The Caged Lion

When the venture has been made of dealing with historical events and
characters, it always seems fair towards the reader to avow what
liberties have been taken, and how much of the sketch is founded on
history. In the present case, it is scarcely necessary to do more than
refer to the almost unique relations that subsisted between Henry V. and
his prisoner, James I. of Scotland; who lived with him throughout his
reign on the terms of friend rather than of captive, and was absolutely
sheltered by this imprisonment throughout his nonage and early youth from
the frightful violence and presumption of the nobles of his kingdom.

James's expedition to Scotland is wholly imaginary, though there appears
to have been space for it during Henry's progress to the North to pay his
devotions at Beverley Minster. The hero of the story is likewise
invention, though, as Froissart ascribes to King Robert II. 'eleven sons
who loved arms,' Malcolm may well be supposed to be the son of one of
those unaccounted for in the pedigrees of Stewart. The same may be said
of Esclairmonde. There were plenty of Luxemburgs in the Low Countries,
but the individual is not to be identified. Readers of Tyler's 'Henry
V.,' of Agnes Strickland's 'Queens,' Tytler's 'Scotland,' and Barante's
'Histoire de Bourgogne' will be at no loss for the origin of all I have
ventured to say of the really historical personages. Mr. Fox Bourne's
'English Merchants' furnished the tradition respecting Whittington. I am
afraid the knighthood was really conferred on Henry's first return to
England, after the battle of Agincourt; but human--or at least
story-telling--nature could not resist an anachronism of a few years for
such a story. The only other wilful alteration of a matter of time is
with regard to the Duke of Burgundy's interview with Henry. At the time
of Henry's last stay at Paris the Duke was attending the death-bed of his
wife, Michelle of France, but he had been several times in the King's
camp at the siege of Meaux.

Another alteration of fact is that Ralf Percy, instead of being second
son of Hotspur, should have been Henry Percy, son of Hotspur's brother
Ralf; but the name would have been so confusing that it was thought
better to set Dugdale at defiance and consider the reader's convenience.
Alice Montagu, though her name sounds as if it came out of the most
commonplace novelist's repertory, was a veritable personage--the heiress
of the brave line of Montacute, or Montagu; daughter to the Earl of
Salisbury who was killed at the siege of Orleans; wife to the Earl of the
same title (in her right) who won the battle of Blore Heath and was
beheaded at Wakefield; and mother to Earl Warwick the King-maker, the
Marquis of Montagu, and George Nevil, Archbishop of York. As nothing is
known of her but her name, I have ventured to make use of the blank.

For Jaqueline of Hainault, and her pranks, they are to be found in
Monstrelet of old, and now in Barante; though justice to her and Queen
Isabeau compels me to state that the incident of the ring is wholly
fictitious. Of the trial of Walter Stewart no record is preserved save
that he was accused of '_roborica_.' James Kennedy was the first great
benefactor to learning in Scotland, and founder of her earliest
University, having been himself educated at Paris.

The Abbey of Coldingham is described from a local compilation of the
early part of the century, with an account of the history of that grand
old foundation, and the struggle for appointments between the parent
house at Durham and the Scottish Government. Priors Akefield and Drax
are historical, and as the latter really did commission a body of moss-
troopers to divert an instalment of King James's ransom into his own
private coffers, I do not think I can have done him much injustice. As
the nunnery of St. Abbs has gone bodily into the sea, I have been the
less constrained by the inconvenient action of fact upon fiction. And
for the Hospital of St. Katharine's-by-the-Tower, its history is to be
found in Stowe's 'Survey of London,' and likewise in the evidence before
the Parliamentary Commission, which shows what it was intended by Queen
Philippa to have been to the river-side population, and what it might
have been had such intentions been understood and acted on--nay, what it
may yet become, since the foundation remains intact, although the
building has been removed.

C. M. YONGE.

November 24, 1869.

CHAPTER I: THE GUEST OF GLENUSKIE

A master hand has so often described the glens and ravines of Scotland,
that it seems vain and presumptuous to meddle with them; and yet we must
ask our readers to figure to themselves a sharp cleft sloping downwards
to a brawling mountain stream, the sides scattered with gray rocks of
every imaginable size, interspersed here and there with heather, gorse,
or furze. Just in the widest part of the valley, a sort of platform of
rock jutted out from the hill-side, and afforded a station for one of
those tall, narrow, grim-looking fastnesses that were the strength of
Scotland, as well as her bane.

Either by nature or art, the rock had been scarped away on three sides,
so that the walls of the castle rose sheer from the steep descent, except
where the platform was connected with the mountain side by, as it were,
an isthmus joining the peninsula to the main rock; and even this isthmus,
a narrow ridge of rock just wide enough for the passage of a single
horse, had been cut through, no doubt with great labour, and rendered
impassable, except by the lowering of a drawbridge. Glenuskie Castle was
thus nearly impregnable, so long as it was supplied with water, and for
this all possible provision had been made, by guiding a stream into the
court.

