Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated) (261 page)

When the King had heard of the Prior’s death, he was struck with marvellous dread, and with conviction of his falsehood and of the merchant’s innocence. He bitterly repented of the favourable opinion he had so long adhered to, respecting the Baron de Blondeville, and of the weak credulity, with which he had listened to the artful suggestions of that false Prior, rather than to the arguments and to the strong conviction of the Archbishop of York. But the former went with his passions, the latter against them; and he helped to deceive himself. Yet, when he did find out his error, he was warm and generous in counteracting it; and, now that he was assured how unjustly the poor merchant had been made to suffer, he loaded him with present kindness, and prepared to repay him hereafter by certain grants and privileges, that made Woodreeve the most wealthy merchant of his guild.

Nor did his Highness forget the forlorn widow and children of the deceased knight, whom he fostered and nobly supported. The miniature of that knight and the golden chain he had worn he returned to his family; and the Jew, who had forsworn himself, at the instigation of the Baron, was punished with heavy fine and imprisonment, the fine being amongst the King’s gifts to Woodreeve. But, though his Highness found it now his chief delight to do kindness to the merchant and to the family of his unfortunate kinsman, yet could he not endure to behold him, nathless the expectations of most in the court.

And now that the Prior was dead, many things came out, concerning him, which had not been suspected. He was of birth so low, that no one could learn whence he had sprung; but it appeared, that, not many years before, he had been in arms, and in the class of a follower of Sir Gaston de Blondeville, one of the retainers, whom the latter was obliged to produce, on receiving his gilt spurs.

He was conjectured to have come with him from Gascony; for, he spoke that tongue, and had all the craft and soaring vanity of that people; but he was not born there; he had no foreign sound in his discourse. How he came by his wealth in those lawless times, and the use he made of it to procure him power, may be easily guessed. And it appeared this was well suspected by my Lord of York, who had never looked upon him with a favourable eye, and had constantly endeavoured to counteract his pernicious influence.

When, hereafter, his messenger returned from Exeter, it appeared, that none in that neighbourhood had ever known the Prior of Saint Mary’s, such as he had described himself to be. The arts too, practised by this Prior with certain of the brethren, who remembered the interment of Reginald de Folville — and with certain people of Kenilworth, who recollected his story, were now all exposed. Those, who, from education and station, might not have been suspected of such baseness, were now brought to truth, and were fain to hide their heads for shame. The Prior’s memory was thus condemned to detestation. Be it remembered, he was no true son of the church.

THE EIGHTH DAY
.

Here was a drawing, divided into two compartments. In one, was presented an Archbishop, kissing the hand of a crowned King; in another, was the sole portraiture of a Prince; who, from his mantle, and the feathers embroidered on it, appeared to be a Prince of Wales.

On this day, the merchant and his wife departed from Kenilworth, where they had suffered such extremes of good and evil. They departed, carrying with them joy and blessings. But it was not till they had gone a good distance through the forest, that they felt themselves fully at liberty. Then, as they looked back, and saw afar off the grey towers of the castle, above the tawny woods, nay, that very prison-turret, perched over all, which Woodreeve had never expected to leave, but for death, their hearts overflowed with thankfulness, and tears of joy fell fast. Yet, turned they suddenly from view of it, and then went forward, even faster than before. After leaving these woods of Ardenn, they journeyed homewards in peace.

And many others departed from the King’s court homeward, on this day; especially, my Lord Archbishop took solemn leave of his Highness, who gave him all due honours, for his wise counsel, regretting also, that he had not sooner followed it. The Archbishop, pleased with the release of Woodreeve and with the bounties since bestowed upon him, bowed himself, with willing homage, to his lord the King, and bade farewell to the young Prince Edward, with affectionate respect and with lofty hopes of what he might hereafter prove himself.

