging her head, “Giles Headley is my betrothed—that is, when his time is served, he will be—father sets great store by him, for he is the only one of our name to keep up the armoury, and he has a mother, Sir, a mother at Salisbury. But oh, Sir, Sir! Stephen is so good and brave a had! He made in to save father from the robbers, and he draws the best bow in Cheapside, and he can grave steel as well as Tibble himself, and this is the whistle your Grace wots of.”
Henry listened with an amused smile that grew broader as Dennet’s voice all unconsciously became infinitely more animated and earnest, when she began to plead Stephen’s cause.
“Well, well, sweetheart,” he said, “I trow thou must have the twain of them, though,” he added to the Cardinal, who smiled broadly, “it might perchance be more for the maid’s peace than she wots of now, were we to leave this same knight of the whistle to be strung up at once, ere she have found her heart; but in sooth that I cannot do, owing well nigh a life to him and his brother. Moreover, we may not have old Headley’s skill in weapons lost!”
Dennet held her hands close clasped while these words were spoken apart. She felt as if her hope, half granted, were being snatched from her, as another actor appeared on the scene, a gentleman in a lawyer’s gown, and square cap, which he doffed as he advanced and put his knee to the ground before the King, who greeted him with “Save you, good Sir Thomas, a fair morning to you.”
“They told me your Grace was in Council with my Lord Cardinal,” said Sir Thomas More; “but seeing that there was likewise this merry company, I durst venture to thrust in, since my business is urgent.”
Dennet here forgot court manners enough to cry out, “O your Grace! your Grace, be pleased for pity’s sake to let me have the pardon for them first, or they’ll be hanged and dead. I saw the gallows in Cheapside, and when they are dead, what good will your Grace’s mercy do them?”
“I see,” said Sir Thomas. “This little maid’s errand jumps with mine own, which was to tell your Grace that unless there be speedy commands to the Howards to hold their hands, there will be wailing like that of Egypt in the City. The poor boys, who were but shouting and brawling after the nature of mettled youth—the most with nought of malice—are penned up like sheep for the slaughter—ay, and worse than sheep, for we quarter not our mutton alive, whereas these poor younglings—babes of thirteen, some of them—be indicted for high treason! Will the parents, shut in from coming to them by my Lord of Norfolk’s men, ever forget their agonies, I ask your Grace?”
Henry’s face grew red with passion. “If Norfolk thinks to act the King, and turn the city into a shambles,”—with a mighty oath—“he shall abye it. Here, Lord Cardinal—more, let the free pardon be drawn up for the two lads. And we will ourselves write to the Lord Mayor and to Norfolk that though they may work their will on the movers of the riot—that pestilent Lincoln and his sort—not a prentice lad shall be touched till our pleasure be known. There now, child, thou hast won the lives of thy lads, as thou callest them. Wilt thou rue the day, I marvel? Why cannot some of their mothers pluck up spirit and beg them off as thou hast done?”
“Yea,” said Wolsey. “That were the right course. If the Queen were moved to pray your Grace to pity the striplings then could the Spaniards make no plaint of too much clemency being shown.”
They were all this time getting nearer the palace, and being now at a door opening into the hall, Henry turned round. “There, pretty maid, spread the tidings among thy gossips, that they have a tender-hearted Queen, and a gracious King. The Lord Cardinal will presently give thee the pardon for both thy lads, and by and by thou wilt know whether thou thankest me for it!” Then putting his hand under her chin, he turned up her face to him, kissed her on each cheek, and touched his feathered cap to the others, saying, “See that my bidding be done,” and disappeared.
“It must be prompt, if it be to save any marked for death this morn,” More in a how voice observed to the Cardinal. “Lord Edmund Howard is keen as a blood-hound on his vengeance.”
Wolsey was far from being a cruel man, and besides, there was a natural antagonism between him and the old nobility, and he liked and valued his fool, to whom he turned, saying, “And what stake hast thou in this, sirrah? Is’t all pure charity?”
“I’m scarce such a fool as that, Cousin Red Hat,” replied Randall, rallying his powers. “I leave that to Mr. More here, whom we all know to be a good fool spoilt. But I’ll make a clean breast of it. This same Stephen is my sister’s son, an orphan lad of good birth and breeding—whom, my lord, I would die to save.”