The castle was necessarily narrow and confined; its massive walls took up
much even of the narrow space that the rock afforded; but it had been so
piled up that it seemed as though the builders wished to make height
compensate for straitness. There was, too, an unusual amount of grace,
both in the outline of the gateway with its mighty flanking towers, and
of the lofty donjon tower, that shot up like a great finger above the
Massy More, as the main building was commonly called by the inhabitants
of Glenuskie.

Wondrous as were the walls, and deep-set as were the arches, they had all
that peculiar slenderness of contour that Scottish taste seemed to have
learnt from France; and a little more space was gained at the top, both
of the gateway towers and the donjon, by a projecting cornice of
beautifully vaulted arches supporting a battlement, that gave the
building a crowned look. On the topmost tower was of course planted the
ensign of the owner, and that ensign was no other than the regal ruddy
Lion of Scotland, ramping on his gold field within his tressure fiery and
counter flory, but surmounted by a label divided into twelve, and placed
upon a pen-noncel, or triangular piece of silk. The eyes of the early
fifteenth century easily deciphered such hieroglyphics as these, which to
every one with the least tincture of 'the noble science' indicated that
the owner of the castle was of royal Stewart blood, but of a younger
branch, and not yet admitted to the rank of knighthood.

The early spring of the year 1421 was bleak and dreary in that wild
lonely vale, and large was the fire burning on the hearth in the castle
hall, in the full warmth of which there sat, with a light blue cloth
cloak drawn tightly round him, a tall old man, of the giant mould of
Scotland, and with a massive thoughtful brow, whose grand form was
rendered visible by the absence of hair, only a few remnants of yellow
locks mixed with silver floating from his temples to mingle with his
magnificent white beard. A small blue bonnet, with a short eagle
feather, fastened with a brooch of river pearl, was held in the hands
that were clasped over his face, as, bending down in his chair, he
murmured through his white beard, 'Have mercy, good Lord, have mercy on
the land. Have mercy on my son,--and guard him when he goes out and when
he comes in. Have mercy on the children I have toiled for, and teach me
to judge and act for them aright in these sore straits; and above all,
have mercy on our King, break his fetters, and send him home to be the
healer of his land, the avenger of her cruel wrongs.'

So absorbed was the old man that he never heard the step that came across
the hall. It was a slightly unequal step, but was carefully hushed at
entrance, as if supposing the old man asleep; and at a slow pace the new-
comer crossed the hall to the chimney, where he stood by the fire,
warming himself and looking wistfully at the old Knight.

He was wrapped in a plaid, black and white, which increased the gray
appearance of the pale sallow face and sad expression of the wearer, a
boy of about seventeen, with soft pensive dark eyes and a sickly
complexion, with that peculiar wistful cast of countenance that is apt to
accompany deformity, though there was no actual malformation apparent,
unless such might be reckoned the slight halt in the gait, and the small
stature of the lad, who was no taller than many boys of twelve or
fourteen. But there was a depth of melancholy in those dark brown eyes,
that went far into the heart of any one who had the power to be touched
with their yearning, appealing, almost piteous gaze, as though their
owner had come into a world that was much too hard for him, and were
looking out in bewilderment and entreaty for some haven of peace.

He had stood for some minutes looking thoughtfully into the fire, and the
sadness of his expression ever deepening, before the old man raised his
face, and said, 'You here, Malcolm? where are the others?'

'Patie and Lily are still on the turret-top, fair Uncle,' returned the
boy. 'It was so cold;' and he shivered again, and seemed as though he
would creep into the fire.

'And the reek?' asked the uncle.

'There is another reek broken out farther west,' replied Malcolm. 'Patie
is sure now that it is as you deemed, Uncle; that it is a cattle-lifting
from Badenoch.'

'Heaven help them!' sighed the old man, again folding his hands in
prayer. 'How long, O Lord, how long?'

Malcolm took up the appeal of the Psalm, repeating it in Latin, but with
none the less fervency; that Psalm that has ever since David's time
served as the agonized voice of hearts hot-burning at the sight of wrong.

'Ah yes,' he ended, 'there is nothing else for it! Uncle, this was
wherefore I came. It was to speak to you of my purpose.'

'The old purpose, Malcolm? Nay, that hath been answered before.'

'But listen, listen, dear Uncle. I have not spoken of it for a full year
now. So that you cannot say it is the caresses of the good monks. No,
nor the rude sayings of the Master of Albany,' he added, colouring at a
look of his uncle. 'You bade me say no more till I be of full age; nor
would I, save that I were safe lodged in an abbey; then might Patrick and
Lily be wedded, and he not have to leave us and seek his fortune far away
in France; and in Patie's hands and leading, my vassals might be safe;
but what could the doited helpless cripple do?' he added, the colour
rising hotly to his cheek with pain and shame. 'Oh, Sir, let me but save
my soul, and find peace in Coldingham!'

'My poor bairn,' said his uncle, laying a kind hand upon him, as in his
eagerness he knelt on one knee beside the chair, 'it must not be. It is
true that the Regent and his sons would willingly see you in a cloister.
Nay, that unmanly jeer of Walter Stewart's was, I verily believe, meant
to drive you thither. But were you there, the