In the same large and magnificent hall of the royal castle at Calais, in which Edward III. entertained his prisoners after his chivalrous, though imprudent combat with the French forces under the walls of that town, was assembled the Court of England on the arrival of his great descendant, Henry V., some days subsequent to the battle of Agincourt. The scene was a splendid one; for, though the monarch and many of his nobility had to mourn the loss of near and dear relatives in that glorious field, no time had yet been given to prepare the external signs of grief; and the habiliments of all were, either the gay robes of peace and rejoicing, or the still more splendid panoply of war. As may be naturally supposed, the greater number of those present were men; but, nevertheless, the circle round the King's person contained several of the other sex; for, besides the wife and daughters of the Governor of Calais, and the ladies of several of the principal officers and citizens of the town, a number of the female relations of the conquerors of Agincourt, who had come over to the English city, on the first news of the army's march from Harfleur, were likewise in the hall.

No pageant or revel, however, was going forward; and, although Henry could not but feel the vast importance of the deed that he had achieved, and the great results which might be expected to ensue, both in strengthening his power at home, and extending it abroad, yet his countenance was far more grave and thoughtful than it had been before the battle; and rejoicing, as was natural, at such vast success, he rejoiced with moderation, and repressed every expression of triumph.

After speaking for some time with the persons round him, he turned to Sir John Grey, who stood at a short distance on his left hand; and noticing with a kindly smile the knight's fair daughter, he said, "Now, my noble friend, you besought me this morning to hear what you had to bring before me, concerning Sir Richard of Woodville. Ere I listen to a word, however, let me at once say, that the good service rendered by that knight upon the field of Agincourt wipes out whatever offence he may have before committed; and without prayer or solicitation, I free him from all bonds, and pardon everything that may be passed."

As he spoke, Richard of Woodville advanced from behind, and standing before the King, exclaimed, "I beseech you, Sire, to withdraw that pardon, and to judge me as if I had never drawn sword or couched lance in your service. If I am guilty, my guilt is but increased by having dared to break ward, and fight amidst honest Englishmen; and I claim no merit for what little I have done, except in having brought to your Majesty's feet the traitor scoundrel, Simeon of Roydon, who doubtless, with his own lips, will now confess his treason towards you, his falsehood towards me."

"If he do not," said Sir John Grey, boldly, "I have, thank God, ample means to prove it. Let him be called, my Liege, and with him a certain knave, a prisoner likewise in my hands, named Edward Dyram."

"Ha!" cried the King, with a smile--"has our old friend Ned Dyram, too, a share in this affair? I had thought the warning I once gave might have taught him to mend his manners."

"They are past mending, my Liege," answered Sir John Grey. "The villain will doubtless deny all, for he is a hardened knave as ever lived; but we can convict him notwithstanding."

"Well, call them in," answered Henry, "and have all things ready." And while Sir John Grey and Sir William Philip, the King's treasurer, quitted the circle for a moment, Henry turned to Mary Grey, and addressed her in a low tone, with a smiling countenance. The crowd drew back to let the King speak at ease; and the only words that made themselves heard were, "Methinks, fair lady, you have some interest in this affair?"

"Deep, my Liege," replied Mary Grey, with a glowing cheek.

What the King answered was not distinct to those around; but the lady raised her bright eyes to his face, replying eagerly, "More for his honour than for his life, Sire."

No time was lost, for Sir John Grey, expecting a speedy hearing, had prepared all; and in less than five minutes he re-entered the hall, followed by a number of persons, some of whom accompanied him to the end of the chamber where the King was placed, and ranged themselves behind the circle, while the rest, consisting of prisoners and those who guarded them, remained near the door by which they entered.

Henry fixed his eyes upon the group there standing, and seemed to examine them attentively for a moment in silence, then raising his voice, he exclaimed, "Bring forward Simeon of Roydon, and Edward Dyram."

The two whom he called immediately advanced, with a man-at-arms on either side. The knight held down his head and gazed upon the ground; but the servant looked carelessly around, showing neither fear nor doubt.

"Sir Simeon of Roydon," said the King, in a stern tone, as soon as the culprit stood within a few yards of his person, "You have been taken in arms against your country, and it were wise in you to make free confession of your acts. I exhort you so to do, not promising you aught, but for the relief of your own soul."