“Thou shalt have the pardon instantly, Merriman,” said the Cardinal, and beckoning to one of the attendants who clustered round the door, he gave orders that a clerk should instantly, and very briefly, make out the form. Sir Thomas More, hearing the name of Headley, added that for him indeed the need of haste was great, since he was one of the fourteen sentenced to die that morning.
Quipsome Hal was interrogated as to how he had come, and the Cardinal and Sir Thomas agreed that the river would be as speedy a way of returning as by land; but they decided that a King’s pursuivant should accompany him, otherwise there would be no chance of forcing his way in time through the streets, guarded by the Howard retainers.
As rapidly as was in the nature of a high officer’s clerk to produce a dozen lines, the precious document was indicted, and it was carried at last to Dennet, bearing Henry’s signature and seal. She held it to her bosom, while, accompanied by the pursuivant, who—happily for them—was interested in one of the unfortunate fourteen, and therefore did not wait to stand on his dignity, they hurried across to the place where they had left the barge—Tibble and Ambrose joining them on the way. Stephen was safe. Of his life there could be no doubt, and Ambrose almost repented of feeling his heart so light while Giles’s fate hung upon their speed.
The oars were plied with hearty good-will, but the barge was somewhat heavy, and by and by coming to a landing-place where two watermen had a much smaller and lighter boat, the pursuivant advised that he should go forward with the more necessary persons, leaving the others to follow. After a few words, the light weights of Tibble and Dennet prevailed in their favour, and they shot forward in the little boat.
They passed the Temple—on to the stairs nearest Cheapside—up the street. There was an awful stillness, only broken by heavy knells sounding at intervals from the churches. The back streets were thronged by a trembling, weeping people, who all eagerly made way for the pursuivant, as he called “Make way, good people—a pardon!”
They saw the broader space of Cheapside. Horsemen in armour guarded it, but they too opened a passage for the pursuivant. There was to be seen above the people’s heads a scaffold. A fire burnt on it—the gallows and noosed rope hung above.
A figure was mounting the ladder. A boy! Oh, Heavens! would it be too late? Who was it? They were still too far off to see. They might only be cruelly holding out hope to one of the doomed.
The pursuivant shouted aloud—“In the King’s name, Hold!” He lifted Dennet on his shoulder, and bade her wave her parchment. An overpowering roar arose. “A pardon! a pardon! God save the King!”
Every hand seemed to be forwarding the pursuivant and the child, and it was Giles Headley, who, loosed from the hold of the executioner, stared wildly about him, like one distraught.
CHAPTER XVIII
PARDON
“What if;’ quoth she, ‘by Spanish bloodHave London’s stately streets been wet,Yet will I seek this country’s goodAnd pardon for these young men get.’”Churchill.The night and morning had been terrible to the poor boys, who only had begun to understand what awaited them. The fourteen selected had little hope, and indeed a priest came in early morning to hear the confessions of Giles Headley and George Bates, the only two who were in Newgate.
