Kenilworth

“ I am right sure that a lady so gentle and so loving would consent to live her life through in a certain obscurity--which is, after all, not dimmer than when she was at Lidcote Hall--rather than diminish the least jot of her lord's honours and greatness by a premature attempt to share them."
"There is something in what thou sayest," said Leicester, "and her appearance here were fatal. Yet she must be seen at Kenilworth; Elizabeth will not forget that she has so appointed." ”

“ Assassins and their accomplices find no mercy at Kenilworth.—Guard him well, men, and with the first of the daylight let him die!"
Thus upon the morn of the new year, Tito Balzani met his death upon the battlements of Kenilworth Castle; but though the woods were scoured and the Castle hunted from end to end, no trace of the veiled maiden nor of Roger de Horn could be found. It seemed as if in the confusion the girl had slipped away, perhaps to give warning to their comrade without. None had seen her from the moment when Amalric had denounced the wizard in the hearing of the whole assembly. ”

“ Lady Kenilworth was the prettiest woman in England; her family, the Courcys of Faldon, was renowned for physical charms, and she was the loveliest of them all, exactly reproducing a famous Romney which portrayed the features of her great great grandmother.
She had eyes like forget-me-nots, a brilliantly fair skin, a purely classic profile, a mass of sunny shining hair, which needed no arts to brighten or to ripple it, and a carriage, which for airy grace and supreme distinction, had its equal nowhere among her contemporaries. ”

“ There is no ideal way into Kenilworth nowadays, because the place has become more or less of a town, and numerous Coventry business men make it their suburban home. Thus does Romance disappear, in the daily goings forth and the returnings on their lawful occasions of the residents, and in the spreading of fresh streets and always more cheaply built houses for newer colonies of them. The first jerry-builder at Kenilworth was Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, whose badly bonded additions to the Castle still ruinously show how slightly and hastily he set about the work. ”

“ Alone, she lives in her little jointure house at Kenilworth, white-haired, feeble, full of bitterness of spirit. All the glory of her life has gone. The meanest servant in Warwickshire may look down on her with commiseration. Your sins have torn what heart she had, and she begins to awake to the fact that the law of compensation, the dim foretaste of divine justice, can reach even such as she. ”

“ Sincerity, Thou first of virtues! let no mortal leave Thy onward path, although the earth should gape, And from the gulf of hell destruction cry, To take dissimulation's winding way. --DOUGLAS. It was not till after a long and successful morning's sport, and a prolonged repast which followed the return of the Queen to the Castle, that Leicester at length found himself alone with Varney, from whom he now learned the whole particulars of the Countess's escape, as they had been brought to Kenilworth by Foster, who, in his terror for the consequences, had himself posted thither with the tidings. ”

“ You DO need aid--you do need protection, though you will not own it; and you shall not need it long. Leaning on my arm, as the representative of your excellent and broken-hearted father, on the very threshold of the Castle gate, you shall meet Elizabeth; and the first deed she shall do in the halls of Kenilworth shall be an act of justice to her sex and her subjects. Strong in my good cause, and in the Queen's justice, the power of her minion shall not shake my resolution. I will instantly seek Sussex. ”

“ We that have horses may, with late riding, get to Warwick to-night, and Kenilworth may be distant some four or five miles. But then we must wait till the foot-people come up; although it is like my good Lord of Leicester will have horses or light carriages to meet them, and bring them up without being travel-toiled, which last is no good preparation, as you may suppose, for dancing before your betters. ”

“ Have you not the word of this illustrious Earl to warrant the truth of what his servant says? But thou art a loser—thinkest thyself such at least—and thou shalt have indulgence; we will look into the matter ourself more at leisure.—My Lord of Leicester, I trust you remember we mean to taste the good cheer of your Castle of Kenilworth on this week ensuing. We will pray you to bid our good and valued friend, the Earl of Sussex, to hold company with us there. ”

