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Title: The Black Avons I - How They Fared in the Time of the Tudors Author: Edgar Wallace * A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook * eBook No.: 1306161h.html Language: English Date first posted: Nov 2013 Most recent update: Jan 2016 This eBook was produced by Colin Choat and Roy Glashan. Project Gutenberg of Australia eBooks are created from printed editions which are in the public domain in Australia, unless a copyright notice is included. We do NOT keep any eBooks in compliance with a particular paper edition. Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this file. This eBook is made available at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg of Australia License which may be viewed online at http://gutenberg.net.au/licence.html To contact Project Gutenberg of Australia go to http://gutenberg.net.auGO TO Project Gutenberg Australia HOME PAGE
The Black Avons I: How They Fared in the Time of the
Tudors
George Gill & Sons, London, 1925
The Black Avons I. Frontispiece
For Henry did but deny to the Pope the headship of our Church and
substitute himself therefor. And though he gave the Bible in the English
tongue to every church, where it was chained to a pillar (as I have seen
myself in many cathedrals and churches), yet as soon as he did find that the
common people construed the Holy Scriptures to their own circumstances, then
were the Bibles closed to them.
And many monasteries such as were rich, they say, he confiscated to the
distress of the common people, who looked to the monks in their sickness and
sorrow and had employment of them. Most of these monastery holdings was
arable land which the peasants tilled, and when, as was the fashion in these
times, the new holders of the land turned them to pasture for their sheep,
there was misery and starvation in England, and honest labourers, having
neither food nor work to procure the support of their families, joined with
robbers and rebels, or else were branded or hanged as beggars.
The young boy Edward, sixth of that name to rule England, came to the
throne in 1547 when I was eleven, and well I remember the bonfires we lit and
tended, though there was sorrow enough for great Henry's death, and
throughout the land (as my father has told me) an uneasiness of spirit,
partly I think, because the people dreaded what might come about from the old
King's will as to the succession, and partly because of the rising tide of
discontent against the enclosuring of land which went on in our eastern
counties to an extent beyond reason. The price of English wool was high, and
the Flanders merchants could never get enough. So the great lords and the
landowners began to take further pastures, enclosing common land which fed
the peasant's flocks and on which he grew his food.
My father lived in style at Beverleigh Manor, the home of our family, and
my heart grows wanting for the old place with the great avenues of oaks and
its broad meadows.
Here came the gentry of the county, and I have seen two score when we sat
at midday to dinner.
We kept a hearty table: mutton and young lamb, boars' heads and fat
capons, with cunning pasties of venison and wild duck; large chines of beef
and gallons of ale, cool and fragrant from the buttery.
Of those who came—and they were not the most welcome—I
remember Robert Ket and William his brother. My father had some business with
him, or he would not have come at all.
Particularly do I remember Robert, a noisy man of ruddy countenance, whom
some of the gentry spoke of as "the tanner," though he lorded the Manor at
Wymondham. He was a fresh-coloured, blusterous, talkative man, with great
ideas about the wrongs of the people.
"This be the time when we would have a Black Avon among us," he said, in
his broad, rustic way. "That from me, young master! For they do say
hereabouts in Norfolk:
"'Red Avon a Lord,
Black Avon a Sword'
"and 'tis a sword we want and a right stout man to stand before these
villains who enclose our lands that their sheep should browse and ours should
starve! Ye'll see the day, young master, when the people of England will take
sword and torch as they did in our forefathers' days."
"And be hanged, Master Ket," quoth I, "even as they."
He looked with gloom at this.
"You have the learning of a grown man, Master Henry Avon," he said. "But
still I say: pray God sends us a Black Avon, for the Black Avons are on the
people's side."
I liked him well enough, though his bull voice frightened me. Better I
liked Anna Lyle (or de Lisle, as some say, she being of a French stock), his
little ward, a quiet little maid with whom I oft-times played battledore and
a kind of tennis. She was fair as I, though less learned in the matter of
foreign tongues.
My memories of my home are vivid yet indistinct, as though I see it
through a screen in which great rents are cut, so that some part of it is
like as it were seen through a fog, and some most clear, even as to-day I may
look out of my window and see the fields of Charing, where the church of St.
Martin's-in-the-Field stands proudly amidst the cottages of the country
folk.
My father was, as I say, well respected by the gentry, both for his
learning, which was considerable, and his soldierly qualities, which were
notable. He had served in war against France under His Grace the Duke of
Suffolk, being squire at that time to Sir Edward Seymour, who afterwards was
made Earl of Hertford, and about the time of which I write was styled Duke of
Somerset. This association was to influence my life, for at the age of
eleven, after the coming in of the young king, when the Duke of Somerset was
appointed Protector, my father begged a place at Court for me, which was most
graciously granted, I being promised Page of the Presence to His Grace.
"I doubt not you will find the Duke a kindly man, for this he has always
been," said my father; "though as to his politics I have my own view. Yet it
seems that he does not show the spirit and sureness which marked him in
certain of his campaigns. King Henry went far enough with the Catholics, but
Somerset goes farther. So that he will have a new religion here, to the hurt
of the people, who see not the fine adjustings of such high matter, but know
only one way to come to the presence of God, and, if that be denied them,
will fight for it."
I told him thereupon all that Robert Ket had said to me, but this he
dismissed angrily.
"Ket had better look to his fine manor at Wymondham," he said
threateningly.
Two days before I set forth on my journey to London, my father told me,
walking on the terrace of our house:
"Watch you well, my son, Dudley, Earl of Warwick, who is at Court no
friend of the Duke's, if all the stories I hear be true. You will find him
none too gentle of speech, but he is a good soldier. Speak to him and tell
him you are of our stock, for we were together in the Scottish Wars, and he
owes me a whole throat, for I cut down the Scottish gentleman who would have
murdered him at Pinkie."
With my head buzzing with advice and admonitions, messages to old
companions in arms, injunctions, warnings and the like, set I out from the
city of Norwich one fair morning in May, my horse's head turned towards
London, and two packhorses, my man Dick, and a gentleman of Norwich who was
making the journey to London, being my companions. I wore my new suit, a
doublet of fine red cloth, a greatcoat lined with fur, such as had come into
fashion in Henry's day, leather riding boots to my calves, embroidered about
the top in an ancient but very becoming fashion. I also wore my flat cap of
velvet, which was then new-fangled, but later was worn by all the gentry.
My father at parting gave me seven shillings, the like of which sum I had
never possessed in my life, and this I carried in a little bag attached to my
belt. He was to allow me ten pounds a year for my keep and lodging, a large
sum, and one rarely allowed to a younger son; so that, with the prospect of
life at court and all the wonderful and stirring experiences which lay ahead
of me, I set out with a light heart and came, at the end of nine days, to
London.
The Court was at Greenwich, a palace which the young king greatly
favoured. After a night spent amidst the bewilderment of a great city, I took
barge next morning and was rowed past the great shipyards of Deptford to the
beautiful palace where Edward was born.