George Bates was of the stolid, heavy disposition that seems armed by outward indifference, or mayhap pride. He knew that his case was hopeless, and he would not thaw even to the priest. But Giles had been quite unmanned, and when he found that for the doleful procession to the Guildhall he was to be coupled with George Bates, instead of either of his room-fellows, he flung himself on Stephen’s neck, sobbing out messages for his mother, and entreaties that, if Stephen survived, he would be good to Aldonza. “For you will wed Dennet, and—”
There the jailers roughly ordered him to hold his peace, and dragged him off to be pinioned to his fellow-sufferer. Stephen was not called till some minutes later, and had not seen him since. He himself was of course overshadowed by the awful gloom of apprehension for himself, and pity for his comrades, and he was grieved at not having seen or heard of his brother or master, but he had a very present care in Jasper, who was sickening in the prison atmosphere, and when fastened to his arm, seemed hardly able to walk. Leashed as they were, Stephen could only help him by holding the free hand, and when they came to the hall, supporting him as much as possible, as they stood in the miserable throng during the conclusion of the formalities, which ended by the horrible sentence of the traitor being pronounced on the whole two hundred and seventy-eight. Poor little Jasper woke for an interval from the sense of present discomfort to hear it, he seemed to stiffen all over with the shock of horror, and then hung a dead weight on Stephen’s arm. It would have dragged him down, but there was no room to fall, and the wretchedness of the lad against whom he staggered found vent in a surly imprecation, which was lost among the cries and the entreaties of some of the others. The London magistracy were some of them in tears, but the indictment for high treason removed the poor lads from their jurisdiction to that of the Earl Marshal, and thus they could do nothing to save the fourteen foremost victims. The others were again driven out of the hall to return to their prisons; the nearest pair of lads doing their best to help Stephen drag his burthen along. In the halt outside, to arrange the sad processions, one of the guards, of milder mood, cut the cord that bound the lifeless weight to Stephen, and permitted the child to be laid on the stones of the court, his collar unbuttoned, and water to be brought. Jasper was just reviving when the word came to march, but still he could not stand, and Stephen was therefore permitted the free use of his arms, in order to carry the poor little fellow. Thirteen years made a considerable load for seventeen, though Stephen’s arms were exercised in the smithy, and it was a sore pull from the Guildhall. Jasper presently recovered enough to walk with a good deal of support. When he was laid on the bed he fell unto an exhausted sleep, while Stephen kneeling, as the strokes of the knell smote on his ear, prayed—as he had never prayed before—for his comrade, for his enemy, and for all the unhappy boys who were being led to their death wherever the outrages had been committed.
Once indeed there was a strange sound coming across that of the knell. It almost sounded like an acclamation of joy. Could people be so cruel, thought Stephen, as to mock poor Giles’s agonies? There were the knells still sounding. How long he did not know, for a beneficent drowsiness stole over him as he knelt, and he was only awakened, at the same time as Jasper, by the opening of his door.
He looked up to see three figures—his brother, his uncle, his master. Were they come to take leave of him? But the one conviction that their faces beamed with joy was all that he could gather, for little Jasper sprang up with a scream of terror, “Stephen, Stephen, save me! They will cut out my heart,” and clung trembling to his breast, with arms round his neck.
“Poor child! poor child!” sighed Master Headley. “Would that I brought him the same tidings as to thee!”
“Is it so?” asked Stephen, reading confirmation as he looked from the one to the other. Though he was unable to rise under the weight of the boy, life and light were coming to his eye, while Ambrose clasped his hand tightly, chocked by the swelling of his heart in almost an agony of joy and thankfulness.
“Yea, my good lad,” said the alderman. “Thy good kinsman took my little wench to bear to the King the token he gave thee.”
“And Giles?” Stephen asked, “and the rest?”
“Giles is safe. For the rest—may God have mercy on their souls.”
These words passed while Stephen rocked Jasper backwards and forwards, his face hidden on his neck.
“Come home,” added Master Headley. “My little Dennet and Giles cannot yet rejoice till thou art with them. Giles would have come himself, but he is sorely shaken, and could scarce stand.”
Jasper caught the words, and loosing his friend’s neck, looked up. “Oh! are we going home? Come, Stephen. Where’s brother Simon? I want my good sister! I want nurse! Oh! take me home!” For as he tried to sit up, he fell back sick and dizzy on the bed.
“Alack! alack!” mourned Master Headley; and the jester, muttering that it was not the little wench’s fault, turned to the window, and burst into tears. Stephen understood it all, and though he felt a passionate longing for freedom, he considered in one moment whether there were any one of his fellow prisoners to whom Jasper could be left, or who would be of the least comfort to him, but could find no one, and resolved to cling to him as once to old Spring.
“Sir,” he said, as he rose to his master, “I fear me he is very sick. Will they—will your worship give me licence to bide with him till this ends?”
“Thou art a good-hearted lad,” said the alderman with a hand on his shoulder. “There is no further danger of life to the prentice lads. The King hath sent to forbid all further dealing with them, and hath bidden my little maid to set it about that if their mothers beg them grace from good Queen Katherine, they shall have it. But this poor child! He can scarce be left. His brother will take it well of thee if thou wilt stay with him till some tendance can be had. We can see to that. Thanks be to St. George and our good King, this good City is our own again!”
