Edward Bulwer Lytton
The Last of the Barons
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Table of contents
Dedicatory Epistle
Preface to the Last of the Barons
Book I: The Adventures of Master Marmaduke Nevile
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Book II: The King's Court
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Book III
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Book IV: Intrigues of the Court of Edward IV
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Book V
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Book VI
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Book VII: The Popular Rebellion
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Book VIII: In Which the Last Link Between King-maker and King Snaps Asunder
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Book IX: The Wanderers and the Exiles
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Book X: The Return of the King-maker
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Book XI: The New Position of the King-maker
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Book XII: The Battle of Barnet
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Notes
Dedicatory Epistle
I
dedicate to you, my indulgent Critic and long–tried Friend, the
work which owes its origin to your suggestion. Long since, you urged
me to attempt a fiction which might borrow its characters from our
own Records, and serve to illustrate some of those truths which
History is too often compelled to leave to the Tale–teller, the
Dramatist, and the Poet. Unquestionably, Fiction, when aspiring to
something higher than mere romance, does not pervert, but elucidate
Facts. He who employs it worthily must, like a biographer, study the
time and the characters he selects, with a minute and earnest
diligence which the general historian, whose range extends over
centuries, can scarcely be expected to bestow upon the things and the
men of a single epoch. His descriptions should fill up with colour
and detail the cold outlines of the rapid chronicler; and in spite of
all that has been argued by pseudo–critics, the very fancy which
urged and animated his theme should necessarily tend to increase the
reader's practical and familiar acquaintance with the habits, the
motives, and the modes of thought which constitute the true
idiosyncrasy of an age. More than all, to Fiction is permitted that
liberal use of Analogical Hypothesis which is denied to History, and
which, if sobered by research, and enlightened by that knowledge of
mankind (without which Fiction can neither harm nor profit, for it
becomes unreadable), tends to clear up much that were otherwise
obscure, and to solve the disputes and difficulties of contradictory
evidence by the philosophy of the human heart.My
own impression of the greatness of the labour to which you invited me
made me the more diffident of success, inasmuch as the field of
English historical fiction had been so amply cultivated, not only by
the most brilliant of our many glorious Novelists, but by later
writers of high and merited reputation. But however the annals of our
History have been exhausted by the industry of romance, the subject
you finally pressed on my choice is unquestionably one which, whether
in the delineation of character, the expression of passion, or the
suggestion of historical truths, can hardly fail to direct the
Novelist to paths wholly untrodden by his predecessors in the Land of
Fiction.Encouraged
by you, I commenced my task; encouraged by you, I venture, on
concluding it, to believe that, despite the partial adoption of that
established compromise between the modern and the elder diction,
which Sir Walter Scott so artistically improved from the more rugged
phraseology employed by Strutt, and which later writers have perhaps
somewhat overhackneyed, I may yet have avoided all material trespass
upon ground which others have already redeemed from the waste.
Whatever the produce of the soil I have selected, I claim, at least,
to have cleared it with my own labour, and ploughed it with my own
heifer.The
reign of Edward IV. is in itself suggestive of new considerations and
unexhausted interest to those who accurately regard it. Then
commenced the policy consummated by Henry VII.; then were broken up
the great elements of the old feudal order; a new Nobility was called
into power, to aid the growing Middle Class in its struggles with the
ancient; and in the fate of the hero of the age, Richard Nevile, Earl
of Warwick, popularly called the King–maker, "the greatest as
well as the last of those mighty Barons who formerly overawed the
Crown," [Hume adds, "and rendered the people incapable of
civil government,"—a sentence which, perhaps, judges too
hastily the whole question at issue in our earlier history, between
the jealousy of the barons and the authority of the king.] was
involved the very principle of our existing civilization. It adds to
the wide scope of Fiction, which ever loves to explore the twilight,
that, as Hume has truly observed, "No part of English history
since the Conquest is so obscure, so uncertain, so little authentic
or consistent, as that of the Wars between the two Roses." It
