CHAPTER IV.

THE CONVERSATION.

It would be something strange in these days to find man's tongue, through fear, prevented from discoursing upon any subject, political, physical, or religious. Men are so enlightened, and civil and religious freedom are so strongly established in this kingdom, that no one is afraid of investigating any subject. Truth does not require any power but that of God to support it, and having his, it will predominate unto the end, through all discouragements and persecutions. The man who loves his kind will stand the least in awe of death, or of any consequences whatever arising from that position in which his faith in God may place him. But the men, in our day, who do not look deeply into times gone by, can scarcely conceive the terrors into which men were driven in those days when Freston Tower was first inhabited.

Throughout the length and breadth of England, in the years 1484 and 1485, awful divisions were created by the dissensions of the houses of York and Lancaster. Men scarcely trusted each other with open declarations of loyalty, or with their equally prevalent hatred of King Richard III. Nor were they much less happy in their feelings concerning their religion. The absolute power of the Pope had begun to be called in question. Wickliffe's Bible was doing its work, and Caxton's press began to disseminate the light of truth amidst inquiring minds.

Yet, upon the subject of religion, faith and practice seemed to be at a most appalling distance from each other; and men did not like to speak before strangers, even of the God who made them, for fear of incurring the threatened censures of the Papal Hierarchy.

It was a singular thing that politics and religion should chance to be the first subjects discoursed upon by the young men, then partaking of their earliest meal in the library of Ellen De Freston. This conversation arose from the circumstance of De Freston having received a curious edition of Æsop's Fables.

'I have a curiosity to show you here, young men,' said De Freston; and he took down from a shelf over the entrance-door, a volume, having the royal arms engraved, or rather worked, upon the inside of the cover. 'You are learned, Master Latimer--can you decypher the character?'

'Ha; I perceive,' replied the youth, 'this is a book I should have thought would never have been sold, at least, not until the death of her to whom it was given. It is Edward the Fourth's gift to his mistress, Jane Shore. How did you come by it?'

'Lord Latimer, your father's friend, purchased it at the new bookseller's in Ludgate; and knowing my taste for anything new, or old, in such works, sent it to me as a present and token of his esteem.'

'I thought, father,' said Ellen, 'that you told me this wretched woman was no more; that she died two years since, under the severe penance inflicted upon her by the order of the Protector.'

'Hush!' said Wolsey, 'hush! call not Richard, the Protector! call him King, or you will be deemed disloyal. I would, on purpose to share your accusation, call him murderer, not protector.'

'You would be a traitor, then, according to your own showing,' replied Ellen: 'but is not Jane Shore dead?'

'It was reported that she was. That she did penance is certain; that the king, in the days of his protectorate, did accuse Hastings of secretly plotting with this woman, whom he called a wicked witch, to afflict his person with decrepitude, is equally certain. But I hear she is still alive, and that Richard, though he persecuted her so unmercifully, has pardoned her, and given her in marriage to Thomas Hymore, who compassionated her sufferings and petitioned for this mercy.'

'Alas! beauty is a dangerous possession,' added Ellen, 'where the laws of God reign not in the heart. I am glad to hear she is a penitent. May mercy be with her!'

'This is certainly the signature of Edward.

[Illustration: Edward's signature]

R. E. to J. S. Rex Edvardus, ad J. S. It is valuable, as the first book having numbered pages, and a great acquisition this will be to science. I sigh, my lord, to think how this country is torn asunder by faction. When I last left Worcester, I can assure you men were there ripe for revolt. Richard is detested, his vices are so glaring, and his cruelty so great, that he reminds me more of the tyrant Domitian than of a Christian king.'

'Christian, indeed!' exclaimed the ardent Wolsey. 'Christian? He has murdered three relatives, who stood between him and power, and could Richmond but be reached, his neck would soon be stretched upon the block. I hope he will escape! nay, more, I hope to live to see the day when he may be King of England.'

'Hush! hush! young spirit,' added De Freston. 'Though we be five stories from the ground, you would soon be five feet under it, could Richard gain any knowledge of your language.'

'Yet I assure you,' added Latimer, 'these were things are openly discussed at Oxford, though each man, since the death of Buckingham, fears a traitor in his servant.'