The alderman turned away, and Ambrose and Stephen exchanged a passionate embrace, feeling what it was to be still left to one another. The jester too shook his nephew’s hand, saying, “Boy, boy, the blessing of such as I is scarce worth the having, but I would thy mother could see thee this day.”
Stephen was left with these words and his brother’s look to bear him through a trying time.
For the “Captain of Newgate” was an autocrat, who looked on his captives as compulsory lodgers, out of whom he was entitled to wring as much as possible—as indeed he had no other salary, nor means of maintaining his underlings, a state of things which lasted for two hundred years longer, until the days of James Oglethorpe and John Howard. Even in the rare cases of acquittals, the prisoner could not be released till he had paid his fees, and that Giles Headley should have been borne off from the scaffold itself in debt to him was an invasion of his privileges, which did not dispose him to be favourable to any one connected with that affair; and he liked to show his power and dignity even to an alderman.
He was found sitting in a comfortable tapestried chamber, handsomely dressed in orange and brown, and with a smooth sleek countenance and the appearance of a good-natured substantial citizen.
He only half rose from his big carved chair, and touched without removing his cap, to greet the alderman, as he observed, without the accustomed prefix of your worship—“So, you are come about your prentice’s fees and dues. By St. Peter of the Fetters, ’tis an irksome matter to have such a troop of idle, mischievous, dainty striplings thrust on one, giving more trouble, and making more call and outcry than twice as many honest thieves and pickpurses.”
“Be assured, sir, they will scarce trouble you longer than they can help,” said Master Headley.
“Yea, the Duke and my Lord Edmund are making brief work of them,” quoth the jailer. “Ha!” with an oath, “what’s that? Nought will daunt those lads till the hangman is at their throats.”
For it was a real hurrah that reached his ears. The jester had got all the boys round him in the court, and was bidding them keep up a good heart, for their lives were safe, and their mothers would beg them off. Their shouts did not tend to increase the captain’s good humour, and though he certainly would not have let out Alderman Headley’s remaining apprentice without his fee, he made as great a favour of permission, and charged as exorbitantly, for a pardoned man to remain within his domains as if they had been the most costly and delightful hostel in the kingdom.
Master Hope, who presently arrived, had to pay a high fee for leave to bring Master Todd, the barber-surgeon, with him to see his brother; but though he offered a mark a day (a huge amount at that time) the captain was obdurate in refusing to allow the patient to be attended by his own old nurse, declaring that it was contrary to discipline, and (what probably affected him much more) one such woman could cause more trouble than a dozen felons. No doubt it was true, for she would have insisted on moderate cleanliness and comfort. No other attendant whom Mr. Hope could find would endure the disgrace, the discomfort, and alarm of a residence in Newgate for Jasper’s sake; so that the drapers gratitude to Stephen Birkenholt, for voluntarily sharing the little fellow’s captivity, was great, and he gave payment to one or two of the officials to secure the two lads being civilly treated, and that the provisions sent in reached them duly.
Jasper did not in general seem very ill by day, only heavy, listless and dull, unable to eat, too giddy to sit up, and unable to help crying like a babe, if Stephen left him for a moment; but he never fell asleep without all the horror and dread of the sentence coming over him. Like all the boys in London, he had gazed at executions with the sort of curiosity that leads rustic lads to run to see pigs killed, and now the details came over him in semi-delirium, as acted out on himself, and he shrieked and struggled in an anguish which was only mitigated by Stephen’s reassurances, caresses, even scoldings. The other youths, relieved from the apprehension of death, agreed to regard their detention as a holiday, and not being squeamish, turned the yard into a playground, and there they certainly made uproar, and played pranks, enough to justify the preference of the captain for full grown criminals. But Stephen could not join them, for Jasper would not spare him for an instant, and he himself, though at first sorely missing employment and exercise, was growing drowsy and heavy limbed in his cramped life and the evil atmosphere, even the sick longings for liberty were gradually passing away from him, so that sometimes he felt as if he had lived here for ages and known no other life, though no sooner did he lie down to rest, and shut his eyes, than the trees and green glades of the New Forest rose before him, with all the hollies shining in the summer light, or the gorse making a sheet of gold.