adds also to the importance of that conjectural research in which
Fiction may be made so interesting and so useful, that "this
profound darkness falls upon us just on the eve of the restoration of
letters;" [Hume] while amidst the gloom, we perceive the
movement of those great and heroic passions in which Fiction finds
delineations everlastingly new, and are brought in contact with
characters sufficiently familiar for interest, sufficiently remote
for adaptation to romance, and above all, so frequently obscured by
contradictory evidence, that we lend ourselves willingly to any one
who seeks to help our judgment of the individual by tests taken from
the general knowledge of mankind.Round
the great image of the "Last of the Barons" group Edward
the Fourth, at once frank and false; the brilliant but ominous
boyhood of Richard the Third; the accomplished Hastings, "a good
knight and gentle, but somewhat dissolute of living;" [Chronicle
of Edward V., in Stowe] the vehement and fiery Margaret of Anjou; the
meek image of her "holy Henry," and the pale shadow of
their son. There may we see, also, the gorgeous Prelate, refining in
policy and wile, as the enthusiasm and energy which had formerly
upheld the Ancient Church pass into the stern and persecuted votaries
of the New; we behold, in that social transition, the sober
Trader—outgrowing the prejudices of the rude retainer or rustic
franklin, from whom he is sprung—recognizing sagaciously, and
supporting sturdily, the sectarian interests of his order, and
preparing the way for the mighty Middle Class, in which our Modern
Civilization, with its faults and its merits, has established its
stronghold; while, in contrast to the measured and thoughtful notions
of liberty which prudent Commerce entertains, we are reminded of the
political fanaticism of the secret Lollard,—of the jacquerie of the
turbulent mob–leader; and perceive, amidst the various tyrannies of
the time, and often partially allied with the warlike seignorie, [For
it is noticeable that in nearly all the popular risings—that of
Cade, of Robin of Redesdale, and afterwards of that which Perkin
Warbeck made subservient to his extraordinary enterprise—the
proclamations of the rebels always announced, among their popular
grievances, the depression of the ancient nobles and the elevation of
new men.]—ever jealous against all kingly despotism,—the restless
and ignorant movement of a democratic principle, ultimately
suppressed, though not destroyed, under the Tudors, by the strong
union of a Middle Class, anxious for security and order, with an
Executive Authority determined upon absolute sway.Nor
should we obtain a complete and comprehensive view of that most
interesting Period of Transition, unless we saw something of the
influence which the sombre and sinister wisdom of Italian policy
began to exercise over the councils of the great,—a policy of
refined stratagem, of complicated intrigue, of systematic falsehood,
of ruthless, but secret violence; a policy which actuated the fell
statecraft of Louis XI.; which darkened, whenever he paused to think
and to scheme, the gaudy and jovial character of Edward IV.; which
appeared in its fullest combination of profound guile and resolute
will in Richard III.; and, softened down into more plausible and
specious purpose by the unimpassioned sagacity of Henry VII., finally
attained the object which justified all its villanies to the princes
of its native land,—namely, the tranquillity of a settled State,
and the establishment of a civilized but imperious despotism.Again,
in that twilight time, upon which was dawning the great invention
that gave to Letters and to Science the precision and durability of
the printed page, it is interesting to conjecture what would have
been the fate of any scientific achievement for which the world was
less prepared. The reception of printing into England chanced just at
the happy period when Scholarship and Literature were favoured by the
great. The princes of York, with the exception of Edward IV. himself,
who had, however, the grace to lament his own want of learning, and
the taste to appreciate it in others, were highly educated. The Lords
Rivers and Hastings [The erudite Lord Worcester had been one of
Caxton's warmest patrons, but that nobleman was no more at the time
in which printing is said to have been actually introduced into
England.] were accomplished in all the "witte and lere" of
their age. Princes and peers vied with each other in their patronage
of Caxton, and Richard III., during his brief reign, spared no pains
to circulate to the utmost the invention destined to transmit his own
memory to the hatred and the horror of all succeeding time. But when
we look around us, we see, in contrast to the gracious and fostering
reception of the mere mechanism by which science is made manifest,
the utmost intolerance to science itself. The mathematics in especial
are deemed the very cabala of the black art. Accusations of
witchcraft were never more abundant; and yet, strange to say, those
who openly professed to practise the unhallowed science, [Nigromancy,
or Sorcery, even took its place amongst the regular callings. Thus,
"Thomas Vandyke, late of Cambridge," is styled (Rolls Parl.