And, this day, left Kenilworth, the unhappy lady, Baroness de Blondeville, conveyed away by her noble parents to their own castle, there to pass in quiet shade this season of affliction. And those, who have mourned with her in this chronicle of her sad story, may haply like to look into the glass of her futurity. There, may they see many dark years of grief and sadness, passed within her father’s towers; but onward they will see the gleam of hope and joy striking athwart her path, and further still, the calm sunshine of happiness settling on her home, where she is married to a nobleman right worthy of her. And here we veil this mirror of futurity, and come back to the passing time.

And, on this very day, the King his-self, who now loathed Kenilworth, broke up the court, and departed in all state with the Queen, for his palace, at Woodstock. The eventful days and hours of a very short period had wrought great change in the King’s mind, and in the views and hopes of many in his train. Some had profited in wisdom by what they had experienced, or witnessed; others had suffered truth to glide before their eyes, without attention enough to derive one lesson from it.

And now, the King and all his court passing away under the battlements of this stately castle, in the pomp and order, with which, eight days before, they had approached it, his trumpets sounded their last to these towers, which echoed back the farewell; and then they were left to solitude and silence. This was the last gleam of courtly splendour, that lighted up the walls of Kenilworth, in this King’s reign. And now the fading woods strewed yellow leaves on the long cavalcade, that wound below, whispering a moral to departing greatness; and their high tops, rustling in the blast, seemed to sigh over those, who were leaving them for ever to their own quietness.

The King’s banner still waved on the Keep, till his Highness had reached the end of the furthest avenue, the last spot, from which he could look back on the castle, standing, with all its solid masses of tower and bastion, amidst the rich and varied hues of autumn. While he gazed, a cloud overcast it, and then a gliding light showed every battlement and turret, wall and bastion, window and loop distinctly in succession, nay, the very grate and spikes of the portcullis, hanging in the arch of the great portal, under which his train had passed.

Just as his Highness turned into the close woods, his banner on the Keep bowed homage, and then was lowered to be no more raised till long in after years, when the King’s camp lay in Ardenn, and Prince Edward planted the royal ensign over the sons of the rebel Montfort, and restored Kenilworth to his sovereign lord and father.

This vision of the living world, which had so suddenly appeared in these wild solitudes, which had, in so short period, carried the joy and mourning of human passions, beneath these shades of Ardenn; which had banqueted and striven, had hoped and feared, had plotted and punished, had fretted and triumphed, had shown the extremes of princely grandeur, and of domestic misery, of deep villany and generous humanity, of supernatural power and mortal weakness, of human craft and of controlling, overpowering justice — this vision was now all vanished as in air, to be no more seen, or traced here, peace and silence closing over the towers where it had been.

The halls, where late the banquet revelled, or the sceptre of justice threatened, now echoed only to the straying steps of ancient menials. In the courts so lately filled with princely pomp and tumult, where the hurrying foot passed incessantly to and fro; where the many sounding hoof trampled, and the hum of voices rose, all was now so still, that, when the solitary sentinel ceased his measured pace, you might hear only the shivering of the ivy, or the distant echo to the closing door of some deserted chamber, murmuring through empty galleries, which, of late, to have looked upon would have filled you with marvel of the high dames and gaudy gentils passing through them. These courts now spoke only at certain hours, when the watchword went its round, or a single trumpet of the garrison called together the few armed tenants, stationed at gate, or rampart, and the guard was changed.

Thus quickly passed away this courtly vision from these woods of Ardenn. And so from before every eye departs the vision of this life, whether it appear in lonesome forest, in busy city, in camp, or court, — where may be pressed within the compass of a few short days, the agitating passions, with all their varying shades and combinations, the numerous events and wise experience, that make up years of ordinary life and the seeming ages of a cloistered one; for there, pale moment, lingering after moment, like rain-drop following drop, keeps melancholy chime with chants too formally repeated to leave, except on very few, the due impression of their meaning, and with slow returning vigils. Yet even here life is still a fleeting vision! As such it fades, whether in court or convent, nor leaves a gleam behind — save of the light of good works!

And thus endeth this Trew Chronique.

