Grisly Grisell | Page 6

Queen, bred up in the graceful, poetical Court of Aix or Nancy, looked on her as no better than a barbarian, and if she did not show this openly, reporters were not wanting to tell her that the Queen called her the great northern hag, or that her rugged unwilling curtsey was said to look as if she were stooping to draw water at a well. Her husband had kept her in some restraint, but when be had gone to Ireland with the Duke of York, offences seemed to multiply upon her. The last had been that when she had tripped on her train, dropped the salver wherewith she was serving the Queen, and broken out with a loud "Lawk a daisy!" all the ladies, and Margaret herself, had gone into fits of uncontrollable laughter, and the Queen had begged her to render her exclamation into good French for her benefit.
"Madam," she had exclaimed, "if a plain woman's plain English be not good enough for you, she can have no call here!" And without further ceremony she had flown out of the royal presence.
Margaret of Anjou, naturally offended, and never politic, had sent her a message, that her attendance was no longer required. So here she was going out of her way to make a casual inquiry, from the Court at Winchester, whether that very unimportant article, her only daughter, were dead or alive.
The Earl absolutely prohibited all conversation on affairs in debate during the supper which was spread in the hall, with quite as much state as, and even greater profusion and splendour, than was to be found at Windsor, Winchester, or Westminster. All the high born sat on the dais, raised on two steps with gorgeous tapestry behind, and a canopy overhead; the Earl and Countess on chairs in the centre of the long narrow table. Lady Whitburn sat beside the Earl, Sir William Copeland by the Countess, watching with pleasure how deftly his son ran about among the pages, carrying the trenchers of food, and the cups. He entered on a conversation with the Countess, telling her of the King's interest and delight in his beautiful freshly-founded Colleges at Eton and Cambridge, how the King rode down whenever he could to see the boys, listen to them at their tasks in the cloisters, watch them at their sports in the playing fields, and join in their devotions in the Chapel--a most holy example for them.
"Ay, for such as seek to be monks and shavelings," broke in the North Country voice sarcastically.
"There are others--sons of gentlemen and esquires--lodged in houses around," said Sir William, "who are not meant for cowl or for mass- priests."
"Yea, forsooth," called Lady Whitburn across the Earl and the Countess, "what for but to make them as feckless as the priests, unfit to handle lance or sword!"
"So, lady, you think that the same hand cannot wield pen and lance," said the Earl.
"I should like to see one of your clerks on a Border foray," laughed the Dame of Dacre. "'Tis all a device of the Frenchwoman!"
"Verily?" said the Earl, in an interrogative tone.
"Ay, to take away the strength and might of Englishmen with this clerkly lore, so that her folk may have the better of them in France; and the poor, witless King gives in to her. And so while the Beauforts rule the roast--"
Salisbury caught her up. "Ay, the roast. Will you partake of these roast partridges, madam?"
They were brought round skewered on a long spit, held by a page for the guest to help herself. Whether by her awkwardness or that of the boy, it so chanced that the bird made a sudden leap from the impalement, and deposited itself in the lap of Lady Whitburn's scarlet kirtle! The fact was proclaimed by her loud rude cry, "A murrain on thee, thou ne'er-do-weel lad," together with a sounding box on the ear.
"'Tis thine own greed, who dost not--"
"Leonard, be still--know thy manners," cried both at once the Earl and Sir William, for, unfortunately, the offender was no other than Leonard Copeland, and, contrary to all the laws of pagedom, he was too angry not to argue the point. "'Twas no doing of mine! She knew not how to cut the bird."
Answering again was a far greater fault than the first, and his father only treated it as his just desert when he was ordered off under the squire in charge to be soundly scourged, all the more sharply for his continuing to mutter, "It was her fault."
And sore and furrowed as was his back, he continued to exclaim, when his friend Edmund of York came to condole with him as usual in all his scrapes, "'Tis she that should have been scourged for clumsiness! A foul, uncouth Border dame! Well, one blessing