I arrived too late to be seen by His Grace, but the next morning presented
myself at his chambers and was kindly received by him, as my father had
predicted. He was a man of over forty, and I can well believe the stories
that I was told from the crowd of courtiers, pages and esquires with whom I
mixed that morning, that he was sore distrait. All the time he spoke with me,
which he did most courteously, his fingers were running through his locks,
his eyes absent.
"Well indeed do I remember Sir John Avon," he said. And then, stroking his
little beard, he seemed of a sudden to bring his mind to me and my visit.
"There is no place for thee in my entourage," he said, and, seeing my face
fall, he seemed at haste to rouse my drooping spirits. "But my lord Warwick
spoke to me yesternight that he needed a clerkly page."
He then cross-examined me about my learning, and, sending for one of his
gentlemen, bade him take me to the Earl of Warwick. As I was leaving his
presence, he said:
"I'd like you best black, Master Avon! For I have need in these days of
resolute swordsmen and balanced minds."
I knew he was talking about that famous Harry Avon of long ago, about whom
my ancestor, Sir Thomas Avon of Chichester, had written.
I was puzzled that he should have sent me to the Earl of Warwick, for it
was common gossip that between these gentlemen, who were the most important
of the sixteen noblemen which formed the Council of the Regency, no great
love was lost; though they had fought together in Scotland in the opening
months of His Majesty's reign: the Scottish Wars, as you know, being caused
by the refusal of the great Scottish lords to have our Edward made husband to
Mary, the young Queen of Scots, who was now fled into France and married to
the Dauphin.
Can it be (I have wondered) that the Lord Protector, as the Duke of
Somerset was called, should desire that a member of my family, known to be
loyal to His Grace, should be a spy upon his rival? Some such thought had the
Earl of Warwick when I presented myself to him at his lodgings.
He was a dour, suspicious man, unfriendly of countenance, and had a way of
half-closing his eyes when he looked at you as though he doubted every word
you spoke.
"It is true, boy, that I need a page," he said, and then examined me as to
my learning, and at the end gave me a letter which was written in the Greek
and which I read for him in good English. It was signed "Jane," and little I
knew, as I read that word, meaningless to me, that the tiny hand which had
written so fairly was that which one day would push back her hair that the
cruel headman's axe should have full play. For this Jane was the Lady Jane
Grey, ward of the Earl of Warwick, daughter of the Marquis of Dorset, who
later took the title of Duke of Suffolk; and when his lordship told me that
this had been written by one who was a year younger than myself, I took doubt
of my own learning.
"Why sent the Duke you to me?" he asked, when he had put away the letter.
"Am I so poor in friends that my servants must be commended to me by His
Grace?"
And then I think he remembered, for, with an impatient "Tut"—
"True, I spoke to the Duke. What is your name, young master?"
And when I told him, his crooked eyebrows rose.
"Thou art no black Avon, I see," he said with a laugh. "Therefore I must
fear more your pen than your sword!"
With this he handed me to his secretary, directing him to find lodging for
me; and I was sent forth to a tailor, that I might be fitted with the Warwick
livery proper to my station.
In the months that followed I swear that he tested me well; for from time
to time various fellows came to me pretending that they were favourable
towards the Duke of Somerset, and saying that it would be well if His Grace
were informed of what happened in the Earl of Warwick's cabinet, where they
knew I was in constant attendance, for the secretary made use of me for the
writing and reading of letters, and the making of fair copies of his
correspondence with certain noble gentlemen of the kingdom. But to all these
tempters and spies I returned a scornful answer, and presently his lordship
came to regard me with friendliness, and on many occasions I carried letters
for him to the highest in the land.
Cranmer had a great influence over the King, and was at that time at the
height of his power. The new English prayer-book had been printed, and also
the forty-two Articles of Faith, which were afterwards reduced to
thirty-nine.
It was strange to believe that this boy, who was ten—two years
younger than myself—could bring himself to such an understanding of the
holy mysteries which formed the subject of the Archbishop's discourse. The
Archbishop spoke to me after the ceremony. He was a saintly man with a long
beard, a gaunt expression and eyes of singular lustre. Throughout the sermon
the Lord Protector Somerset had stood on one side of the King's chair, and my
master on the other, and it seemed to me that they vied with one another as
to who should offer the most acceptable interpretation of the preacher's
words.
A few days after, my master sent for me, and I found him pacing up and
down his great room, a heavy frown on his face, his hands clasped behind his
back. He looked at me with his usual suspicion, and then took up a letter
from the table.
"Place this in the pocket of your doublet, Henry Avon," he said, "and go
you straight away to Chelsea, to the house of the Lord Admiral. To him this
letter must be taken, and to him only. You understand?"
I had heard a great deal of the Lady Elizabeth, who was the King's sister,
and by some accounted the most learned woman in the kingdom, though she was
then at the most tender age of fourteen. I have heard my lord Warwick say
that she was second only in brilliancy to Lady Jane Grey, but that she was
more flighty and less godly.
He sent me a man-at-arms to attend me, because on the previous day a band
of robbers had attacked a traveller on the lonely road across Blackheath, and
I must ride on my errand as I had to call at the Tower to leave dispatches
with the Lieutenant, for I had missed the tide.
I reached the City in safety and made my way through Temple Bar towards
Chelsea. Near to the limits of the City, in that part of London which is
called the Strand, I saw the builders, a very multitude of men, working at
the great palace which is to be called Somerset House, and on which they tell
me the Lord Protector had already spent one hundred thousand pounds. There
was great murmuring about the Duke's ambition and his self-conceit, which
took the shape of this grand building, which was to be greater than any royal
palace. Some say that the money had come from the monasteries which he had
suppressed, and there was a bitter feeling against him, especially in the
western parts of England.
I came to the house of Lord Seymour of Sudeley, who was the Protector's
younger brother and his most ambitious enemy; and because of the importance
of my dispatch I was taken immediately by his page into the great library. I
do not think that my lord expected that I should be shown in to him, but
rather that I should wait in an antechamber, for when the door opened he was
standing near a window looking upon the garden, and by his side was a slim,
girlish figure, and his arm was about her shoulder, and there was so much
tenderness in his gaze that I had thought that this might be his daughter,
for his wife, who was Katharine Parr, and the last of the great Henry's
wives, was newly dead.
He turned with a sharp exclamation; his hand fell to his side.
"How now, sir!" he said angrily, speaking to his page. "Did I not tell
you—"
And then he checked himself with a laugh, and addressed me most
kindly.
As he read the letter which I handed to him with a bow, I had time to
examine this turbulent man, who was Lord High Admiral of England and was, by
common repute, in league with the very pirates of the western coast it was
his business to destroy. He was a man of singularly beautiful countenance,
and well I can understand the fascination which he exercised. The lady I
looked at more timidly. She was, I think, slightly older than I, but she was
still a child, gracious of figure and very beautiful, with her fair,
transparent skin, and her red hair, which had no covering. She was taller
than I, and if she had any imperfection it was that she stooped a little. Who
she was I did not guess, until my lord handed the letter to her.
"What say you to this, Elizabeth?" he asked.
The Princess Elizabeth, the King's sister! Looking back over all these
years, I try to remember my emotions when I gazed for the first time upon
that princess who was destined to be the greatest Queen that the world has
ever known.
