Chương Chương 11 · At Guildhall.
. At Guildhall.
The royal barge, attended by its gorgeous fleet, took its stately way
down the Thames through the wilderness of illuminated boats. The air was
laden with music; the river banks were beruffled with joy-flames; the
distant city lay in a soft luminous glow from its countless invisible
bonfires; above it rose many a slender spire into the sky, incrusted
with sparkling lights, wherefore in their remoteness they seemed like
jewelled lances thrust aloft; as the fleet swept along, it was greeted
from the banks with a continuous hoarse roar of cheers and the ceaseless
flash and boom of artillery.
To Tom Canty, half buried in his silken cushions, these sounds and this
spectacle were a wonder unspeakably sublime and astonishing. To his
little friends at his side, the Princess Elizabeth and the Lady Jane
Grey, they were nothing.
Arrived at the Dowgate, the fleet was towed up the limpid Walbrook
(whose channel has now been for two centuries buried out of sight under
acres of buildings) to Bucklersbury, past houses and under bridges
populous with merry-makers and brilliantly lighted, and at last came to
a halt in a basin where now is Barge Yard, in the centre of the ancient
city of London. Tom disembarked, and he and his gallant procession
crossed Cheapside and made a short march through the Old Jewry and
Basinghall Street to the Guildhall.
Tom and his little ladies were received with due ceremony by the Lord
Mayor and the Fathers of the City, in their gold chains and scarlet
robes of state, and conducted to a rich canopy of state at the head of
the great hall, preceded by heralds making proclamation, and by the Mace
and the City Sword. The lords and ladies who were to attend upon Tom
and his two small friends took their places behind their chairs.
At a lower table the Court grandees and other guests of noble degree
were seated, with the magnates of the city; the commoners took places at
a multitude of tables on the main floor of the hall. From their lofty
vantage-ground the giants Gog and Magog, the ancient guardians of the
city, contemplated the spectacle below them with eyes grown familiar
to it in forgotten generations. There was a bugle-blast and a
proclamation, and a fat butler appeared in a high perch in the leftward
wall, followed by his servitors bearing with impressive solemnity a
royal baron of beef, smoking hot and ready for the knife.
After grace, Tom (being instructed) rose--and the whole house with
him--and drank from a portly golden loving-cup with the Princess
Elizabeth; from her it passed to the Lady Jane, and then traversed the
general assemblage. So the banquet began.
By midnight the revelry was at its height. Now came one of those
picturesque spectacles so admired in that old day. A description of it
is still extant in the quaint wording of a chronicler who witnessed it:
‘Space being made, presently entered a baron and an earl appareled after
the Turkish fashion in long robes of bawdkin powdered with gold; hats on
their heads of crimson velvet, with great rolls of gold, girded with two
swords, called scimitars, hanging by great bawdricks of gold. Next came
yet another baron and another earl, in two long gowns of yellow satin,
traversed with white satin, and in every bend of white was a bend of
crimson satin, after the fashion of Russia, with furred hats of gray on
their heads; either of them having an hatchet in their hands, and boots
with pykes’ (points a foot long), ’turned up. And after them came
a knight, then the Lord High Admiral, and with him five nobles, in
doublets of crimson velvet, voyded low on the back and before to the
cannell-bone, laced on the breasts with chains of silver; and over
that, short cloaks of crimson satin, and on their heads hats after
the dancers’ fashion, with pheasants’ feathers in them. These were
appareled after the fashion of Prussia. The torchbearers, which were
about an hundred, were appareled in crimson satin and green, like Moors,
their faces black. Next came in a mommarye. Then the minstrels, which
were disguised, danced; and the lords and ladies did wildly dance also,
that it was a pleasure to behold.’
And while Tom, in his high seat, was gazing upon this ‘wild’ dancing,
lost in admiration of the dazzling commingling of kaleidoscopic colours
which the whirling turmoil of gaudy figures below him presented, the
ragged but real little Prince of Wales was proclaiming his rights and
his wrongs, denouncing the impostor, and clamouring for admission at
the gates of Guildhall! The crowd enjoyed this episode prodigiously,
and pressed forward and craned their necks to see the small rioter.