6, p. 273) Nigromancer as his profession.—Sharon Turner, "History
of England," vol iv. p. 6. Burke, "History of Richard
III."] and contrived to make their deceptions profitable to some
unworthy political purpose, appear to have enjoyed safety, and
sometimes even honour, while those who, occupied with some practical,
useful, and noble pursuits uncomprehended by prince or people, denied
their sorcery were despatched without mercy. The mathematician and
astronomer Bolingbroke (the greatest clerk of his age) is hanged and
quartered as a wizard, while not only impunity but reverence seems to
have awaited a certain Friar Bungey, for having raised mists and
vapours, which greatly befriended Edward IV. at the battle of Barnet.Our
knowledge of the intellectual spirit of the age, therefore, only
becomes perfect when we contrast the success of the Impostor with the
fate of the true Genius. And as the prejudices of the populace ran
high against all mechanical contrivances for altering the settled
conditions of labour, [Even in the article of bonnets and hats, it
appears that certain wicked falling mills were deemed worthy of a
special anathema in the reign of Edward IV. These engines are accused
of having sought, "by subtle imagination," the destruction
of the original makers of hats and bonnets by man's strength,—that
is, with hands and feet; and an act of parliament was passed (22d of
Edward IV.) to put down the fabrication of the said hats and bonnets
by mechanical contrivance.] so probably, in the very instinct and
destiny of Genius which ever drive it to a war with popular
prejudice, it would be towards such contrivances that a man of great
ingenuity and intellect, if studying the physical sciences, would
direct his ambition.Whether
the author, in the invention he has assigned to his philosopher (Adam
Warner), has too boldly assumed the possibility of a conception so
much in advance of the time, they who have examined such of the works
of Roger Bacon as are yet given to the world can best decide; but the
assumption in itself belongs strictly to the most acknowledged
prerogatives of Fiction; and the true and important question will
obviously be, not whether Adam Warner could have constructed his
model, but whether, having so constructed it, the fate that befell
him was probable and natural.Such
characters as I have here alluded to seemed, then, to me, in
meditating the treatment of the high and brilliant subject which your
eloquence animated me to attempt, the proper Representatives of the
multiform Truths which the time of Warwick the King–maker affords
to our interests and suggests for our instruction; and I can only
wish that the powers of the author were worthier of the theme.It
is necessary that I now state briefly the foundation of the
Historical portions of this narrative. The charming and popular
"History of Hume," which, however, in its treatment of the
reign of Edward IV. is more than ordinarily incorrect, has probably
left upon the minds of many of my readers, who may not have directed
their attention to more recent and accurate researches into that
obscure period, an erroneous impression of the causes which led to
the breach between Edward IV. and his great kinsman and subject, the
Earl of Warwick. The general notion is probably still strong that it
was the marriage of the young king to Elizabeth Gray, during
Warwick's negotiations in France for the alliance of Bona of Savoy
(sister–in–law to Louis XI.), which exasperated the fiery earl,
and induced his union with the House of Lancaster. All our more
recent historians have justly rejected this groundless fable, which
even Hume (his extreme penetration supplying the defects of his
superficial research) admits with reserve. ["There may even some
doubt arise with regard to the proposal of marriage made to Bona of
Savoy," etc.—HUME, note to p. 222, vol. iii. edit. 1825.] A
short summary of the reasons for this rejection is given by Dr.
Lingard, and annexed below. ["Many writers tell us that the
enmity of Warwick arose from his disappointment caused by Edward's
clandestine marriage with Elizabeth. If we may believe them, the earl
was at the very time in France negotiating on the part of the king a
marriage with Bona of Savoy, sister to the Queen of France; and
having succeeded in his mission, brought back with him the Count of
Dampmartin as ambassador from Louis. To me the whole story appears a
fiction. 1. It is not to be found in the more ancient historians. 2.