She read the letter quickly, and her red lips curled for a second in a
smile, as she handed it back to the Admiral. I know not to this day what that
dispatch contained, but I think it may have been that some rumour had reached
my lord Warwick, and that he had written to warn the Admiral against his
plans; for in those days the Protector's younger brother was renewing his
suit with the Princess Elizabeth. You will remember that, when the great
Henry died, by his will he left the Crown to his son by Jane Seymour, Edward,
next to Mary his daughter, whose mother was Catharine of Aragon, and in the
third line of succession, failing issue, to Elizabeth, the daughter of Anne
Boleyn. Now the King was sick, and none believed that he would reach
manhood's estate; while as to Mary, she was approaching middle age and had no
husband.
I have another reason for believing that this letter had to do with
Seymour's ambitious plot, for, as the Princess handed him back the letter,
she said:
"His Grace will have your head for it, Thomas, it seems!"
Whereupon he laughed.
"There are things that I would less care to lose," he said significantly,
and this brought a smile to the red lips.
"My lord," said Elizabeth drily, "if you did lose your head so often as
you lose your heart, you would be a sorry servant of the King's Majesty!"
It was some three weeks after that I saw the sister of her highness. Sir
Thomas Gresham, a great merchant of London and a Lord Mayor, had presented to
the King a pair of the first silk stockings that were ever seen in these
realms, and the King desired that these should be taken to the Princess Mary,
with whom he had been at variance, because she so strongly opposed the new
Reformation; and the Lord Warwick, who missed no opportunity of bringing
himself favourably to the notice of the Princess, so contrived that the
present should be taken by him.
I was one of the company that went with him into Essex, where the Princess
Mary was for the time being in residence. There are many who speak ill of the
Princess who became Queen, and speak of her in tones of horror and
abhorrence. But to me, who saw her now for the first time, and who knew her
as Queen, she was a sad and pitiable figure. Her youth had been blasted by
the calumnies of her father. Save the Howards, she had few personal friends.
She was insulted, almost starved for money, and could only reach King Henry's
good graces by defaming her own mother. She had been persecuted for the
convictions which she honestly held; she had seen the teachers of her
religion ill-treated or murdered. Small wonder that, at the age of thirty,
this woman, with her heavy face and her cold, repressive manner, should have
been soured of the world which had treated her so ill.
My lord Warwick she did not trust: that was clear to me from the
beginning. She saw through my master's flattery, his suave pleasantries, and
was silent and attentive whilst he told her of the King's health.
"I trust that God will preserve for many years the life of my good
brother, his highness," she said coldly, when he had finished. "Now tell me,
my lord, what is the news of England? For here I am, without any guidance of
public affairs; and except that I know the monasteries are being despoiled,
and that my lord Somerset hath imposed a new prayer-book upon the people
which they will not have, I know little."
She knew enough, it seemed, for she told him afterwards many horrid
stories, of how certain evil men had destroyed the images in the churches and
had paraded their villages in the sacred vestments.
"It seems that we are drifting towards Protestantism of a villainous
kind," she said. "And were my lord Somerset an archangel, he could not take
God from the ignorant peasantry and substitute another."
Returning to London, I rode by my lord Warwick's side, and he told me that
he had never known the Princess so bold of speech, and this fact seemed to
trouble him. For he guessed that the Princess Mary was better informed as to
the King's health than he had wist.
"These be troublesome days, Henry," he said, as we rode through the rank
and foul marshland which is called Moorfields, and came into the City by Old
Gate, or, as the common people say, 'Aldgate.'
"There is no stability in the land, and it seems that my lord Protector
has ears only for the flatterers who tell him one thing whilst all England is
telling him another."
Trouble indeed there was! In the west the opposition to the new
prayer-book roused the countryside, and the Protector had need to call in
German mercenaries before the western rising was suppressed. At the same time
there arose, to my alarm and fear, a rebellion in Norfolk, and long before
confirmation of this news came, I knew that Robert Ket was behind it all. And
so it proved; for Robert and his brother William had led a party from
Wymondham, which had gathered size like a snowball, until he had fifteen
thousand men encamped on Mousehold Heath, and levied tribute on the
countryside. Many were the encounters and skirmishes which occurred between
the gentry and the Kets, in one of which, to my incalculable sorrow, my dear
father was slain by a yeoman named John Ward, who was afterwards hanged for
it.
As the dispatches came through, my lord Warwick grew more and more
impatient and fretful, for the Protector had gone north with an army to
suppress the rebellion and had done no more than parley with Robert Ket,
offering him a free pardon and the redress of his grievances (which were the
enclosuring of the land) to which Robert replied that, since he had done no
harm, he required no pardon. For he was the kind of man, as the saying is,
who knew not where was enough.
There were meetings of the Council almost every day, and one morning I was
awakened by the Groom of Chambers and told to prepare myself to accompany my
lord Warwick into Norfolk. A large army of gentlemen and soldiers were
assembled, and with these we marched with great rapidity into Norfolk, to
find Robert Ket in possession of the fair city of Norwich and unwilling to
parley. Though I doubt me that Warwick would have kept his promise, yet he
did send a kind enough message to the rebels, repeating the Protector's
promise of pardon, and when this was rejected my lord ordered the storming of
the city, in which affair I had my first experience of warfare; though, if
the truth be told, I was in no danger since I rode by my lord's side
throughout the day, and entered the city with him when the walls were taken,
and Robert Ket and his brother were prisoners, Robert being hanged on the
castle and his brother William on the church door of Wymondham.
I had no more time than to ride across to my father's house, to find that
he had already been buried in the family vault, and that my elder brother,
Geoffrey, ruled in his place. I remember that morning especially because,
apart from the sad nature of my pilgrimage to my father's grave, my brother
Geoffrey, a sturdy, quiet fellow, with no stomach for soldiering, though he
had served in the Scottish Wars, told me that he had received news from our
uncle, Sir William Marston, who has an estate in Hampshire, that he had a son
born to him who was "black of locks from his birth, with a skin darker than
any I have seen...a lusty child, in all ways parfait."
In this queer, troubled setting did I learn of the coming of the Black
Avon of my time; and though my heart was rent with sorrow, and my head
buzzing with all the wonders of my late experience, yet I felt a strange
thrill in me, such as some great astronomer might feel when he discovers in
the firmament a new and a brilliant star.
The Old Gate
"The King is dead, but none must know this. I will have the head of any
man who bruits this abroad."
All the exits of the palace were guarded, and gathering a body of
soldiers, the Duke set forth post haste to seize the person of Mary and
confine her to the Tower.
Who carried the news that the King was dead, I know not. It was well
enough understood that His Majesty was in extremis. And perhaps the
gentlemen who had Princess Mary in charge were well enough informed as to the
Duke's intentions. It is certain that when he arrived at the place where Mary
should have been found, the cage was empty and the bird had flown to the Duke
of Norfolk.
Northumberland came back in a great sweat and we repaired straight away to
London, there to discover that the Lady Jane Grey had been brought thither,
and well do I remember that interview. I shall never forget that white-faced
girl, standing in the great council-room at Whitehall, as Northumberland
strode in.