“ At the end of a long beautiful passage he laments that unworthy men should be in the dead Earl’s place, and compares them to the fox—an unclean feeder—hiding in the lair ‘the badger swept.’ The imaginer of the festivals of Kenilworth was indeed the fit patron for him, and alike, because of the strength and weakness of Spenser’s art, one regrets that he could not have lived always in that elaborate life, a master of ceremony to the world, instead of being plunged into a life that but stirred him to bitterness, as the way is with theoretical minds in the tumults of events they cannot understand. ”

“ A good but not a gay horse, fit to keep pace with his own, and gentle enough for a lady's use, completed the preparations for the journey; for making which, and for other expenses, he had been furnished with sufficient funds by Tressilian. And thus, about noon, after the Countess had been refreshed by the sound repose of several hours, they resumed their journey, with the purpose of making the best of their way to Kenilworth, by Coventry and Warwick. ”

“ They endeavoured to procure some tidings as they rode along of Varney and his party, but could hear none, as they had travelled in the dark. At a small village about twelve miles from Kenilworth, where they gave some refreshment to their horses, a poor clergyman, the curate of the place, came out of a small cottage, and entreated any of the company who might know aught of surgery to look in for an instant on a dying man. ”

“ On Saturday, the 9th of July, we will be with you at Kenilworth. We pray you to forget none of our appointed guests and suitors, and in especial this light-o'-love, Amy Robsart. We would wish to see the woman who could postpone yonder poetical gentleman, Master Tressilian, to your man, Richard Varney.'—Now, Varney, ply thine invention, whose forge hath availed us so often for sure as my name is Dudley, the danger menaced by my horoscope is now darkening around me. ”

“ QUINCE. You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring. --MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. When the Countess of Leicester arrived at the outer gate of the Castle of Kenilworth, she found the tower, beneath which its ample portal arch opened, guarded in a singular manner. Upon the battlements were placed gigantic warders, with clubs, battle-axes, and other implements of ancient warfare, designed to represent the soldiers of King Arthur ”

“ Worthy he was to be rendered immortal by the pen of Ben Jonson, who, fifty years afterwards, deemed that a masque, exhibited at Kenilworth, could be ushered in by none with so much propriety as by the ghost of Captain Coxe, mounted upon his redoubted hobby-horse. ”

“ But, my lord, you go not in person; we have counted upon passing certain days in this Castle of Kenilworth, and it were slight courtesy to leave us without a landlord during our residence here. Under your favour, we cannot think to incur such disgrace in the eyes of our subjects. Tressilian shall go to Cumnor Place instead of you, and with him some gentleman who hath been sworn of our chamber, lest my Lord of Leicester should be again jealous of his old rival.—Whom wouldst thou have to be in commission with thee, Tressilian? ”

“ Castle End is one of those scattered portions of the town that surprise the stranger. He thinks, time and again, that he has seen all Kenilworth, but there is always some more of it. You bear to the left and descend to a broad watersplash that crosses the road beneath densely overarching trees. The people of Kenilworth cling tightly to the preservation of their watersplash, and for several reasons: it is highly picturesque and keeps them in touch with the last elfin echoes of that Romance I have spoken of; the building of a bridge would cost them considerably ”

“ Since that early period she had remained possessed of her crystal dominions, she said, despite the various men of fame and might by whom Kenilworth had been successively tenanted. 'The Saxons, the Danes, the Normans, the Saintlowes, the Clintons, the Montforts, the Mortimers, the Plantagenets, great though they were in arms and magnificence, had never, she said, caused her to raise her head from the waters which hid her crystal palace. ”

“ Leicester, having received this permission, retired accordingly, and was followed by those nobles who had attended the Queen to Kenilworth in person. The gentlemen who had preceded them, and were, of course, dressed for the solemnity, remained in attendance. But being most of them of rather inferior rank, they remained at an awful distance from the throne which Elizabeth occupied. The Queen's sharp eye soon distinguished Raleigh amongst them, with one or two others who were personally known to her, and she instantly made them a sign to approach, and accosted them very graciously. ”