Warwick was not at the time in France. On the 20th of April, ten days
before the marriage, he was employed in negotiating a truce with the
French envoys in London (Rym. xi. 521), and on the 26th of May, about
three weeks after it, was appointed to treat of another truce with
the King of Scots (Rym. xi. 424). 3. Nor could he bring Dampmartin
with him to England; for that nobleman was committed a prisoner to
the Bastile in September, 1463, and remained there till May, 1465
(Monstrel. iii. 97, 109). Three contemporary and well–informed
writers, the two continuators of the History of Croyland and
Wyrcester, attribute his discontent to the marriages and honours
granted to the Wydeviles, and the marriage of the princess Margaret
with the Duke of Burgundy."—LINGARD, vol. iii. c. 24, pp. 5,
19, 4to ed.] And, indeed, it is a matter of wonder that so many of
our chroniclers could have gravely admitted a legend contradicted by
all the subsequent conduct of Warwick himself; for we find the earl
specially doing honour to the publication of Edward's marriage,
standing godfather to his first–born (the Princess Elizabeth),
employed as ambassador or acting as minister, and fighting for
Edward, and against the Lancastrians, during the five years that
elapsed between the coronation of Elizabeth and Warwick's rebellion.The
real causes of this memorable quarrel, in which Warwick acquired his
title of King–maker, appear to have been these.It
is probable enough, as Sharon Turner suggests, [Sharon Turner:
History of England, vol. iii. p. 269.] that Warwick was disappointed
that, since Edward chose a subject for his wife, he neglected the
more suitable marriage he might have formed with the earl's eldest
daughter; and it is impossible but that the earl should have been
greatly chafed, in common with all his order, by the promotion of the
queen's relations, [W. Wyr. 506, 7. Croyl. 542.] new men and apostate
Lancastrians. But it is clear that these causes for discontent never
weakened his zeal for Edward till the year 1467, when we chance upon
the true origin of the romance concerning Bona of Savoy, and the
first open dissension between Edward and the earl.In
that year Warwick went to France, to conclude an alliance with Louis
XI., and to secure the hand of one of the French princes [Which of
the princes this was does not appear, and can scarcely be
conjectured. The "Pictorial History of England" (Book v.
102) in a tone of easy decision says "it was one of the sons of
Louis XI." But Louis had no living sons at all at the time. The
Dauphin was not born till three years afterwards. The most probable
person was the Duke of Guienne, Louis's brother.] for Margaret,
sister to Edward IV.; during this period, Edward received the bastard
brother of Charles, Count of Charolois, afterwards Duke of Burgundy,
and arranged a marriage between Margaret and the count.Warwick's
embassy was thus dishonoured, and the dishonour was aggravated by
personal enmity to the bridegroom Edward had preferred. [The Croyland
Historian, who, as far as his brief and meagre record extends, is the
best authority for the time of Edward IV., very decidedly states the
Burgundian alliance to be the original cause of Warwick's
displeasure, rather than the king's marriage with Elizabeth: "Upon
which (the marriage of Margaret with Charolois) Richard Nevile, Earl
of Warwick, who had for so many years taken party with the French
against the Burgundians, conceived great indignation; and I hold this
to be the truer cause of his resentment than the king's marriage with
Elizabeth, for he had rather have procured a husband for the
aforesaid princess Margaret in the kingdom of France." The
Croyland Historian also speaks emphatically of the strong animosity
existing between Charolois and Warwick.—Cont. Croyl. 551.] The earl
retired in disgust to his castle. But Warwick's nature, which Hume
has happily described as one of "undesigning frankness and
openness," [Hume, "Henry VI.," vol. iii. p. 172, edit.
1825.] does not seem to have long harboured this resentment. By the
intercession of the Archbishop of York and others, a reconciliation
was effected, and the next year, 1468, we find Warwick again in
favour, and even so far forgetting his own former cause of complaint
as to accompany the procession in honour of Margaret's nuptials with
his private foe. [Lingard.] In the following year, however, arose the
second dissension between the king and his minister,—namely, in the
king's refusal to sanction the marriage of his brother Clarence with
the earl's daughter Isabel,—a refusal which was attended with a
resolute opposition that must greatly have galled the pride of the
earl, since Edward even went so far as to solicit the Pope to refuse
his sanction, on the ground of relationship. [Carte. Wm. Wyr.] The
Pope, nevertheless, grants the dispensation, and the marriage takes
place at Calais. A popular rebellion then breaks out in England. Some
of Warwick's kinsmen—those, however, belonging to the branch of the
Nevile family that had always been Lancastrians, and at variance with
the earl's party—are found at its head. The king, who is in
imminent danger, writes a supplicating letter to Warwick to come to
his aid. ["Paston Letters," cxcviii. vol. ii., Knight's ed.
See Lingard, c. 24, for the true date of Edward's letters to Warwick,
Clarence, and the Archbishop of York.] The earl again forgets former
causes for resentment, hastens from Calais, rescues the king, and
quells the rebellion by the influence of his popular name.We
next find Edward at Warwick's castle of Middleham, where, according
to some historians, he is forcibly detained,—an assertion treated
by others as a contemptible invention. This question will be examined
in the course of this work; [See Note II.] but whatever the true
construction of the story, we find that Warwick and the king are
still on such friendly terms, that the earl marches in person against
a rebellion on the borders, obtains a signal victory, and that the
rebel leader (the earl's own kinsman) is beheaded by Edward at York.
