Wild Times. A tale of the days of Queen Elizabeth ... New edition

Preface

. Persecution on religious ground is now so absolutely repudiated by all parties and opinions, that while the Ca tholic has no difficulty in condemning the fires of Smith field, the Protestant may well afford, for similar reasons, to sympathise with the papistical sufferers in the reign of Elizabeth. When that queen ascended the throne, Ca tholicity was still the religion of the great masses of the people, and was either secretly followed or openly pro fessed by a large half of the noblest families in the land. The laws, therefore, against Papistry pressed hard upon all classes ; though, by a masterpiece of political sagacity, they were brought to bear more especially upon the two which, either by birth or education, were the highest ; that is to say, upon the gentleman and the priest. So rich, indeed, is the private history of the Catholic families of England in all the materials for a 'sensation novel' — in hair -breadth escapes, in daring rescues, in life-long im prisonments and heroic deaths — that it is wonderful it should so long have escaped the prying eyes of the novel ist in search of adventures, ' too strange not to be true,' for his embryo romance.

So far, in fact, as incident is concerned, the present story is no fiction. In the year 1594, Bosgrave, an Eng lish gentleman of family and fortune, was hanged for the offence of which my hero stood indicted — the offence of taking off his hat, and presenting it to a priest under ex-

PREFACE.

. IV animation by the Royal Commissioners. The cruelties attributed to Topcliffe, even to his mode of private and illegal torture, were really perpetrated by him; as any one may see, who consults the State Trials, or his own private confidential letters in which he describes his proceedings. The crowds of vagrants, broken-down tradesmen, discon tented gentlemen, and ruined soldiers, described as inha biting Hampshire, did form so perilous an element in the population of England, from the days of Henry the Eighth down to those of his daughter Elizabeth, that act after act of parliament was passed for the purpose at least, of thin ning their numbers, branding on the cheek being gener ally named as the least punishment for a first offence, while death was, I believe, the inevitable penalty of a third.

Rescues, quite as daring and far more successful than the one supposed to have been attempted at Dorchester, did occur ; not only in the reign of Elizabeth, but in that of each of her successors, down even to the days of George the Third. It is right to add that, with the exception of Topcliffe, no attempt has been made to delineate any of the historical characters of the period. The object of the Author has been merely to create a story of domestic interest by following persecution to those quiet homes where its wounds were deepest, if not most obvious ; and by marking its effects upon many a high-hearted man, who, but for its fell proscriptions, would have written his name, not upon the prison walls where we find it now, but upon the pages of English history, among the brightest and bravest of the band who form a halo of glory round the throne of Queen Elizabeth. London, May 3.

Chapter I

Three centuries have passed away since a stately building, known in the county by the familiar appellation of the Grange, stood crowning one of the round hills of Dorsetshire, and looking down in lordly greatness on the fairest and most fertile of its valleys. A venerable building it was, even in the days of which we speak, and presenting traces of the architecture of every age in English history, from the reign of the Norman William down to the latter half of that of Queen Elizabeth, at which period our tale com mences. The original structure having been well-nigh battered to pieces during the wars of the Roses, it had been repaired and patched, knocked down and built up again, until in process of time high clocked towers, deep covered porches, curious old gable ends hung with honeysuckle and ivy, long slanting roofs, with chimneys of twisted brickwork richly ornamented and surmounted by gilt vanes, had grouped themselves in strange but picturesque confusion round the watch-tower, from whence the grim old Nor man founder of the family had first flung his banner to the breeze.

Of the original building, that watch-tower alone remained entire. Scatheless amid the wreck of ages, it stood there yet ; bare, in deed, but stately, and seeming in its massive strength to flout at the showier but less substantial buildings, which in the lapse of years had gathered round its walls. That portion of the building which belonged to the reign of Elizabeth consisted of a long, low front, with projecting wings. It was built in a kind of yellow stone, which made it look as though a perpetual sunshine were resting on it, — an effect deepv ened and increased by the rich reds, greens, and purples, of the embayed casement windows in the lower story. Above the en trance porch the arms of the family, three crosses, a sword hilted and pommelled, with the motto, ' Crux Christi corona nostra,' were carved in stone ; before it lay the terrace, with its fountain ever plashing silver, its well-stocked aviary, its parterres, gay in the summer time with all the flowers then cultivated in gardens — roses, clove pinks, gilliflower, and fritellaria ; and the whole was shut in and sheltered by a low yew hedge, clipped into every fantastic form of bird or beast that the skill or imagination of the gardener could devise.