The knight paused for an instant, looked to Dyram, and then to Richard of Woodville, and replied, "I have nought to confess, Sire. Unjustly banished from my country, I had no right to regard myself as an Englishman; but it was not against you, my Liege, that I bore arms. It was against my enemy, who stands there. Him I sought, knowing him to be in your camp."

"A poor excuse," replied the King; "and you must have had speedy intelligence, since he arrived there but the night before; and you, fellow," continued Henry, turning to Dyram, "What know you of this knight, and his proceedings?"

"Very little, may it please your Grace," replied Ned Dyram; "I have seen him before, I think; but where it was, I cannot justly say."

"May I ask one question of the guard, my Liege?" demanded Sir John Grey. Henry inclined his head; and the knight proceeded--"Have these two men held any communication together in the anteroom?"

"They spoke together for a few moments in a strange tongue," answered the man-at-arms whom he addressed; "and when we parted them, they still talked from time to time across the room."

"Well," replied the old knight, "it will serve them but little. Have you the papers, Sir William Philip?"

"They are here," said the treasurer; and he placed a roll in the King's hand.

Henry looked at the first paper casually, saying, "This I know;" but regarded the second more attentively, and, after reading it through, turned to Sir John Grey, and inquired, "What is this? I see it refers to the man before us. But how was it obtained?"

"It is referred to, my Liege, in the question, number four, which your Grace permitted me to draw up. You will find them further on. The two following letters I need not explain. The only question is, as to their authenticity, which can be proved."

The King read them all through with care; and then taking a paper from the bottom of the roll, which appeared to contain a long list of interrogatories, numbered separately, and written in a good clerkly hand, he perused it from the beginning to the end. After having read it, he turned to Sir Simeon of Roydon, saying, "You are here charged with grave offences, sir, besides the crime in which you were taken. It is stated here, that you purchased the arms of Sir Richard of Woodville, when they were sold in Ghent, on his men leaving the service of Burgundy to return to England; and that you took his name while following our army up the Somme, and attacking our straggling parties with a leader of free companions, named Robinet de Bournonville. Is it so, or is it not so?"

"This can be proved, my Liege," said Richard of Woodville; "for Sir Philip Beauchamp here present, saw the arms in which this caitiff was taken; and he can swear that they were a gift from himself to me."

"I acknowledge, Sire, that I did purchase them," replied Simeon of Roydon; "and what my companions may have called me, I know not; but if perchance they called me Woodville, it was in jest; but no man can say that I was seen following your army from Harfleur hither."

"It is enough, it is enough," said the King. "Of this charge, Richard, you are free," he continued, turning to Woodville; and then resuming his interrogatories, he went on to ask, "Did you, or did you not, Sir Simeon of Roydon, intercept a letter from me to this good knight, and counterfeiting his signature, write a reply, refusing to obey my commands?"

Sir Simeon of Roydon started, and turned a fierce look upon Ned Dyram, as if he suspected that he had been betrayed; but the surprise which he saw in the man's face, notwithstanding a strong effort to repress it, convinced him that Henry had other sources of information; but resolute in his course to the last, he replied in a bold tone, "It is false. Who is my accuser?"

The King looked round; and a sweet musical voice replied, "I am!"

"Stand forward, stand forward," said the King. "Ha! who are you? I have seen that fair face before."

"Once, my Liege," said Ella Brune, advancing, dressed in the garments she had worn immediately after her grandsire's death, "and then your Grace did as you always do, rendered justice both to the offender and the offended. I accuse this man of having done the deed that you have mentioned, and many another blacker still. I accuse him of having made use of him who stands beside him, Edward Dyram--pretending to be a servant of Sir Richard of Woodville, long after he had been driven in disgrace from his train--to obtain from the messenger of the Count of Charolois the letter which your Grace had sent. Speak," she continued, turning to Dyram, "Is it not true?"

The man hesitated, and turned red and white, but was silent.