"My lord," she said, and her voice was very calm and resolute, "why have
you brought me here?"
"To make thee Queen, Jane," he said, and straightway knelt and kissed her
hand.
But she snatched it away.
"Queen I will never be," she said breathlessly. "Oh God! my lord, what
madness is this?"
"Queen you are," said His Grace grimly.
And Queen she was proclaimed that night to the silent Londoners, who
raised not so much as a cheer. One small apprentice boy indeed cried:﹃Long
live Queen Mary!﹄for which his ears were nailed to the pillory and
afterwards cut off, as I saw myself.
Thus came Lady Jane Grey to the throne of England, with sorrow in her
heart and a fore-knowledge of her doom. Though she could not have been
ignorant of Northumberland's purpose, for a few months before he had in great
haste married her to his son, Lord Guildford Dudley, a boy of no other merit
than that he loved Jane.
Mad indeed was Northumberland—mad and drunk with the lust for power;
for he had none behind him, the Council being rebellious, the very judges who
witnessed Edward's will already protesting that they did so under duress.
His first task was to secure the person of Mary, and to this end he
gathered an army and marched against the Duke of Norfolk, getting no further
than Newmarket before he found his men deserting. I saw him in Whitehall
before he departed, and never again did I see his face. He had hardly left
London when the Council met, repudiated the will by agreement, and proclaimed
Queen Mary, and I heard no more until there came the Duke's steward to me,
saying that his master had been put into the Tower and was in mortal peril of
death for treason.
I did not love Northumberland, yet he had some qualities which were very
pleasing, and to this day I am pained to think that he recanted his religious
beliefs and grovelled to Mary for his life, though without any result. The
headman was already sharpening his axe.
It was well for me that my fortune was not bound up with that of
Northumberland, and that the gentlemen to whom I was secretary liked me well
enough to forget that I ever held the Duke's confidence. I went forth with
the Council to meet the new Queen when she came to London. She was then
thirty-six, but looked older. I slipped away from the magnificent party which
had gone out to meet her, and, standing near Aldgate, watched her coming in.
First came the citizens' children, walking before her, magnificently dressed.
Afterwards followed gentlemen habited in velvets of all sorts, some in black,
some in white, some in yellow, violet and carnation. Others wore satins or
taffetas, others damasks of all colours, having plenty of gold buttons.
Afterwards followed the Mayor with the City Companies and the chiefs or
masters of the several trades. After them the lords, brilliantly habited in
the most splendid clothing. Next came the ladies, married and single, in the
midst of whom was the Queen herself, mounted on a small, white, ambling nag,
the furnishings of which were fringed with gold thread. About her were six
lackeys, wearing dresses of gold. The Queen herself was dressed in violet
velvet, whilst behind her rode the Princess Elizabeth with her retinue.
That morning she had spent in prayer, and only once did she lose her
self-control, and that before she was taken out by the Lieutenant; when
somebody spoke of the Duke of Northumberland, her father-in-law, her face
flushed and an angry little frown gathered on her smooth brow. (She was, you
remember, a child of sixteen).
"Woe worth him!" she said bitterly. "His ambitions have brought my stock
to this calamity!"
Dudley, her boy husband, was taken out first to Tower Hill, and from the
windows of the King's house where we were assembled, she saw his mutilated
body carried in on a rough bier.
She would not see her husband that morning, fearing the pain of parting.
The block was set upon a little mound within the lower, at the spot where
another queen (Anne Boleyn) had suffered, and she walked with unfaltering
steps to the place of her death.
"I die in all innocency, a Christian woman."
I think those were her last words. I carried back to the Council the
certification of her death, signed by the Lieutenant's own hand, and in my
long ride I saw not London that day for tears.
What fate was hers seemed also to threaten Princess Elizabeth, who was
committed to the Tower because of the Wyatt rebellion and the whisper that
she had been privy to it. The Princess went by water, and the Traitor's Gates
were opened to receive her: a circumstance which caused the Princess the
greatest anger.
"I marvel what the nobles mean by suffering me, a princess, to be led into
captivity the Lord knoweth wherefore: for myself I do not," she said, as the
barge brought her down the river, and, when she landed: "Here lands as true a
subject as ever landed at these stairs!"
Well indeed she might fear, though she did not show it, for on these
stairs had landed her mother (half mad with fear), her suitor, the Lord High
Admiral, and the Lady Jane Grey, now dead in the Tower.
The Traitor's Gate
Holyrood
I think the Queen liked that, for she was very quick to detect sincerity,
and wise in the ways of flattering courtiers. The Black Avon had not been a
week at Court before he proved that he had the qualities of his ancestors:
for, one night, between Westminster and the City, he was attacked by three
footpads out of Alsatia (the which is a haunt of outlaws and cut-throats near
by the Black Friars) who rushed at him with drawn swords, and such was his
cleverness of fence that he killed the three of them.
He had, I was pleased to see, all the qualities which had distinguished
the men of his colouring: a courage of conviction, and a mind, as has been
said of them, like "a balance of steel." One afternoon at Greenwich the Queen
spoke bitterly against the Jesuit order, which was stirring up strife both in
England and, with more success, in Ireland. William said nothing until the
Queen challenged him.
"Madame your Majesty," he then said, "it seems a strange and terrible
thing that He who came to bring peace to the world should have through the
ages been served by princes of great uncharity. In the olden days of the
Romans the Caesars burnt Christians for their sport, and many terrible
stories have been told about the number that died for their faith. Yet His
Grace the Duke of Alva, in the Netherlands, hath killed ten times more for
Christ's sake than did Nero because of his beastly gods. The Christianity, be
it Catholic or Protestant, which seeks to do hurt, is no longer a religion
but a tyranny."
'Twas a bold thing to say before my lord Burleigh, who was hanging Jesuits
whenever he could find them, but the Queen took no offence. How much he was
in favour I did not know until one day in March he came to me and told me
that he had been charged with a very secret mission and was leaving that
night for Berwick. I think he was more frank with me than he would have been
with any other man, because of our love for one another, for he told me that
he was carrying secretly a letter to the Queen of Scots, warning her of
certain devilish plots which were afoot against her peace and security. He
was charged also by the Queen to convey a message to Mary, but of this he
would not speak.
He left London that afternoon, and of his adventures in the realm of
Scotland I must now tell, as he told me.
He travelled post, carrying with him an order, over the name of the lord
Burleigh, that enabled him to secure relays of horses, and he arrived at
Berwick without mishap. Here he lodged for the night with my lord Bedford and
Sir Thomas Randolph, to whom he carried a letter, and in the morning set
forth across the border and came without adventure to Edinburgh, where he
lodged at a house in the Cowgate, in the house of Mr. Robert Melville, who,
although a Scotsman, was in the pay of my lord Burleigh. This being
necessary, for our Ambassador, Sir Thomas Randolph, had been ordered to leave
the realm of Scotland because Mary regarded him as an enemy.
On the morning of March 8th the Black Avon rode alone through the foul
streets of Edinburgh to Holyrood House, where the Queen was in residence.