We find that, immediately after this supposed detention, Edward
speaks of Warwick and his brothers "as his best friends;"
["Paston Letters," cciv. vol. ii., Knight's ed. The date of
this letter, which puzzled the worthy annotator, is clearly to be
referred to Edward's return from York, after his visit to Middleham
in 1469. No mention is therein made by the gossiping contemporary of
any rumour that Edward had suffered imprisonment. He enters the city
in state, as having returned safe and victorious from a formidable
rebellion. The letter goes on to say: "The king himself hath
(that is, holds) good language of the Lords Clarence, of Warwick,
etc., saying 'they be his best friends.'" Would he say this if
just escaped from a prison? Sir John Paston, the writer of the
letter, adds, it is true, "But his household men have (hold)
other language." very probably, for the household men were the
court creatures always at variance with Warwick, and held, no doubt,
the same language they had been in the habit of holding before.] that
he betroths his eldest daughter to Warwick's nephew, the male heir of
the family. And then suddenly, only three months afterwards (in
February, 1470), and without any clear and apparent cause, we find
Warwick in open rebellion, animated by a deadly hatred to the king,
refusing, from first to last, all overtures of conciliation; and so
determined is his vengeance, that he bows a pride, hitherto morbidly
susceptible, to the vehement insolence of Margaret of Anjou, and
forms the closest alliance with the Lancastrian party, in the
destruction of which his whole life had previously been employed.Here,
then, where History leaves us in the dark, where our curiosity is the
most excited, Fiction gropes amidst the ancient chronicles, and seeks
to detect and to guess the truth. And then Fiction, accustomed to
deal with the human heart, seizes upon the paramount importance of a
Fact which the modern historian has been contented to place amongst
dubious and collateral causes of dissension. We find it broadly and
strongly stated by Hall and others, that Edward had coarsely
attempted the virtue of one of the earl's female relations. "And
farther it erreth not from the truth," says Hall, "that the
king did attempt a thing once in the earl's house, which was much
against the earl's honesty; but whether it was the daughter or the
niece," adds the chronicler, "was not, for both their
honours, openly known; but surely such a thing WAS attempted by King
Edward," etc.Any
one at all familiar with Hall (and, indeed, with all our principal
chroniclers, except Fabyan), will not expect any accurate precision
as to the date he assigns for the outrage. He awards to it,
therefore, the same date he erroneously gives to Warwick's other
grudges (namely, a period brought some years lower by all judicious
historians) a date at which Warwick was still Edward's fastest
friend.Once
grant the probability of this insult to the earl (the probability is
conceded at once by the more recent historians, and received without
scruple as a fact by Rapia, Habington, and Carte), and the whole
obscurity which involves this memorable quarrel vanishes at once.
Here was, indeed, a wrong never to be forgiven, and yet never to be
proclaimed. As Hall implies, the honour of the earl was implicated in
hushing the scandal, and the honour of Edward in concealing the
offence. That if ever the insult were attempted, it must have been
just previous to the earl's declared hostility is clear. Offences of
that kind hurry men to immediate action at the first, or else, if
they stoop to dissimulation the more effectually to avenge
afterwards, the outbreak bides its seasonable time. But the time
selected by the earl for his outbreak was the very worst he could
have chosen, and attests the influence of a sudden passion,—a new
and uncalculated cause of resentment. He had no forces collected; he
had not even sounded his own brother–in–law, Lord Stanley (since
he was uncertain of his intentions); while, but a few months before,
had he felt any desire to dethrone the king, he could either have
suffered him to be crushed by the popular rebellion the earl himself
had quelled, or have disposed of his person as he pleased when a
guest at his own castle of Middleham. His evident want of all
preparation and forethought—a want which drove into rapid and
compulsory flight from England the baron to whose banner, a few
months afterwards, flocked sixty thousand men—proves that the cause
of his alienation was fresh and recent.If,
then, the cause we have referred to, as mentioned by Hall and others,
seems the most probable we can find (no other cause for such abrupt
hostility being discernible), the date for it must be placed where it
is in this work,—namely, just prior to the earl's revolt. The next
question is, who could have been the lady thus offended, whether a
niece or daughter. Scarcely a niece, for Warwick had one married
brother, Lord Montagu, and several sisters; but the sisters were
married to lords who remained friendly to Edward, [Except the sisters
married to Lord Fitzhugh and Lord Oxford. But though Fitzhugh, or
rather his son, broke into rebellion, it was for some cause in which
Warwick did not sympathize, for by Warwick himself was that rebellion
put down; nor could the aggrieved lady have been a daughter of Lord
Oxford, for he was a stanch, though not avowed, Lancastrian, and
seems to have carefully kept aloof from the court.] and Montagu seems
to have had no daughter out of childhood, [Montagu's wife could have
been little more than thirty at the time of his death. She married
again, and had a family by her second husband.] while that nobleman
himself did not share Warwick's rebellion at the first, but continued
to enjoy the confidence of Edward. We cannot reasonably, then,
conceive the uncle to have been so much more revengeful than the
parents,—the legitimate guardians of the honour of a daughter. It
is, therefore, more probable that the insulted maiden should have
been one of Lord Warwick's daughters; and this is the general belief.