A broad flight of steps, with statues set on either side of the balustrade, led to the gateway, which, flanked by a couple of massive turrets, had formerly defended the draw bridge. The latter, however, had been ere this removed, the moat which had once entirely surrounded the Grange and its gardens having at this point been filled up and bridged over, so as to pre sent an easy and permanent approach to the mansion. Beyond lay the avenue, with its triple row of magnificent lime trees, running right through the chase, which on the three sides in front of the house stretched away as far as the eye could reach, and was bounded at last by a chain of hills sweeping round it like an am phitheatre ; those at the farther end shutting up the land view, while the near one went sheer down to the sea beneath, making a wall of some hundred feet to repress its wild encroachments.

The terrace we have described was so placed that it not only com manded a full view of the chase, with its far-off boundary of hills, but a snatch likewise of the blue sea beyond ; while a pleasant home feeling was imparted to the prospect by the pretty village which lay nestling in the vale beneath ; its white walls striped with wood, gleaming like ebony and silver amid the delicate bloom of the apple tree and pear, which then, as now, made that part of Dorsetshire to show in spring time like a garden. Altogether, it was a goodly heritage, and yet in the midst of its rich profusion of foliage and of flower there was a look of loneliness, and almost neglect, which told significantly of evil days and diminished for tunes, in those who claimed it as their own. The terrace indeed was free from this reproach, but the broad road of the avenue was weed-grown in many places, one or two fallen trees still lay block ing up the path just where the winter's storms had fiunothem and the reservoir for fish was well-nigh choked by weeds which the stately swans that floated on its waters were inadequate to consume.

But it was in the interior of the house (to which we would now invite the attention of our reader) that these symptoms of poverty were most painfully apparent. From the entrance porch the visitor passed at once into the great hall of ban quet, a noble room, well fitted for its purpose. In the centre stood a table of massive oak, and benches and buffets of the same mate rial were ranged round the walls, and set besides in the deep em brasures of the window. Two immense fire-places, which must have been cheery things to look at when the yule log was burning in them, now stared hopelessly blank and empty at each other, seeming, instead of the ideas of light and plenty which they ought to have suggested, to hint at the existence of dark closets and hidden dens, constructed to suit the exigencies of the times, in the thickness and depths of their enormous chimneys.

The ceiling was of carved oak, rich in design but sombre enough to look at, and the walls were panelled in the same dark wood, with here and there the antlers of a magnificent stag hung up to break the long line of gloom. With these and other trophies of the chase were mingled banners of all times and nations, — suits of ancient armour, bucklers, lances, swords, and other weapons, arranged in sheaves of every fantastic form and fashion of which they were susceptible. They were red now with rust, and rather deepened than relieved the dark colouring of the walls ; but in the prosper ous times of the house, when there were hands enough to keep them polished, they must have flashed back the lights from the banquet-table, and made the old hall to glitter, on high festal nights, like a palace of the gnomes.

To the right of this hall were the state apartments, — a regal suite of rooms, heavy in draperies of silk and velvet, and richly fringed canopies after the fashion of that day. Yet Poverty herself, in all her cheerless nakedness, coidd hardly have conveyed such a sense of desolation to the mind as did those splendid rooms, — deserted alike by guest and servant, and showing dim, and drear, and lifeless, in the dust and darkness to which they had been consigned. The mark of a fallen house was unmistakably upon them. Blank spaces on the walls told of precious paintings which had been removed, and empty pedestals of statues taken down, too probably for the market; while silver sconces, chandeliers, every article of furniture likely to have been made of the precious metals, had vanished from the scene.

We have said that no servants ever approached these rooms, which had long fallen into disuse ; but in the inhabited portion of the house there was a thin sprinkling of domestics, for the most part of that especial and now rare type, who, having once entered a family, adopt its interests as their own, and live and die in its service. Among these the most important were the steward, with his golden chain, and the major domo, with his staff of office, both of them old enough to have seen two generations ot their masters in their cradles. With these, and others like these, there was also a sprinkling of younger faces, and (for there was hardly a Catholic mansion in the England of those days which such persons did not pollute) one or two with such a keen yet stealthy glance as inevitably suggested the idea of a spy — a spy upon the others, set there by Walsingham.

Over the state apartments was a suite of rooms, which being smaller, and therefore better suited to their change of fortunes, had been adopted by the family for daily use. From an ordinary-sized dining-room the visitor passed through an ante-chamber into the small saloon, looking quaintly picturesque with its antique furniture, mingled with and gracefully relieved by vases filled with garden flowers, books, and implements of female industry scat tered carelessly around. Beyond this apartment was another, and beyond that again an oratory, or domestic chapel, an indis pensable appurtenance in the arrangements of the family. To this oratory we shall have occasion to return anon ; at the present moment our story leads us to the chamber which lay between it and the saloon, and which was the sleeping apart ment of the chief lady of the mansion.