"Her Majesty has not yet arisen," said the Steward of the Household, and,
taking him into one of the grim and cold antechambers of the castle, left
him.
William wondered why this course had been taken, and, suspecting
treachery, loosened his sword. But presently the steward came back with a
tall young man, whom my kinsman instantly recognized as the King, Henry
Darnley. "King" I call him, though he was no king, for Mary had refused him
the Crown Matrimonial and he was no more than the Queen's husband.
Darnley greeted him fairly and with every courtesy.
"Our steward tells us that you have come a long journey, Mr. Avon, and
bear letters from Her Majesty the Queen our sister, to our dear wife."
Now William carried two letters, one for public display, and one to be
conveyed privily to the Queen of Scots, telling her of the plot that was
toward. And that letter which was public, he instantly drew from his doublet
and handed with a bow to Darnley, who, without any pretence, opened it,
though it was addressed to the Queen's Majesty. There was a look of trouble
in his eyes as he broke the seal, but as he read his face grew relieved.
"This I will convey instantly to Her Majesty," he said, "but she has not
yet arisen. For, as you know, good Mr. Avon, Scotland expects an heir and Her
Majesty at this moment is not as well as we could wish."
Very civilly he asked William to come to dinner with his gentlemen, and
this my cousin accepted, hoping that he should be able to see the Queen and
deliver the private message he had for her.
He rode back to Mr. Melville, who was anxiously waiting to hear the result
of his visit to Holyrood House, and when he had told that worthy gentleman
how the King opened the letter, Master Melville was in some distress.
"There is a plot afoot," he said, "and it may involve the life of the
Queen's Majesty. See you, Mr. Avon, that this letter is given to her before
the night."
He then showed William a bond, which had been signed by Lord Darnley on
the one part, and on the other part by the Earl of Argyll, the Earl of
Murray, the Earl of Glencairn and others, whereby those gentlemen agreed to
get for Darnley the Crown Matrimonial: that is to say, that he should be King
as Mary was Queen, and that they should be enemies to his enemies.
"The blow may fall at any time now," said Mr. Melville. "Rizzio is doomed,
and it would be no hard fate for him, for he is a foreigner and too much of a
woman for our liking, with his carollings and lutings. But, likely as not,
the Queen will die too, and Darnley and the lords will be set up over
us."
William had little knowledge of Scottish politics, but he was one who had
the power of grasping a situation and he spent the morning interviewing other
Scottish gentlemen to whom he bore letters, and he found that there was in
Scotland a party bitterly hostile to the Queen and to her religion, and that
it was rare indeed to meet in that city a man who did not hate Mary and love
John Knox, the preacher, who had openly denounced her.
That her life was free from suspicion, he could not believe. She was a
woman with no great moral principles and of exceeding vanity.
He dined that day with my lord Darnley and certain nobles who had been
mentioned in the bond, but there was no sign of the Queen or any of her
gentlewomen, and he was leaving the castle in great perturbation of mind when
a gentlewoman, passing him rapidly, murmured:
"Have you the letter for Her Majesty?"
For a moment he hesitated, thinking this might be a trap of Lord
Darnley's, but that instinct which has always been the possession of his kind
told him that she was a friend.
He quickened his step and kept pace with her. "No, madam," he said in a
low voice, "it is in a safe place."
"Come hither at the sixth hour," she said hurriedly. "I will admit you by
the small postern and take you to the Queen's presence."
And then she turned and walked quickly along a narrow passage that led
from the main hall, and he did not see her again.
That her precaution was justified my kinsman discovered when he found
himself being followed by two men obviously in Darnley's service. But happily
at six o'clock it was dark and a thin mist lay over this wretched city; he
was able to steal to the postern gate the Queen's woman had described, and
was instantly admitted. He followed her up a winding staircase and, she
opening a door, he found himself in a small room where supper was laid, and
where most of the gentlemen and ladies of the Queen's private entourage had
gathered. Here he met Mr. Arthur Erskine, the Earl of Bothwell, also Lord
Robert Stewart, brother to the Earl of Murray who spoke to him fairly and
made most kind enquiries about his journey from London.
Presently a little door opened and there came in a lady whom he instantly
recognized, from the miniature which Queen Elizabeth wore attached to a gold
chain about her waist, as the Queen of the Scots. Going forward, he knelt to
her and kissed her little hand.
Behind her was Rizzio, the Italian, a man of slight build with a gentle
face, and large, tender eyes, whom he saw at a glance, by the trim of his
beard, was a foreigner.
The Queen received William graciously, and, taking the letter from his
hand, made to open it, but, changing her mind, placed it in a pocket which
was cunningly cut in the fold of her dress.
"It gives us great happiness to receive so fine a gentleman from the
Queen's Majesty," she said, looking admiringly at William, as I guess, though
this in his modesty he would never say.
And then she asked him what place he held at the Court, and when she
learned how humble a one it was, asked him his religion.
"There will always be a place for you at my table, Master Avon," she said.
And then, seeing that he still wore his sword, she smiled:﹃May one of my
gentlemen relieve you of that weapon?﹄she asked. "For I like not well that
gentlemen should wear dagg* or sword at meat."
[* dagg = small pistol.]
And much against his will, William agreed and allowed the sword to be
carried to an outer room where the gentlemen had left their cloaks. And I
think it was well for him that this happened; for though he was right quick
with his sword, he might have had little chance with the bloody-minded men
who were soon to appear in that little room.
The Queen seated him two places from her. She spoke little, seeming
oppressed—indeed there was a great oppression on the meal. None spoke
gaily, or, if they spoke at all, it was with forced humour. It seemed as
though the very shadow of death lay upon them all.
And right truly their humour was tuned to the occasion, for they were but
half way through when the door opened and, looking round, William saw Henry
Darnley. He recognized my kinsman, and for a second started and turned pale.
And then, as the Queen greeted him, he came without a word and sat at her
side.
"My lord, you come late for supper." said Mary, uneasily it seemed.
Darnley made no answer, but his eyes for ever were glancing towards the
way he had entered, and presently the reason of it appeared, for the door was
pulled open with great violence and clamour, and there came into the room the
lord Ruthven, with certain of his squires and men, and they were armed in
warlike fashion.
"How now, my lord!" said Mary, rising in agitation. "What means this
strange sight?"
For there had come in after Lord Ruthven yet more men who carried swords
in their hands.
Ruthven did not answer her, but, fixing his eyes upon the pale secretary,
beckoned.
"David, I need thee," he said harshly, and there could be no mistaking the
menace in his voice.
Instantly William Avon was on his feet, smelling treason, but somebody at
his side pulled him down and a woman's voice whispered in his ear:
"Have done, young sir. Can you fight swords with your hands?"
In the meantime Rizzio had risen and slipped behind the Queen. She fixed
her angry eyes upon her husband, and he for his part could not meet them.
"What means this, my lord? Know you anything of this enterprise?"
He did not look at her, hanging his head.
"No," he muttered, "before God I know nothing of this."
The Queen glowered at Ruthven and pointed to the door.
"Go forth, my lord," she said, "under pain of treason. Void this room of
your presence."