Carte plainly declares it was Isabel. But Isabel it could hardly have
been. She was then married to Edward's brother, the Duke of Clarence,
and within a month of her confinement. The earl had only one other
daughter, Anne, then in the flower of her youth; and though Isabel
appears to have possessed a more striking character of beauty, Anne
must have had no inconsiderable charms to have won the love of the
Lancastrian Prince Edward, and to have inspired a tender and human
affection in Richard Duke of Gloucester. [Not only does Majerus, the
Flemish annalist, speak of Richard's early affection to Anne, but
Richard's pertinacity in marrying her, at a time when her family was
crushed and fallen, seems to sanction the assertion. True, that
Richard received with her a considerable portion of the estates of
her parents. But both Anne herself and her parents were attainted,
and the whole property at the disposal of the Crown. Richard at that
time had conferred the most important services on Edward. He had
remained faithful to him during the rebellion of Clarence; he had
been the hero of the day both at Barnet and Tewksbury. His reputation
was then exceedingly high, and if he had demanded, as a legitimate
reward, the lands of Middleham, without the bride, Edward could not
well have refused them. He certainly had a much better claim than the
only other competitor for the confiscated estates,—namely, the
perjured and despicable Clarence. For Anne's reluctance to marry
Richard, and the disguise she assumed, see Miss Strickland's "Life
of Anne of Warwick." For the honour of Anne, rather than of
Richard, to whose memory one crime more or less matters but little,
it may here be observed that so far from there being any ground to
suppose that Gloucester was an accomplice in the assassination of the
young prince Edward of Lancaster, there is some ground to believe
that that prince was not assassinated at all, but died (as we would
fain hope the grandson of Henry V. did die) fighting manfully in the
field.—"Harleian Manuscripts;" Stowe, "Chronicle of
Tewksbury;" Sharon Turner, vol. iii. p. 335.] It is also
noticeable, that when, not as Shakspeare represents, but after long
solicitation, and apparently by positive coercion, Anne formed her
second marriage, she seems to have been kept carefully by Richard
from his gay brother's court, and rarely, if ever, to have appeared
in London till Edward was no more.That
considerable obscurity should always rest upon the facts connected
with Edward's meditated crime,—that they should never be published
amongst the grievances of the haughty rebel is natural from the very
dignity of the parties, and the character of the offence; that in
such obscurity sober History should not venture too far on the
hypothesis suggested by the chronicler, is right and laudable. But
probably it will be conceded by all, that here Fiction finds its
lawful province, and that it may reasonably help, by no improbable
nor groundless conjecture, to render connected and clear the most
broken and the darkest fragments of our annals.I
have judged it better partially to forestall the interest of the
reader in my narrative, by stating thus openly what he may expect,
than to encounter the far less favourable impression (if he had been
hitherto a believer in the old romance of Bona of Savoy), [I say the
old romance of Bona of Savoy, so far as Edward's rejection of her
hand for that of Elizabeth Gray is stated to have made the cause of
his quarrel with Warwick. But I do not deny the possibility that such
a marriage had been contemplated and advised by Warwick, though he
neither sought to negotiate it, nor was wronged by Edward's
preference of his fair subject.] that the author was taking an
unwarrantable liberty with the real facts, when, in truth, it is upon
the real facts, as far as they can be ascertained, that the author
has built his tale, and his boldest inventions are but deductions
from the amplest evidence he could collect. Nay, he even ventures to
believe, that whoever hereafter shall write the history of Edward IV.