An immense bed with sable plumes and velvet hangings was its principal article of fur niture, and she who lay beneath that gloomy canopy was dying — dying slowly, perhaps, but surely, though less probably, of actual illness, than of the inevitable decay of age ; for her features, though pale and drawn, bore no symptoms of positive disease, and the coverlet of faded silk and silver, drawn with decent com posure to the chin, gave no indication of the restlessness of fever. Her hair, which some loving hand had gathered smoothly up beneath her coif, was white as though a hundred winters had laid their snows upon its tresses ; and her thin white hand lay tran quilly, as though death were not palpable in its very touch, in that of the young girl who sat beside her, and whose plump and rosy fingers made sharp contrast with the shrivelled and bloodless ones which they so lovingly enclosed.

Notwithstanding the al most complete extinction of bodily strength, the mind of the invalid was still vigorous and clear, and she was perfectly con scious of her approaching doom. Her life had been one Ion" preparation for death, and now she feared it not, albeit a slight shade of anxiety mingled with and somewhat veiled the serene joy that rested upon her features, as she lay there waiting for ' her hour.' The expression of her countenance, however was none the less sublime for this, and whatever might be her hidden trouble, it was evident that it arose neither from remorse for the WILD TLMES. 5 past nor doubt of the future. There was, in fact, far less of fear than of eager expectation in the glance which she turned, now towards the door of her apartment, and then in eloquent questioning, on the face of her young companion.

The latter had barely reached the early days of girlhood, and her sylph-like delicacy of form, her small but exquisitely cut features, the rose leaf bloom upon her cheek, and the golden hair, which, still un trained in any of the quaint fashions of the day, lay soft and shining beneath a cawl of golden network, would have given her the air of a dainty vision from fairyland, rather than of a being destined to walk the rough places of this work-day world, had it not been for a certain thoughtfulness and latent strength of purpose, unmistakably to be read in her long, gray eyes, and the pencilled brows above them. Seated in that gloomy chamber, and bending over that aged woman, she looked like a rose tree blooming by a snow wreath. A richly illuminated missal lay on her lap, for she had been reading aloud : but, as will often hap pen in such cases, a vivid anticipation of the grief that was soon to come upon her, took sudden jjossession of her mind; with difficulty she repressed her sobs, her voice died away in spite of all her efforts to command it, and leaning back in her chair, she covered her face with both her hands, that the dying woman might not see that she was weeping. ' Does no one come ?' the latter asked in a mournful yet untroubled tone. ' Does no one come, that I hear not the warder's horn ?

Ah me ! Amy, I had forgotten ! No one will herald his approach, for he, hke his Master, must come unan nounced, in the midst of the silence and mystery of the night.' ' Nay, dear grandame,' said the girl, with a wilful determina tion to misunderstand her ; ' Hugh will soon be here, I doubt not; for I dispatched a trusty messenger in the morning, and the journey is not so long but that he may easily accomplish it ere nightfall.' ' Ay, truly,' the sick woman murmured, with the slightest possible touch of bitterness in her accent. ' Hugh will soon be here, for he may come when and how it please him ; but alas, for Amadee ! He must approach in secrecy and disguise, yea, hide like a hunted felon in his own ancestral hall.' ' Alas and indeed that so it must be !' sighed the girl. ' Yet hath he not chosen the better part, sweet grandame ?

How then shall we grudge him the glory of his sacrifice ? The more he hath given up here, the richer shall be his portion here after ; and so we may not venture to repine.' ' My Amy, you are right,' the lady answered gently ; ' aud God forbid that I should murmur at a lot, more glorious far, than the conquest of a kingdom. But why comes he not at once, Amy ? surely it is time that he were here! My soul is longing and thirsting to be set free, and yet shrinks from departing ere he bid it go.' 'Can it be so, indeed, good grandame?' the young girl answered, after a moment of painful and embarrassed thought. ' Can it be so, indeed ? Yet barely a month hath passed since Father Cornelius left us for Chideock Castle, and then you as sured me that your soul was joyful and full of peace.' The invalid made no answer, and Amy continued in a tone of painful perplexity, ' Had I dreamed that you could have been thus uneasy, I would have written last night and entreated him at all hazards to return ; though I have learned by a sure hand,' 6he added, a slight flush deepening the soft crimson on her cheek, ' I have learned by a sure hand that we are more closely watched than ever, and that none may pass or repass our portals, if only for a walk to the village hamlet, without its being noted and re ported to those in power.' A smile flitted over the pale lips of the dying woman. ' Ah !' she murmured, almost below her breath, ' they may do their worst.