Ruthven for a second hesitated, and then, lurching towards the Queen,
struck at the cringing secretary over her shoulder. She screamed and stepped
back; somebody threw over a table, and one of the men at arms gripped the
Italian and dragged him forth, whilst another, with a cocked pistol pointing
at the Queen's heart, held her at bay, and thus they dragged the secretary
through the narrow doorway, and William saw the rise and fall of their
glittering daggers as they struck at the dying man before they flung him on
the stone stairs to die.
The Queen stood against the wall, her face white, her dark eyes shining
with a malignity beyond understanding, and presently Ruthven came back, hot
and bloodstained.
"I tell you this, Mary," he said, "that if we have offended you, then, by
God! you have offended us with your intolerable tyranny! For you have taken
this David in council, and through him have maintained the ancient religion,
putting upon the Council also my lord Bothwell, who is a traitor!"
By this time the lord he had named, also my lord Atholl and Sir James
Balfour, who were in the cabinet at supper when Darnley had arrived, had made
their escape. Though it would appear that it would have been the blessing of
God if one at least of these had broken his neck as he slid by a cord down
the castle wall.
All the time my kinsman, William Avon, had watched this scene powerless,
had seen most horrid murder done, and had been insulted, and must needs stand
quiet. (Afterwards, I asked whether his blood did not boil).
"For Rizzio, yes, for the Queen, no," quoth he, in his cold practical way.
"For mark me, Henry, this Queen had death in her eyes when she spoke to
Darnley, and well I know she was capable of taking care to herself."
The King and the Queen had angry speech. Words passed between them,
accusations and counter-accusations, which it is not seemly to write about.
But at the end, though Rizzio lay on the stairs, with fifty-six wounds
gaping, she and her prince went away together, seemingly well reconciled.
Next morning William made preparations for his departure, and none said
him nay, though Melville warned him that, once Darnley gave thought to the
matter, he would not easily pass out of the realm. And so this proved, for
three leagues south of Edinburgh town he was overtaken by two gentlemen, who
spoke him civilly and told him that they were of the household of Lord
Ruthven, who desired that he should return with them. It chanced that he
recognized the speaker as one of those who had come into the Queen's cabinet
and had struck at Rizzio.
"Monsieur," said this man in the French manner, his name being de Croc,
the same as, but no relation to, the French Ambassador to Mary's Court,
"Monsieur, because of stories that may run across the border, and all manner
of hateful prejudices which may be excited, it is desirable that you should
return to Edinburgh with us, so that you may have speech with the King. Which
will be to your profit."
William Avon laughed, and I think when he laughed he was most
dangerous.
"God save you, gentlemen, go your way," he said; "for I am in the service
of the greatest prince in Christendom, her excellent Majesty, Queen
Elizabeth, and I tell no tales except the truth. This I tell you, though I
speak not willingly with murderers."
"Fellow," said the other hotly, "it was no murder we did but the execution
of divine justice."
"So be it," said William Avon, as he half-turned his horse's head. "Then I
will say that hangmen and headsmen are not to my taste."
As he spurred back his horse, they drew on him, but before their swords
were pointed, his was out, and he was on foot. They thought they had him at a
disadvantage. Three passes, and Ruthven's man toppled over with a groan; but
his friend, having no heart for the business, turned and galloped away as
fast as spurs could force him.
Taking the dead man's horse, my cousin rode on. He had intended to lie at
a little village that night, and well for him that he changed his mind; for
my lord Darnley sent a troop after him with orders to take him dead or alive,
and as he crossed the English border the dust of the column showed against
the sky not three miles behind him.
The Earl of Bedford had already received some news of the dreadful deed,
and when William had told the full story, my lord sent him off to bed while
he wrote his dispatches, and four hours later my kinsman was on his way to
London.
The Queen was at Westminster when the "Black Avon" arrived, and he
hastened to her with the dispatch. He told me afterwards that he found her
alone with Lord Burleigh, and that before the dispatch was read she asked him
to tell her briefly what had happened, for she knew by his quick return that
something unusual had happened.
She spoke no word when he told of the murder, though my lord Burleigh was
greatly troubled, and when he had finished she looked at the picture of Mary
which she carried at her waist and nodded slowly.
"Had I been you, my good sister," quoth she, "I would have snatched
Darnley's dagger and killed him where he stood!"
Of the dead Italian she said nothing, regarding him, I think, as a bad
servant who had brought the Queen's name into disrepute. Indeed, her anger
was for Darnley and not for the murderers, since, when some of them took
refuge in England, and Mary sent her a letter asking that they be turned out,
she did no more than order Sir John Foster, who was Lieutenant of the
Marches, to have them sent away from the town in which they had taken refuge;
and this she did in such a leisurely fashion that no harm came to them.
William came to lodge with me and told me more than was in the dispatch,
such as what the Queen had said to Darnley, and Darnley to her.
"There is a woman, Harry," said he, "who will one day be acclaimed martyr,
because, God knows! she is heading for utter ruin. And like as not, the block
or the assassin's knife will end her. And men and women will weep over her,
pitying her sad plight. Yet, if she were a man and without beauty, she would
be execrated for her vileness, for her wanton soul is full of malice and
wickedness. When last I spoke to her she dashed the tears from her eyes and
said to me: 'No more weeping. I live only to avenge my David!'"
"There are stories of her which I could not bring myself to tell the
Queen's Majesty," he went on. "As for Darnley, he is a drunken sot, full of
self-indulgence, with nothing in him but gross animal, and if he does not
betray the men he conjured to do this deed, my name be not Avon!"
William's judgment was ever exact, for Darnley did most horribly betray
the conspirators, so that in their desperation they sent to Mary, from the
safe place to which they had fled, the very bond he had signed, though Mary
needed no assurance.
It became abundantly clear to Lord Burleigh that Mary would not rest until
she had the lives of those who slew Rizzio, and he felt it was necessary
there should be somebody in Scotland to whom his agents might report. Of this
matter he spoke with me.
"We need a young man of resolute courage," he said, "and I have a mind to
send your kinsman, William, into Scotland, though his head will fall if
Ruthven or Bothwell find him there. How old is your cousin, Mr. Avon?"
I told him twenty. Indeed, I thought he was much younger until he had
appeared at the Court, for it will be remembered that I had heard of his
birth on the day that Robert Ket was captured in Norwich. But it seems that
the news my brother gave to me was very old, and that the boy had been born
years before I had heard of his existence.
"'Tis a good age," mused my lord; "an age when danger seems attractive,
and fear is a word for older men to explain."
It was some days before he sent for William, and I was present at the
interview. My lord came straight to the point.
"Mr. Avon, I am sending you into Scotland, and peradventure sending you to
the block, for all I know. For it is certain that you have displeased Prince
Henry's friends (though they call Darnley the King), and the Earl of Bedford
tells me that there is a price upon your head."
He saw my cousin smile and his eyes twinkled.
"That will not deter you from going back into Scotland," he said, "and
collecting information from such of my agents, of whom I will give you a list
and to whom I will give you letters, though you must memorize their names
lest they fall into the hands of the Queen. I have a great desire to know
what is going forward in that accursed country, particularly what steps the
Queen will take to avenge the death of her friend."