'That hateful Banister must be the vilest of the vile. It was not an open enemy that betrayed poor Buckingham, but the very man who owed him suit and service, and pretended to be so grateful for his bounty. Had I been John Milton, high sheriff of Shropshire, I would have stabbed the traitor to the heart, who could betray such a confiding and afflicted master as the generous Buckingham.'

'I little thought,' said De Freston, 'that I should try your loyalty, young men, by introducing Æsop's Fables to your notice. I perceive, however, that your sentiments accord with my own, though I may not choose to speak out upon so slight an occasion. I can truly say, however, may the houses of York and Lancaster unite, and the divisions of our Christian land be settled.'

This last expression, 'Christian land,' gave rise to a sudden ejaculation upon the part of Wolsey, which rather surprised his friends and auditors: but at that day the youth's soul was full of the love of truth, and he hated most heartily the mummeries of a religion, which at that period were carried to the very verge of absurdity.

'Christian land! Oh! when will peace heal the divisions of this Christian land? In nothing will this country be more divided than in its ideas of the profession of Christianity!'

This was a bold declaration from so young a man, and it surprised Latimer, for though De Freston and himself entertained the enlightened views of that period, when men began to look into the Scriptures for truth, and into their souls for worship, Wolsey had started at once the expression of an opinion which both had entertained, but neither had declared. This led to such an animated conversation upon the errors and absurdities of the times, the almost absolute dominion of the Pope, and the terrors of the Inquisition, that had information been given to the authorities of St. Peter's Priory, all present might have incurred the penalties of heresy and conspiracy.

But Ellen De Freston was too well known for the strict piety of her life, her conformity to all the good usages of the times, and the enlightened benevolence of her disposition, to be affected by the breath of slander. It was not that there were no envious persons in that day, as in this, who were jealous of her superiority. There were individuals who were her equals in station, as well as others who were her inferiors, who could not brook the praises which were so freely given by those who were fortunate enough to know her. She was, however, happily ignorant of these attacks.

There are, in this day, many maidens who infinitely prefer the companions of mind to all the dignity of titled wealth and preponderating influence of station. But, in that day, outward pomp, external beauty, high rank, and large estates, exercised an influence over everything.

It was from no love of making herself conspicuous for singularity, that Ellen devoted herself to intellectual pursuits. Her father was a man of mind, a man of virtue, of a superior intellect, and she had an hereditary taste for these things. Permitted to think, and to express her thoughts, she was treated with deference, and gently argued with in things which her young mind could not fully understand, and hence her love of truth, and of searching for the truth, and obeying its dictates when understood.

Though she seldom discoursed much with her preceptors upon the sacred volume, yet, with her parent, she would hold long and interesting communications, which rarely failed to increase their mutual estimation of each other.

When the subject of religion was introduced by Thomas Wolsey, she maintained that deferential silence which she thought best adapted to her position. Latimer was much pleased with Wolsey's views, and, as some of the stars of the Reformation were then beginning to shine, both in England and in foreign countries, the young men entered into the spirit of the Wickliffites and Hussites with a degree of toleration, surprising indeed at that day, especially in the neighborhood of a town so celebrated for its papal institutions and prevailing bigotry as Ipswich was.

A century before, and this town had an episcopal jurisdiction; but it had now merged into the See of Norwich, and Goldwell then held his court in the ancient residence called Wyke's Bishop's Palace. The Church looked very closely to her rights, her possessions, and professions, and almost one-half of the wealth of the kingdom was in the keeping of ecclesiastics. Lands, houses, castles, monasteries, priories, livings, together with estates and jurisdictions, giving them power over the persons and lives of men, prevailed throughout the land; all in subjection to the Pope; and though at the close of the reign of Richard III., the bloody wars between the Houses of York and Lancaster for a time diverted men's attention from the growing tyranny of the Hierarchy, yet, when these houses became united, ecclesiastical sway assumed a frightful temporal power in this country, and met with consequent detestation.