But albeit there be strong men and cunning spirits enough among them, they cannot, when the time arrives, prevent the coming of my Amadee.' ' God and His holy Mother guard us,' said the girl, with a slight shudder, as she marked how the departing spirit seemed to yearn for this mysterious interview. ' Surely there is, there can be no deep sin upon your soul, dear lady — why then should the absence of a priest so vex it ?' ' My child, you mistake me somewhat,' the lady answered gently. ' Many sins, doubtless, are on my soul, for who can say that he is sinless 1 Many sins ; but none I trust of so deep a dye as to deprive me of God's good grace, or to shut me out from His sight hereafter. It is not for this cause, therefore, that I sigh for the presence of His minister, ere I go forth to my heavenly country, but it is — that our dear Lord may come Himself in the great sacrament of His love to fit me for the journey.

Amy, my child, my own child — think me not unwilling or unfit to die, if I acknowledge that until I hold Him on my heart once more, I can not say the prayer of Simeon — I cannot say, — " now, Lord, Thou dost dismiss Thy servant, according to Thy word, in peace." ' ' Forgive me, dearest madam,' murmured Amy, ashamed and repentant of the involuntary doubt as to her grandmother's state of mind, which, for an instant, had crossed her own. ' Nay, my sweet Amy, there is naught to pardon, and much -on the contrary for which I am both glad and grateful, seeing that you have ever been a true child to me, as dutiful and as loving as though two generations did not divide us, and that I had in very deed been your mother.' ' As good and dear as one, in truth, you have been,' Amy answered promptly. ' And now, sweet mother mine, I will not weary you with my idle talk, but in silence I will sit beside you, and pray to God that He may send Amadee or some other in his stead to fulfil your pious wishes.' ' And He will, dear Amy, be certain that He will !

Nay, can you doubt it, child?' she asked, seeing astonishment depicted on Amy's face. ' It's now sixty years or more since I have ceased to ask aught on mine own account of God, save this — that our divine Lord might come Himself at the hour of death and take me to my rest in Heaven — and think you that I shall be denied it V ' Surely not, dear grandame. Surely our good and loving Lord •will never refuse a prayer so fervently made, so long put up !' Amy answered earnestly, for the faith of the dying woman had stirred her into something more like a conviction that her desires would be fulfilled than she had as yet been able to entertain. ' And lo! — here comes Ursula — the bearer, perchance, of news. How is it, friend V she added, as an elderly dame, the nurse and confi dential servant of the family, entered the room — ' how is it, old friend ? dost bring us any tidings ? or hast heard aught of an ex pected guest ?' But the dame shook her head sadly as she answered, ' Naught have I heard or do I know, my daughter; but your cheek is fever flushed, and your eye heavy with last night's vigil, and therefore have I come to watch beside my lady, while you taste the fresh air ere the sun goes down.' ' Yes, go, my child,' said the Lady Eleanor; 'our good Ursula is right, and I take shame at mine own selfishness which forgot to insist on your doing so ere now.' Amy would have fain demurred, but the eyes of her grand mother were fixed anxiously upon her, and with that true and most rare generosity, which can sacrifice even the desire of self sacrifice in deference to the wishes of the loved one, she kissed the Lady Eleanor's emaciated hand, and instantly left the room.

Chapter II

More than sixty years before the day on which we have de scribed the Lady Eleanor as lying on her death-bed, she had given her hand to Sir Humphrey Glenthorne, at that time the possessor of the Grange ; and albeit herself an heiress, noble by birth and a beauty at court besides, it was never even whispered that she had made an unequal match, so vast were the possessions and so ve nerable the pedigree of the race to which she had linked her for tunes. But in those days political casualties formed no small item in the tricks which Fortune played upon her followers. When life itself was insecure, wealth could scarcely be expected to prove more stable, and thus while many born to power and riches per ished on the scaffold, a far greater number lived to want the very bread which in their days of affluence they had flung carelessly to others.

Somewhat of both these dooms had fallen on the family of the Grange since the marriage of the Lady Eleanor, for the Glenthornes by some strange fatality had contrived to take the losing side in every political or religious movement, which had convulsed the kingdom from the days of the bluff King Hal down to those of his daughter Bess. Under the royal father the Lady Eleanor had seen her husband perish on the scaffold for the same cause for which Fisher died ; under the termagant daughter she had wept for Sir Reginald, her only son, condemned to a similar fate for pretended complicity with one or other of the many con spiracies, real and imaginary, which cloud the annals of that reign. Sir Reginald left an only son, whose life was for some time a deeper affliction to the heart of the Lady Eleanor than the death either of his father or grandfather had been.