The Black Avon rode out of London that night in the guise of a traveller
who was making for the north, carrying under his doublet six letters, which
were addressed to A, B, C, D, E and F, the letters standing for certain names
which he had committed to his memory; and with him went nothing more awful
than a led horse which trotted at his side and carried on its back his
slender possessions.
His journey north was adventurous enough, for he was hardly outside Barnet
before three footpads came out of a dense thicket and demanded his purse.
Having no mind to stay and explain their killing and his own identity, the
Black Avon laid about him with the flat of his sword, and put the villains to
flight. South of York he came upon four outlawed men, two of whom were
branded in the face and in the hands, and he found these more difficult to
deal with, and might have been overcome, but the Sheriff of York rode on to
the scene and with him his men, and two of the outlaws were hanged out of
hand to a tree under which William had been fighting for his life.
He reached the border without further mishap, avoiding Berwick, and taking
one of those paths which the cattle-stealers know so well, he came eventually
to Glasgow, a small town on the Clyde, where he was hospitably received by
one of Lord Burleigh's agents.
It is well known that my lord had spies in every important city and town
in Scotland; but of late they had feared to write to him, and since the
retirement of the English Ambassador from Edinburgh, there had been little
news come through to London save what Mr. Melville sent.
"Rizzio had better not died," said Mr. Macpherson, who was a furrier and
silk merchant; "for we now have Lord Bothwell at the Queen's ear. They say
she thinks more of him than she did of Davie."
"Where is Darnley?" asked William, it being his first instruction to
discover the whereabouts of the Queen's husband; for in England all manner of
wild rumours were abroad.
"He is here in Glasgow," was the answer.﹃Sick, some say, of the smallpox,
but others, that he has been poisoned by the Queen. And certainly his illness
was a very sudden one. You came at a good time,﹄Mr. Macpherson went on. "The
Queen is on her way here from Edinburgh to visit the King, and you will look
upon as black-hearted a lady as ever held sceptre."
William found an excuse to go out of Glasgow to a small village through
which the Queen would pass, and here, through the windows of a tavern, he saw
Mary and her retinue. She looked as black as thunder and he learnt that she
had been vexed by having received a message on the road from the Earl of
Lennox, Lord Darnley's father. After the cavalcade had passed, William made
his way back to the town of Glasgow and sought for many days that followed,
information as to what was passing between the Queen and her husband. He did
not know that the King was to be removed to Edinburgh until after Darnley had
already left his lodgings.
William learned that Darnley's destination was Edinburgh. But there was a
talk, which came through Mr. Macpherson, that Mary would not have her husband
in the palace, but that he was to be lodged outside the city, in a place
which had been specially prepared, because she feared the smallpox, and that
he might give it to the child, which had been born after Rizzio's murder and
the which was one day to be James I., King of England. With this information
in greater detail, William went ahead to gain news at Edinburgh, first
changing into the costume of a road monk, such as were to be seen, by the
Queen's pleasure, in various places in Scotland. It was no great advantage to
my kinsman, adopting such a disguise. He met black looks and scowling faces
everywhere, yet, because the Queen was on the road, no landlord dare refuse
him admission to their inns.
The Black Avon reached Edinburgh eight days after he had left Glasgow, for
his progress had been very slow; and there he found Mr. Melville was not in
town, and he had recourse to interviewing another agent, who was in such
terror of discovery that he loudly denied he had any dealings with Lord
Burleigh. However, my kinsman found a many people who were against the Queen,
and from one of these he learned that a lodging for the King was being
prepared at Kirk o' Fields, a lonely and horrid place which stood between two
ruins just south of a hamlet of ill fame known as Thieves Row. Into this
bleak and hideous old house, furniture was moved, tapestries were hung to
hide damp and discoloured walls, and to this place came the King of
Scotland.
From the very first, William saw that a sinister plot had been laid, and
made efforts to find somebody favourable enough to the King to prevent it.
But, if Mary was unpopular, so also was Darnley, who had betrayed his friends
and ill-treated those who at this moment might best have served him.
It was a time of anxiety for the Black Avon, for it was rumoured that one
of Queen Elizabeth's spies was in the City, and the Earl of Bothwell sent his
men to search lodgings and examine all suspicious strangers, so that William
was obliged to move from one house to another, sometimes to sleep in the
open, with no other protection from the bitter cold of February than his
broadcloth cloak.
He could learn nothing except that the Queen went to and fro from Holyrood
to Kirk o' Fields, and that some nights she slept in this low place. Then he
heard there was to be a wedding of one of her servants, and that the Queen
would not sleep in the house of her husband that night, and he guessed the
evil deed that was toward.
He was living now in that Thieves Row of which I have spoken, being
accepted by the denizens of the squalid neighbourhood by the story he told,
that he had escaped from prison. He spent his nights patrolling round the
house where the King lay; and on that night when Mary absented herself, he
was standing in the shadow of the wall, wondering whether it might not be a
good thing to climb over it and warn Darnley of his danger, when he heard the
tramp of armed feet, and crept to the shadow of some bushes under the wall.
He counted twenty armed men, and saw by their dispositions that they were
surrounding the house. None, however, came near the wall where he crouched
under the bush, and this gave him cause for wonderment. Presently he heard a
great commotion in the yard of the house, a cry for help, a few sobbing
words, and then silence. Careless of danger, he leapt up from his concealment
and measured the height of the wall. He had crouched to spring, when there
came a terrific explosion that flung him into a ditch, where he lay
half-stunned for a minute or two. When he recovered, he heard a great
commotion. People were running from Thieves Row and from the houses about,
and he saw the soldiers rapidly disappearing into the darkness. The house had
been blown up. But Darnley had not been killed thereby. He, too, had heard
the tramp of feet, and had tried to escape. But Bothwell's creatures had
caught him in the yard and had strangled him with the sleeves of his own
jacket.
There was nothing to do now but to make his way back to England by the
shortest route; and, after many perilous adventures, William reached London,
to learn that the Queen was at Greenwich. Here he repaired on horseback and
interrupted Her Majesty as she was dancing with her courtiers. She listened
with a white face whilst he told her of the murder, and then, with an
oath—for our Queen did not hesitate at that—she left the
ball-room, and he did not see her again for two days.
Elizabeth had no doubt that Queen Mary had planned it all; and when, after
this, Mary married the Earl of Bothwell (pretending that she was forced
thereto by being carried off by the Earl of Bothwell's men), there was little
doubt that England was a dangerous place for Mary of Scots if she came
thereto. And come she did, for the lords, enraged by the Bothwell marriage,
gathered their retainers and fighting men and went up against Bothwell and
Mary and defeated them, so that Mary was forced to flee to Carlisle after
having escaped from the Isle of Loch Leven, to which the Scottish lords had
confined her. Then it was that Elizabeth refused to receive her at Court
unless she cleared herself of the charge against her, that she was
responsible for the death of her husband. And when a commission was formed to
enquire into the matter, Mary would give no evidence, pleading her royal
state as being superior to the law. So that she lingered in one confinement
after another, until having intrigued against the Queen's Majesty, claiming
that the English throne was hers by right, Parliament demanded her death, to
which my royal mistress most sadly and reluctantly agreed.