CONCLUSIO
N

Willoughton, long before he had finished this “Trew Chronique,” had some doubts, as to its origin. With the enthusiasm of an antiquary, he was willing to suppose it a real manuscript of the monks, in spite of some contradictory circumstances. The illuminations it exhibited, with the many abbreviations and quaintnesses in the writing, only a few of which, however, he has preserved in this, his translation, and those few but here and there, where they seem to have gained admission, by their accordance with the matter then in narration, these traits justified, in some degree, his willing opinion.

Perhaps, one better versed in antiquities would have found out, that several of the ceremonies of the court here exhibited, were more certainly those of the fourth Edward, than of the third Henry, or the second Richard, and would have assigned the manuscript to a later period than that of the title, or than that afterwards alluded to in the book, whether written by monk or layman. And though that same title said this chronicle was translated from the Norman tongue, by Grymbald, a monk of Saint Mary’s Priory, it said nothing of its having been composed by one; and the manuscript itself seemed to bear evidence against such a supposition, by the way in which some of the reigning superstitions of Henry the Third’s time and of the monastic life in general were spoken of. He must have been a very bold man, at that period, who had dared to utter even from under a cowl, a doubt, concerning the practice of magic, or witchcraft. It is, however, to be acknowledged, that, on some other points, his notions were not unworthy of a monk of the thirteenth century, that is, if he really credited all the supposed incidents of the hall, and of several other parts of the castle. The way, in which he speaks of the melancholy monotony and other privations of a cloister, seem to come from heart-felt experience; yet, if it had been so, he might not have ventured thus to have expressed his feelings.

But at whatsoever period this “Trew Chronique” had been written, or by whomsoever, Willoughton was so willing to think he had met with a specimen of elder times, that he refused to dwell on the evidence, which went against its stated origin, or to doubt the old man’s story of the way in which it had been found; and he was about to enter upon another of these marvellous histories, entitled “A trew historie of two Mynstrells, that came by night to the commandary of Saint John Hospitalier, at Dalby sur les Wouldes, and what they there discovered.”

But, behold! the beams of another day springing on the darkness! On drawing aside a window-curtain, he perceived the dawn upon the horizon; and, who ever yet beheld those first pure tints of light upon the darkness, more touching, more eloquent to the soul, than even the glorious sunrise, and turned abruptly from them? The towers of Warwick castle soon began to show themselves on the east, their mighty shadows raised up against the increasing light in peace and stillness. The morning-star alone rode bright above them, trembling on the edge of a soft purple cloud, that streaked the dawn.

The heart of Willoughton was deeply aFFected by the almost holy serenity, the silent course of order and benevolence, that he witnessed in these first minutes of another day; he looked up to Heaven, and breathed a prayer of blissful gratitude and adoration; and then departed to his rest.

“Tomorrow to fresh fields and pastures new.”

Kenilworth Castle, one of the many places that Radcliffe explored while travelling through England with her husband

St Alban’s Abbey: with Some Poetical Pieces
was published posthumously in 1826 and is Radcliffe’s longest piece of poetry. She would frequently intersperse her novels with short poems, but did not devote time during her career to writing separate collections of poetry.
St Alban’s Abbey
does not reflect Radcliffe’s rich prose style and she does not maintain a steady rhyme scheme. The poem has a long, rambling quality to it and there is little to connect the famous author of Gothic fiction of the picturesque and sublime with this work. The poem is set at the beginning of the War of the Roses and includes a series of incidents which are connected with Richard of York’s defeat of the Lancastrians in the First Battle of St Alban’s in May 1455. York and his ally, The Earl of Warwick, overcame the Lancastrian Duke of Somerset and managed to capture the King Henry VI. The poem is a mosaic of incidents and events including monks watching the Battle from the Abbey, banquets and dirges for the dead.

In volume 39 of
The Edinburgh Review,
published in
1834,
St
Alban’s Abbey
is criticised for being ‘miserably told....broken and confused by tedious description’ and that ten cantos deep the reader has the ‘most indistinct notion what the whole is about’. The reviewer censures Radcliffe for writing a non-cohesive poem and argues that ‘the whole [is] blended in such a hazy mass, as absolutely to defy all attempts at decomposing it into its particulars’.