It is singular that, at this period, Wolsey should have been such an advocate for the dissemination of truth, who was soon afterwards the strongest supporter of the dogmas of Rome. What circumstances were conducive to this change of mind in one so bold, so brave, so elegant, and so eloquent, and, at that time, so truthful and so virtuous, will be presently seen.

It is not intended to give, at full length, the detail of the conversation then going on in that elevated chamber of Freston Tower. It may suffice, for the reader's information, to say, that books were taken down from their shelves, their merits freely and easily discussed, their beauties expatiated upon, and passages from poets, historians, and orators, read with spirit, and devoured with that delight which kindred classical minds only could enjoy. Latimer and Wolsey proved themselves worthy of the fame they afterwards acquired--the former as the Greek tutor of the learned Erasmus, the latter as the great patron of literature throughout the kingdom, whose works of art remain to this day to prove the elegance of his mind, and the profuse liberality of his spirit.

Ellen was delighted; she sat with unmixed pleasure to hear the scholars dilate upon their subjects. She found the hours stealing away quicker than she wished them to do: nor was her peculiar taste for elegance of diction forgotten, and, in certain points of dispute, she was called upon to decide which was the most chaste and perfect translation.

It is strange, but too true, that the most learned men are so jealous of the laborious stores of knowledge they have obtained, that they will scarcely ever condescend to communicate them to the female sex, or to express their knowledge before them; as if they were not to be the companions of man's mind, as well as of his domestic affairs. It is true the world has seen such couples as Andrew Dacier and his beloved wife, Anne, in a past century, and that it does see, in this day, a young and most learned lord in this land, famous for the style of purity in which he writes his ancient and modern histories, appreciating the elegance of his lady's mind, and enjoying its cultivation; but in those days it was a rare thing indeed for a female, and she young, beautiful, and wealthy, to be permitted to join in those studies which were then considered too exclusively masculine.

In the mind of Wolsey, at that period, there lived the thought that such happiness he might one day share more intimately with the beauteous Ellen. It was a thought that had taken full possession of his soul, and he trembled as he avowed it to himself. He had ventured to indulge in the suggestions of Hope--that bright morning star that guides the young mind to distinction, and lightens up even the darkest caverns of despair, when the barriers of wealth and station stand between the object and the aspirant.

Wolsey's hope seemed to dawn upon him through the vista of future years of learned fame, like the sun rising over a most extensive wilderness; or, it seemed to him, like the light of a distant cottage which the poor traveller descries in the darkest night, upon some pathless moor, with which he connects the associations of home and comfort.

He had these feelings in his soul, and if for a moment they were diverted to the subjects of future ambition, fame, and glory, they always seemed to return again to the same point. Never was he more anxious to distinguish himself in the eyes of Ellen than at that period; and it is true that he shone with most uncommon splendor, and made Latimer confess that he was not only a better scholar than himself, but that he had a more comprehensive genius. Both De Freston and his daughter were proud of their young and learned acquaintance, and much enjoyed their intellectual conversation. How long this might have lasted no one could have told, had not De Freston broke off the discussion by reminding his daughter of her engagement to go to Ipswich.

'We must not spend much more time here, Ellen. Our mid-day repast is ready in the hall, and if we do not get off in time, we shall hardly be able to visit our friends. Come, my child, let us proceed to the castle.'

A shadow of disappointment passed over the brow of Ellen, but it did not remain there. She had taken her share in the discourse, and would have prolonged it, but that she knew well the wisdom of obedience to her father's suggestions. She rose, therefore, and, for a few moments stood admiring the brilliant scene from her lofty room, in which she was joined by those enthusiastic lovers of nature. The very turn of the conversation upon the broad waves of the Orwell, the distant hills and woods of the opposite shore, and the moving ships in the distance, then with clumsy and cumbersome hulls, yet picturesque enough to enliven the landscape, proved that Latimer was correct in his view, that deep study should be diversified with pleasant scenery to make both agreeable.

He rejoiced to see the lively glance which that broad view of the Orwell called forth from Ellen's countenance. It played like a sunbeam through the shade of the grove upon her graceful brow, ornamented as it was with a profusion of tresses, nature's richest ornament. At that moment the old hall bell announced the mid-day dinner, and the whole party descended to the castle.