The time was not in reality so very long. On the 7th of May, John Lincoln, the broker, who had incited Canon Peale to preach against the foreigners, was led forth with several others of the real promoters of the riot to the centre of Cheapside, where Lincoln was put death, but orders were brought to respite the rest; and, at the same time, all the armed men were withdrawn, the City began to breathe, and the women who had been kept within doors to go abroad again.
The Recorder of London and several aldermen were to meet the King at his manor at Greenwich. This was the mothers’ opportunity. The civic dignitaries rode in mourning robes, but the wives and mothers, sweethearts and sisters, every woman who had a youth’s life at stake, came together, took boat, and went down the river, a strange fleet of barges, all containing white caps, and black gowns and hoods, for all were clad in the most correct and humble citizen’s costume.
“Never was such a sight,” said Jester Randall, who had taken care to secure a view, and who had come with his report to the Dragon court. “It might have been Ash Wednesday for the look of them, when they landed and got into order. One would think every prentice lad had got at least three mothers, and four or five aunts and sisters! I trow, verily, that half of them came to look on at the other half, and get a sight of Greenwich and the three queens. However, be that as it might, not one of them but knew how to open the sluices. Queen Katharine noted well what was coming, and she and the Queens of Scotland and France sat in the great chamber with the doors open. And immediately there’s a knock at the door, and so soon as the usher opens it, in they come, three and three, every good wife of them with her napkin to her eyes, and working away with her sobs. Then Mistress Todd, the barber-surgeon’s wife, she spoke for all, being thought to have the more courtly tongue, having been tirewoman to Queen Mary ere she went to France. Verily her husband must have penned the speech for her—for it began right scholarly, and flowery, with a likening of themselves to the mothers of Bethlehem (lusty innocents theirs, I trow!), but ere long the good woman faltered and forgot her part, and broke out ‘Oh! madam, you that are a mother yourself, for the sake of your own sweet babe, give us back our sons.’ And therewith they all fell on their knees, weeping and wringing their hands, and crying out, ‘Mercy, mercy! For our Blessed Lady’s sake, have pity on our children!’ till the good Queen, with the tears running down her cheeks for very ruth, told them that the power was not in her hands, but the will was for them and their poor sons, and that she would strive so to plead for them with the King as to win their freedom. Meantime, there were the aldermen watching for the King in his chamber of presence, till forth he came, when all fell on their knees, and the Recorder spake for them, casting all the blame on the vain and light persons who had made that enormity. Thereupon what does our Hal but make himself as stern as though he meant to string them all up in a line. ‘Ye ought to wail and be sorry,’ said he, ‘whereas ye say that substantial persons were not concerned, it appeareth to the contrary. You did wink at the matter,’ quoth he, ‘and at this time we will grant you neither favour nor good-will.’ However, none who knew Hal’s eye but could tell that ’twas all very excellent fooling, when he bade them get to the Cardinal. Therewith, in came the three queens, hand in hand, with tears in their eyes, so as they might have been the three queens that bore away King Arthur, and down they went on their knees, and cried aloud ‘Dear sir, we who are mothers ourselves, beseech you to set the hearts at ease of all the poor mothers who are mourning for their sons.’ Whereupon, the door being opened, came in so piteous a sound of wailing and lamentation as our Harry’s name must have been Herod to withstand! ‘Stand up, Kate,’ said he, ‘stand up, sisters, and hark in your ear. Not a hair of the silly lads shall be touched, but they must bide lock and key long enough to teach them and their masters to keep better ward.’ And then when the queens came back with the good tidings, such a storm of blessings was never heard, laughings and cryings, and the like, for verily some of the women seemed as distraught for joy as ever they had been for grief and fear. Moreover, Mistress Todd being instructed of her husband, led up Mistress Hope to Queen Mary, and told her the tale of how her husband’s little brother, a mere babe, lay sick in prison—a mere babe, a suckling as it were—and was like to die there, unless the sooner delivered, and how our Steve was fool enough to tarry with the poor child, pardoned though he be. Then the good lady wept again, and ‘Good woman,’ saith she to Mistress Hope, ‘the King will set thy brother free anon. His wrath is not with babes, nor with lads like this other of whom thou speakest.’