"Speak," reiterated Ella Brune, "it is your last chance. Then read this letter, my Liege," she continued, "from the noble Count of Charolois, wherein he states, that he has traced out this foul and wicked plot, and----"

"I will confess I did," exclaimed Dyram; "I did get the letter. I did aid to forge the answer; but he, he--Richard of Woodville--struck me, and I vowed revenge."

"What more?" demanded the King, sternly. "If you hope for life speak truth. You have not defiled knightly rank; you have not degraded noble birth; you have not violated all that should keep men honest and true. There is some hope for you."

"Ha, knave!" exclaimed Simeon of Roydon, gazing at him fiercely; but Dyram hesitated and paused without reply; and Ella Brune proceeded, pointing with her fair hand to the papers which the King held open before him, and demanding, while her dark eyes fixed stern on Dyram's face, "And the letter from the prisoner of Montl'herry, to Sir John Grey, did you not erase the words with which it ended--they were, if I remember right, 'touching my ransom,'--and change the Christian name in the superscription?"

"No, no," cried the man vehemently, knowing that the charge might well affect his life. "No, I did not--nobody saw me do it; I say I did not."

"Fool!" cried Ella Brune, after giving him a moment to consider; "Your hate has been dangerous to others, your love has been dangerous to yourself--Give me that cup! My Lord the King, may I crave to see the letter I have named?"

Henry took it from the rest, and placed it in her hand; and, dipping her finger in a cup containing a clear white fluid, which the page of Sir John Grey brought forward, she ran it over the line immediately preceding Richard of Woodville's signature. The King gazed earnestly on the parchment as she did so, and, to his surprise, he beheld the words she had mentioned reappear--somewhat faint and indistinct, it is true, but legible enough to show that the meaning of the whole paper had been falsified by their erasure.

"That wretched man," said Ella Brune, pointing to Dyram, "in a foolish fit of tenderness towards my poor self, taught me the art of restoring writings long effaced; and now, by his own skill, I show you his own knavery."

Henry turned round with a generous smile of sincere pleasure towards Richard of Woodville, saying, "I was sure I was not mistaken, Richard;" and he held out his hand.

The young knight took it, and pressed his lips upon it, replying, "You seldom are, Sire; but there is more to come, or I am mistaken."

"Nay, with him I have done," said Ella Brune, looking at Dyram: "unless he thinks, by free confession of the whole, and telling how a greater knave than himself led him on from fault to fault, to merit forgiveness, the matter affecting him is closed."

"It is vain to conceal it," cried Dyram; "not that I hope for grace, for that is past; but there will be some satisfaction in punishing him who was never grateful for any service rendered him."

"It was yourself you served, villain, and your own passions--not me!" cried Simeon of Roydon, with his eyes flashing fire.

"And how did you treat me?" cried Dyram. "It is true, my Liege, to gain this girl--devil incarnate as she seems to be!--I would have sacrificed aught on earth; and when, after laying a plot with this man to win her--which, by his knavery, had well nigh ended in her ruin--I confessed my fault to yonder knight, and he spurned me like a dog, I would have done as much to take vengeance upon him. I found a ready aid in good Sir Simeon of Roydon, who loved him as dearly as I did. In turns we planned and executed. He devised the letter touching the ransom; he prompted the Duke of Orleans and the Count of Armagnac: I erased the writing, and changed the superscription. Then, again, I hinted that in the armour he had bought, and under the name of its first owner, he might follow your camp, and clench the suspicion of Sir Richard's treason, by proofs that would seem indubitable; never doubting, indeed, that our enemy would be kept long in Montl'herry, but little caring whether the sword fell on the one knight or the other. To make all sure, however, I was sent to Montl'herry; but I arrived too late to prevent the prisoner's escape; and only discovered by whose assistance it was effected--by that fair maiden there, now clerk and now demoiselle. My story is told, and I have nought to plead. We are both guilty alike; we both loved, and we both hated: but I would not have willingly injured her, who has now destroyed me. In that, and that only, am I better than this noble knight."

"Have you aught more to say, fair maiden, concerning Sir Simeon of Roydon?" asked Henry; "if not, I will at once deal with both of them as they merit."

"Nay, I beseech you, Sire," exclaimed Richard of Woodville, "before you act in any way, listen to me for one moment."

"Speak--speak, my good friend," replied Henry; "I am always willing to hear anything in reason--what would you say?"