Called early to court by the fears or favour of his Sovereign, his life soon became a practical protest against the principles for which his grandsire died. A Catholic still at heart, he conformed in all outward things to the religion then in fashion, plunged eagerly into the vices and dissipation of the court, and as a mat ter of course made love to the old Queen, who never refused the homage of any man, and who was known to regard with especial favour those, who, like the gallant Glenthorne, were young, hand some, and accomplished. Happily for himself, however, he had not been many years at court before he formed an attachment to a young and innocent girl, whom he finally married, and finding after this event that his favour with Elizabeth rapidly declined, he wisely retired to his own estate, returned to the religion of his fathers, and commenced the life of a country gentleman at the Grange.

Any one of these three acts would have made him liable to annoyance from the jealousy or suspicion of the virgin queen ; combined, they secured him more than his due allowance of the insult and persecution which were the daily food of the Catholics of those days. Fine after fine was extorted for his recusancy, and his life became a series of harassing accusations and unjust imprisonments, until, wearied out by the malice of his persecutors, he died at last, as many of his co-religionists had died already, in comparative poverty and of a broken heart. His wife, gentle, loving, and uncomplaining to the end, soon followed him to the grave ; and their three children were thus left to the care of their great grandame, the Lady Eleanor, who had borne up bravely against all the tricks of fortune, and whose strong mind and energetic soul well fitted her for a task which might otherwise have seemed too heavy for her age.

She watched over Amy with a mother's tenderness, and more than an ordinary mother's loving wisdom ; secured the presence of a chaplain at the Grange, to educate both her and her brothers in their father's faith, and when Amadee, the younger of the boys, expressed a strong desire to consecrate himself to religion, she succeeded in sending him to a college on the Continent for the furtherance of this purpose. There he had been ordained a priest, and from thence, after a residence of many years, he was now returning, in order to exercise in his native land the sacred duties which he had taken upon himself. And all this the Lady Eleanor had accomplished in the face of existing laws and in the midst of a system of espionage and persecution, which might have scared a less noble spirit from its purpose, but which only braced her nerves more firmly to the task.

In the administration of the temporal property of her wards, she had been less fortunate, though certainly from no want of zeal or abihty on her part. It was in vain that she reduced the expenditure of the establishment to the nicest possible economy, and that she dispensed in her own person with all that outward show and splendour which in her time was deemed indispensable to the proper appearance of a gentlewoman. Fine after fine kept pace with her retrenchments, and long ere the property had begun to recover from one extortion, another and heavier had been imposed. Even this system of mulcting, onerous as it was, would not, however, have proved utter ruin, if large estates had not been lost, in the first instance, by the attainder of her husband and her son, while within the last year a considerable portion of that still re maining had been seized by a distant kinsman, in conformity with an iniquitous law which was then in force, and which asserted the rights of the Protestant heir over those of the Catholic in actual possession.

It was to remonstrate against this injustice that Sir Hugh had betaken himself to London, but the result of his efforts was as yet unknown at the Grange, on the day when, as we have seen, the Lady Eleanor lay on her death-bed, and Amy watched beside her. When, therefore, in obedience to the hint of Ursula, the young girl left her grandmother's apartment and took her way to the ancient watch-tower, her anxieties were painfully divided between her two brothers, the elder of whom was at that moment wearily striving against the injustice of one law, while the younger was coming across the seas in open defiance of another. The tower commanded a bird's-eye view of the whole country, and as Amy leaned against the parapet she glanced anxiously from the wooded hills that girt the prospect on one side, to the yellow cliffs and blue sea that closed it on the other.

But neither land nor sea gave aught to view which could bring joy to her soul. The chase lay beneath her in all the delicate beauty of its spring-tide foliage, but save here and there a straggling troop of deer, not a living thing seemed stirring in its glades ; and the sea slept in its rock-girdled bed beyond, as bare of sail or fishing boat as if it had been set there for no other purpose than to mirror every jiassing cloud in the clear crystal of its waters. It was only three of the afternoon, the sun still fell warm and bright upon the earth, and in the soft air that bathed her brow there was nothing of that sense of chill which in more northern counties mingles itself ever with the first breathings of the spring. Not a zephyr even stirred among the trees, and the soul of Amy became, if possible, more despondent than it had been before, in the oppressive stillness of the hour. ' Neither of them come ! ' such, if she had spoken, would have been the translation of her thoughts. ' For Hugh, indeed, there has scarce been time ; but for Amadee — the storm of yesterday, the calm to-day, both are fatal to our hopes.