“ In the year 1206 a festival was held at Kenilworth, attended by one hundred knights of distinction, and the same number of ladies, at which silks were worn for the first time in England, and in 1327 Edward II was there compelled to sign his abdication in favour of his son. Kenilworth Castle probably attained the zenith of its prosperity in the time of Queen Elizabeth, who in 1563 conferred it upon her favourite, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, who entertained her there with great magnificence on four different occasions, 1566, 1568, 1572, and 1575. ”

“ Some dozens of pony-chaises, and small, crop saddle-horses, clustered around the gate, assured us that we should not muse alone amid the ruins of Elizabeth’s princely gift to her favorite. We passed into the tilt-yard, leaving on our left the tower in which Edward was confined, now the only habitable part of Kenilworth. It gives a comfortable shelter to an old seneschal, who stands where the giant probably stood, with Flibbertigibbet under his doublet for a prompter; but it is not the tail of a rhyme that serves now for a passport. ”

“ The reader will perhaps think we give only the "milk and honey" of these letters, but they bear the stamp of authenticity.
KENILWORTH.
Every body knows the delightful romance of Kenilworth,—a tragedy, of which the dramatis personae are the parties themselves, called up from their graves by the novelist magician. Students who attend St. Mary's Church, Oxford, still look out for the flat stone which covers the dust and bones of poor Amy, and could any sculptured effigies supply the place of the whole historical picture, then imagined in the mind's eye? ”

“ But be of good cheer--we will ourselves look after the health of so valued a servant, and to whom we owe so much. Masters shall order your diet; and that we ourselves may see that he is obeyed, you must attend us in this progress to Kenilworth."
This was said so peremptorily, and at the same time with so much kindness, that Sussex, however unwilling to become the guest of his rival, had no resource but to bow low to the Queen in obedience to her commands, and to express to Leicester, with blunt courtesy, though mingled with embarrassment, his acceptance of his invitation. ”

“ It was naturally at the visits to private houses that the spirit of sheer entertainment had fullest scope, and a glance at the diaries for Kenilworth in 1575 or for Elvetham in 1591 will show the variety of pastime which ministered spectacle to the eyes and flattery to the self-esteem of Oriana on her holidays. The visit to Kenilworth extended over three weeks. The Queen arrived on 9 July and was greeted with speeches by Sibylla, by a porter as Hercules, and by the Lady of the Lake, and that she might not forget that she was a scholar, with a Latin speech by a Poet. ”

“ Still, however, assured as Lord Leicester stood, by Varney's own intelligence, that his Countess laboured under an indisposition which formed an unanswerable apology to the Queen for her not appearing at Kenilworth, there was little danger, his wily retainer thought, that a man so ambitious would betray himself by giving way to any external weakness. ”

“ But Lambourne, who had taken upon him the part in the absence of Wayland, being chilled with remaining immersed in an element to which he was not friendly, having never got his speech by heart, and not having, like the porter, the advantage of a prompter, paid it off with impudence, tearing off his vizard, and swearing, "Cogs bones! he was none of Arion or Orion either, but honest Mike Lambourne, that had been drinking her Majesty's health from morning till midnight, and was come to bid her heartily welcome to Kenilworth Castle." ”

“ Tressilian or his emissary any service, in so far as consisted with his character of a publican.
CHAPTER XXI. Vaulting ambition, that o'erleaps itself,
And falls on t'other side. —MACBETH.
The splendour of the approaching revels at Kenilworth was now the conversation through all England; and everything was collected at home, or from abroad, which could add to the gaiety or glory of the prepared reception of Elizabeth at the house of her most distinguished favourite. Meantime Leicester appeared daily to advance in the Queen's favour. ”

“ Thou hast yet been true to me—here is something that will make thee rich amends.”
She offered the artist a ring containing a valuable stone. Wayland looked at it, hesitated a moment, and then returned it. “Not,” he said, “that I am above your kindness, madam, being but a poor fellow, who have been forced, God help me! to live by worse shifts than the bounty of such a person as you. But, as my old master the farrier used to say to his customers, 'No cure, no pay.' We are not yet in Kenilworth Castle, and it is time enough to discharge your guide, as they say, when you take your boots off. ”