will not disdain to avail himself of some suggestions scattered
throughout these volumes, and tending to throw new light upon the
events of that intricate but important period.It
is probable that this work will prove more popular in its nature than
my last fiction of "Zanoni," which could only be relished
by those interested in the examinations of the various problems in
human life which it attempts to solve. But both fictions, however
different and distinct their treatment, are constructed on those
principles of art to which, in all my later works, however imperfect
my success, I have sought at least steadily to adhere.To
my mind, a writer should sit down to compose a fiction as a painter
prepares to compose a picture. His first care should be the
conception of a whole as lofty as his intellect can grasp, as
harmonious and complete as his art can accomplish; his second care,
the character of the interest which the details are intended to
sustain.It
is when we compare works of imagination in writing with works of
imagination on the canvas, that we can best form a critical idea of
the different schools which exist in each; for common both to the
author and the painter are those styles which we call the Familiar,
the Picturesque, and the Intellectual. By recurring to this
comparison we can, without much difficulty, classify works of Fiction
in their proper order, and estimate the rank they should severally
hold. The Intellectual will probably never be the most widely popular
for the moment. He who prefers to study in this school must be
prepared for much depreciation, for its greatest excellences, even if
he achieve them, are not the most obvious to the many. In discussing,
for instance, a modern work, we hear it praised, perhaps, for some
striking passage, some prominent character; but when do we ever hear
any comment on its harmony of construction, on its fulness of design,
on its ideal character,—on its essentials, in short, as a work of
art? What we hear most valued in the picture, we often find the most
neglected in the book,—namely, the composition; and this, simply
because in England painting is recognized as an art, and estimated
according to definite theories; but in literature we judge from a
taste never formed, from a thousand prejudices and ignorant
predilections. We do not yet comprehend that the author is an artist,
and that the true rules of art by which he should be tested are
precise and immutable. Hence the singular and fantastic caprices of
the popular opinion,—its exaggerations of praise or censure, its
passion and reaction. At one while, its solemn contempt for
Wordsworth; at another, its absurd idolatry. At one while we are
stunned by the noisy celebrity of Byron, at another we are calmly
told that he can scarcely be called a poet. Each of these variations
in the public is implicitly followed by the vulgar criticism; and as
a few years back our journals vied with each other in ridiculing
Wordsworth for the faults which he did not possess, they vie now with
each other in eulogiums upon the merits which he has never displayed.These
violent fluctuations betray both a public and a criticism utterly
unschooled in the elementary principles of literary art, and entitle
the humblest author to dispute the censure of the hour, while they
ought to render the greatest suspicious of its praise.It
is, then, in conformity, not with any presumptuous conviction of his
own superiority, but with his common experience and common–sense,
that every author who addresses an English audience in serious
earnest is permitted to feel that his final sentence rests not with
the jury before which he is first heard. The literary history of the
day consists of a series of judgments set aside.But
this uncertainty must more essentially betide every student, however
lowly, in the school I have called the Intellectual, which must ever
be more or less at variance with the popular canons. It is its hard
necessity to vex and disturb the lazy quietude of vulgar taste; for
unless it did so, it could neither elevate nor move. He who resigns
the Dutch art for the Italian must continue through the dark to
explore the principles upon which he founds his design, to which he
adapts his execution; in hope or in despondence still faithful to the
theory which cares less for the amount of interest created than for
the sources from which the interest is to be drawn; seeking in action
the movement of the grander passions or the subtler springs of
conduct, seeking in repose the colouring of intellectual beauty.The
Low and the High of Art are not very readily comprehended. They
depend not upon the worldly degree or the physical condition of the
characters delineated; they depend entirely upon the quality of the
emotion which the characters are intended to excite,—namely,
whether of sympathy for something low, or of admiration for something
high. There is nothing high in a boor's head by Teniers, there is
nothing low in a boor's head by Guido. What makes the difference
between the two? The absence or presence of the Ideal! But every one
can judge of the merit of the first, for it is of the Familiar
school; it requires a connoisseur to see the merit of the last, for
it is of the Intellectual.I
have the less scrupled to leave these remarks to cavil or to sarcasm,
because this fiction is probably the last with which I shall trespass
upon the Public, and I am desirous that it shall contain, at least,
my avowal of the principles upon which it and its later predecessors
have been composed. You know well, however others may dispute the
fact, the earnestness with which those principles have been meditated
and pursued,—with high desire, if but with poor results.It
is a pleasure to feel that the aim, which I value more than the
success, is comprehended by one whose exquisite taste as a critic is
only impaired by that far rarer quality,—the disposition to
over–estimate the person you profess to esteem! Adieu, my sincere
and valued friend; and accept, as a mute token of gratitude and
regard, these flowers gathered in the Garden where we have so often
roved together. E. L. B.