It was after Mary's coming that my influence with Lord Burleigh enabled me
to procure the restoration of the little estate of Mistress Anna Lyle, which
had been attainted during the treason of her guardian, Robert Ket; and this
sweet lady I married at the church of St. Bride's, my lord Burleigh and many
ladies and gentlemen of the Court being present, including my kinsman, Sir
William Avon, who had succeeded to the estate of his father and had been
knighted by her Majesty on the recommendation of the Earl of Leicester, the
Queen's favourite courtier.
The Black Avon was now well established at Court, and friendly, not only
with my lord of Leicester, but with the Earl of Essex, so well beloved by
Elizabeth, and many of the great adventurers who arose in these days. He had
a lodging in St. James', to which came all the famous men of the earth. For
here I met, in the years that followed, Sir Francis Drake, that great seaman,
Frobisher and my lord Howard, a valiant sailor, and Master Walter Raleigh,
who made such a sensation at Court because he brought back from the isle of
Tobago a certain dried weed which the natives put into a pipe of curious
fashion, and, having lighted it, inhale the fumes. Many of these "pipes"
fashioned in dried clay Mr. Raleigh gave to my kinsman, who soon became
proficient in the art of making and swallowing the smoke. For my own part, I
only tried this barbarous practice once and I was so deathly sick that never
again did I inhale the poison.
My kinsman, being a gentleman of the town, came to know many other famous
persons, and once he took me, in company with my lord Leicester, to see a
masque which was being performed in Southwark. The theatre, which had no
resemblance to the theatres of the ancient Greeks, was a high wooden building
called the "Globe." It was roofless, the masque being performed on a platform
in the open air, and when I went there the galleries about were crowded with
gentlemen from the Court, whilst in the pit was a goodly crowd of citizens,
watching the antics of the fellows on the stage. This play was called
"Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark" and was written by a man named Will
Shakespeare, who owned the "Globe" and who was known to the Black Avon. Once
we supped with him at a tavern in Southwark and met many of his friends,
including a Ben Jonson and a Christopher Marlowe, who were also writers of
note, though as to Marlowe, I am told, he was too fond of his bottle to be of
any account.
I found Shakespeare a very well-spoken gentleman, in great favour with my
lord of Southampton. He spoke of his home, which was at Stratford in
Warwickshire, and he seemed indeed a very amiable man to be following such a
vagabond profession.
"What think you of our other William of Avon?" my kinsman asked as we came
away from the tavern that night.
When I told him, he laughed.
"This man will be remembered when my lord of Leicester is forgotten," he
said: a very preposterous statement, it seemed to me.
Of all that happened through the many years that followed, I remember best
(and this is my latest memory, peradventure) the great fear that possessed
England when the King of Spain, making an oath to humble the English pride,
fitted out his great Armada, that was styled invincible. Well he had reason
to hate us. We had checked him at every turn; we had sent our soldiers to
help the people of the Low Countries, who for generations had endured the
tyranny and horror of his rule. For Philip of Spain, and his lieutenant, the
Duke of Alba, had put to death more than a hundred thousand people in the
Netherlands in order to establish his rule and the rule of the Pope. It is
said, and I think this is true, that Pope Pius V. gave him authority to
destroy every heretic, man, woman and child. And Spain was further incensed
because Elizabeth would have no Spanish match nor marry the husband of her
dead sister. In Holland, where that very gentle knight, Sir Philip Sidney,
was slain, the Black Avon moved from triumph to triumph. It was in the last
battle, which broke the power of Spain, that gallant fight with the great
Armada, that he earned for himself undying honour.
Drake had singed the King of Spain's beard when he had attacked the
shipping in Cadiz Harbour, thereby throwing back the preparation of the
Armada for a whole year. The Black Avon was with him then, in one of those
ships that hovered about the coast of Spain, destroying every vessel that
carried the Spanish colours. But despite all these happenings, which but
served to irritate the Spanish people, the Armada sailed out of Lisbon on May
20th, 1588, one hundred and thirty ships of the line with eight thousand
seamen and nineteen thousand soldiers, appearing off the Lizard on July 19th.
My lord Howard of Essex was in command of the English fleet, and under him
were Drake, Frobisher, Hawkins, Fenner and Raymond. The first news which came
to London by courier was bad. Howard was wind-bound at Plymouth, and the
Armada had passed into the Channel, but at last the Admiral got his ships
worked out of the Sound, thirty ships of the line, with forty more
merchantmen and the like, against a hundred and thirty.
The Spanish ships were little more, so it seems, than great castles of
wood floating on the water. We touched them first off St. Alban's Head, and
then off St. Catherine's, Isle of Wight, the ship on which the Black Avon
sailed being wrecked by gunfire, but he was rescued with most of his men.
With little hurt the Armada came off Calais, expecting there to meet thirty
thousand of the Duke of Palma's soldiers from the Netherlands. But by the
mercy of God they were not ready, though many think that if they had been
there would be thirty thousand less enemies of Britain alive at this day. For
that night Howard sent fire ships drifting with the tide into the Calais
roads. The great Armada scattered in a panic, and by the evening were flying
northward into storms, on to the rocks of Scotland and Ireland. Of that fleet
only fifty-three went back to Spain.
The Armada was sighted on the day we went down to Tilbury, where tens of
thousands of English volunteers were drawn up for the Queen's inspection.
Attended only by my lord Burleigh, though she had been threatened that
treachery was toward and she might be struck down by some of the very
soldiers she commanded, she rode along the lines, and then, reining back her
horse, addressed that armed multitude.
"I know I have the body of a weak, feeble woman, but I have the heart and
soul of a king—and of a King of England too! And I think foul scorn
that Palma or Spain or any prince of Europe should dare invade the border of
my realm, to which, rather than that any dishonour should grow by me, I
myself would take up arms—I myself will be your general, judge and
rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field."
One more picture I have of the Black Avon and of our great Queen. He had
been advanced to a place in the Council, and he was there by her side when
they carried her in in her great chair, wan and wasted, and put her at the
head of the Council table. The men she had loved so well, Burleigh, Essex,
Leicester, had passed; Drake was dead in Nombre Dios Bay, and the great
captains of war, who had loved her and whom she had loved, had passed into
the realms of pious memory.
She was sick to the death, not having slept in a bed for months, yet the
black eyes shone out of that gaunt face with the same resolution, though her
pale lips could frame no word.
The Black Avon knelt by her side, and one—think it was Sir Robert
Cecil—asked her whether it was her wish that James, the son of Mary,
Queen of Scots, who had been in our Queen's care almost since he was born,
should be the new king.
She tried to speak but could not; closed her eyes, and we thought she had
gone.
Sir William Avon—he was grey in his hair now—repeated the
question gently.
"Madame," he said, "will you raise your hand if you desire that the son of
James of Scotland should be our King?"
Slowly the hand rose and fell, and she moved no more.
The great Elizabeth was dead.
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