Presently they began to taunt him and mock at him, purposely to goad him
into a higher and still more entertaining fury. Tears of mortification
sprang to his eyes, but he stood his ground and defied the mob right
royally. Other taunts followed, added mockings stung him, and he
exclaimed--
“I tell ye again, you pack of unmannerly curs, I am the Prince of Wales!
And all forlorn and friendless as I be, with none to give me word of
grace or help me in my need, yet will not I be driven from my ground,
but will maintain it!”
“Though thou be prince or no prince, ’tis all one, thou be’st a gallant
lad, and not friendless neither! Here stand I by thy side to prove
it; and mind I tell thee thou might’st have a worser friend than Miles
Hendon and yet not tire thy legs with seeking. Rest thy small jaw, my
child; I talk the language of these base kennel-rats like to a very
native.”
The speaker was a sort of Don Caesar de Bazan in dress, aspect, and
bearing. He was tall, trim-built, muscular. His doublet and trunks
were of rich material, but faded and threadbare, and their gold-lace
adornments were sadly tarnished; his ruff was rumpled and damaged;
the plume in his slouched hat was broken and had a bedraggled and
disreputable look; at his side he wore a long rapier in a rusty iron
sheath; his swaggering carriage marked him at once as a ruffler of
the camp. The speech of this fantastic figure was received with an
explosion of jeers and laughter. Some cried, “‘Tis another prince in
disguise!” “‘Ware thy tongue, friend: belike he is dangerous!”
“Marry, he looketh it--mark his eye!” “Pluck the lad from him--to the
horse-pond wi’ the cub!”
Instantly a hand was laid upon the Prince, under the impulse of this
happy thought; as instantly the stranger’s long sword was out and the
meddler went to the earth under a sounding thump with the flat of it.
The next moment a score of voices shouted, “Kill the dog! Kill him!
Kill him!” and the mob closed in on the warrior, who backed himself
against a wall and began to lay about him with his long weapon like a
madman. His victims sprawled this way and that, but the mob-tide poured
over their prostrate forms and dashed itself against the champion with
undiminished fury.
His moments seemed numbered, his destruction certain, when suddenly a
trumpet-blast sounded, a voice shouted, “Way for the King’s messenger!”
and a troop of horsemen came charging down upon the mob, who fled out of
harm’s reach as fast as their legs could carry them. The bold stranger
caught up the Prince in his arms, and was soon far away from danger and
the multitude.
Return we within the Guildhall. Suddenly, high above the jubilant roar
and thunder of the revel, broke the clear peal of a bugle-note. There
was instant silence--a deep hush; then a single voice rose--that of the
messenger from the palace--and began to pipe forth a proclamation, the
whole multitude standing listening.
The closing words, solemnly pronounced, were--
“The King is dead!”
The great assemblage bent their heads upon their breasts with one
accord; remained so, in profound silence, a few moments; then all sank
upon their knees in a body, stretched out their hands toward Tom, and a
mighty shout burst forth that seemed to shake the building--
“Long live the King!”
Poor Tom’s dazed eyes wandered abroad over this stupefying spectacle,
and finally rested dreamily upon the kneeling princesses beside him, a
moment, then upon the Earl of Hertford. A sudden purpose dawned in his
face. He said, in a low tone, at Lord Hertford’s ear--
“Answer me truly, on thy faith and honour! Uttered I here a command,
the which none but a king might hold privilege and prerogative to utter,
would such commandment be obeyed, and none rise up to say me nay?”
“None, my liege, in all these realms. In thy person bides the majesty
of England. Thou art the king--thy word is law.”
Tom responded, in a strong, earnest voice, and with great animation--
“Then shall the king’s law be law of mercy, from this day, and never
more be law of blood! Up from thy knees and away! To the Tower, and
say the King decrees the Duke of Norfolk shall not die!”
The words were caught up and carried eagerly from lip to lip far and
wide over the hall, and as Hertford hurried from the presence, another
prodigious shout burst forth--
“The reign of blood is ended! Long live Edward, King of England!”