Preface to the Last of the Barons
This
was the first attempt of the author in Historical Romance upon
English ground. Nor would he have risked the disadvantage of
comparison with the genius of Sir Walter Scott, had he not believed
that that great writer and his numerous imitators had left altogether
unoccupied the peculiar field in Historical Romance which the Author
has here sought to bring into cultivation. In "The Last of the
Barons," as in "Harold," the aim has been to
illustrate the actual history of the period, and to bring into fuller
display than general History itself has done the characters of the
principal personages of the time, the motives by which they were
probably actuated, the state of parties, the condition of the people,
and the great social interests which were involved in what, regarded
imperfectly, appear but the feuds of rival factions."The
Last of the Barons" has been by many esteemed the best of the
Author's romances; and perhaps in the portraiture of actual
character, and the grouping of the various interests and agencies of
the time, it may have produced effects which render it more vigorous
and lifelike than any of the other attempts in romance by the same
hand.It
will be observed that the purely imaginary characters introduced are
very few; and, however prominent they may appear, still, in order not
to interfere with the genuine passions and events of history, they
are represented as the passive sufferers, not the active agents, of
the real events. Of these imaginary characters, the most successful
is Adam Warner, the philosopher in advance of his age; indeed, as an
ideal portrait, I look upon it as the most original in conception,
and the most finished in execution, of any to be found in my numerous
prose works, "Zanoni" alone excepted.For
the rest, I venture to think that the general reader will obtain from
these pages a better notion of the important age, characterized by
the decline of the feudal system, and immediately preceding that
great change in society which we usually date from the accession of
Henry VII., than he could otherwise gather, without wading through a
vast mass of neglected chronicles and antiquarian dissertations.
Book I: The Adventures of Master Marmaduke Nevile
Chapter I
Westward,
beyond the still pleasant, but even then no longer solitary, hamlet
of Charing, a broad space, broken here and there by scattered houses
and venerable pollards, in the early spring of 1467, presented the
rural scene for the sports and pastimes of the inhabitants of
Westminster and London. Scarcely need we say that open spaces for the
popular games and diversions were then numerous in the suburbs of the
metropolis,—grateful to some the fresh pools of Islington; to
others, the grass–bare fields of Finsbury; to all, the hedgeless
plains of vast Mile–end. But the site to which we are now summoned
was a new and maiden holiday–ground, lately bestowed upon the
townsfolk of Westminster by the powerful Earl of Warwick.Raised
by a verdant slope above the low, marsh–grown soil of Westminster,
the ground communicated to the left with the Brook–fields, through
which stole the peaceful Ty–bourne, and commanded prospects, on all
sides fair, and on each side varied. Behind, rose the twin green
hills of Hampstead and Highgate, with the upland park and chase of
Marybone,—its stately manor–house half hid in woods. In front
might be seen the Convent of the Lepers, dedicated to Saint James,
now a palace; then to the left, York House, [The residence of the
Archbishops of York] now Whitehall; farther on, the spires of
Westminster Abbey and the gloomy tower of the Sanctuary; next, the
Palace, with its bulwark and vawmure, soaring from the river; while
eastward, and nearer to the scene, stretched the long, bush–grown
passage of the Strand, picturesquely varied with bridges, and flanked
to the right by the embattled halls of feudal nobles, or the inns of
the no less powerful prelates; while sombre and huge amidst hall and
inn, loomed the gigantic ruins of the Savoy, demolished in the
insurrection of Wat Tyler. Farther on, and farther yet, the eye
wandered over tower and gate, and arch and spire, with frequent
glimpses of the broad sunlit river, and the opposite shore crowned by
the palace of Lambeth, and the Church of St. Mary Overies, till the
indistinct cluster of battlements around the Fortress–Palatine
bounded the curious gaze. As whatever is new is for a while popular,
so to this pastime–ground, on the day we treat of, flocked, not
only the idlers of Westminster, but the lordly dwellers of Ludgate
and the Flete, and the wealthy citizens of tumultuous Chepe.
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
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Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
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Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!