"I know not whether your Grace would wish it spoken aloud," said Woodville; "it refers to a time before your accession to the throne."

"Oh yes! speak, speak!" cried Henry; "I have not forgotten Hal of Hadnock. What of those days?"

"Why, Sire, you may remember," answered Woodville, "that, as that noble gentleman you have just named and I rode by the stream near Dunbury, one night in the spring of the year, we found the body of my poor cousin Kate drowned in the water. The man before you thought fit to cast foul doubts on as true and gallant a gentleman as ever lived, Sir Henry Dacre. He now lies at the point of death from wounds received near Agincourt, and if aught on earth can save him, it will be to know that his good name is cleared from all suspicion. If this man could but be brought to speak, and to acknowledge that the charges he insinuated were false, it would be balm to a bruised heart."

"Nay," cried the King, "his falsehood is so evident, his knavery so great, that charges from his mouth are now but empty air. Yet I have heard how Sir Harry Dacre has suffered the bare doubt to prey like a canker upon his peace. Speak, Simeon of Roydon; and, if it be your last word, speak truth. Know you aught of Catherine Beauchamp's death?--and, if you do, whose was the hand that did that horrid deed?"

"Sir Harry Dacre's," answered Roydon, with a malignant smile; for he thought to triumph even in death. "No one doubts it, I believe. Does your Grace?"

"Ay, that I do," answered Henry; "and I have good cause to doubt it. That man was sent by me to make inquiries," and he pointed to Dyram; "and everything that he discovered, I pray you mark, gentlemen all, tended to show that it was impossible Sir Henry Dacre could have done the deed. I have often fancied, indeed, that the knave had learned more than he divulged to me. Is it so, sir? I remember your ways in times of old, that you would tell part, and keep back part. Did you learn aught else?"

"Oh, no, Sire," replied Dyram, with a laugh, glancing his keen eyes towards Richard of Woodville; "I know nought; but I suppose that Sir Henry Dacre did it."

"My Lord the King," said Ella Brune, who had remained silent, with her dark eyes cast down, while this conversation took place, "I can give your Grace the information that you seek to have."

"Ha!--you!" cried Roydon, gazing at her with glaring eyes. "This is all pure hate. Mark, if she do not say I did it!"

"You did!" answered Ella, fixing her eyes upon him. "Do you remember the night after the Glutton mass?--I was there! Do you remember hiding beneath the willows on the abbey side of the stream?--I was there! Do you remember the lady coming and asking for the information you had promised to give, and your assailing her with words of love, and seeking to win her from her promised husband?--I was there!"

"False! false! all false!" cried Sir Simeon of Roydon; but his face as he spoke was deadly pale.

"If you saw all, fair maiden," said the King, "why did you not at once denounce the murderer?"

"I saw all but the last act, my Liege," replied Ella Brune. "Having wandered from Southampton with the poor old man, whom that knight afterwards slew, we found kindly entertainment for our music in a cottage at Abbot's Ann. Wearied with the noise and merriment, I went out and sat beneath the trees; I witnessed what I have said; but then, not to be an eavesdropper, I stole away. When I heard of the murder, however, I well knew who had done it--for the lady answered him scornfully--and I should have told the tale at once, but the old man forbade me, showing that we were poor wandering minstrels, and that my story against the noble and the great would not be credited; yet I am certain that his hand did it."

"Out upon it!" cried Roydon; "will a King of England listen to such an idle tale? will he not drive from his presence, with contempt, a mountebank singer who, without one witness, brings such a charge in pure hate?"

"Not without one witness," answered Ella Brune. "I have one."

"Call him!" said Henry; "if this man can clear himself from the accusation, he shall have pardon for all the rest."

Ella Brune raised her hand and beckoned to some one standing behind the circle, which had drawn somewhat closer round the spot where this scene was going on. Immediately--while Sir John Grey made way--a lady dressed in the habit of a novice, with her face closely covered, advanced between the King and Simeon of Roydon.

"This is my witness," said Ella Brune; and as she spoke, the other withdrew her veil.

Simeon of Roydon started back with a face pale as death, exclaiming, "Catherine!--She is living! she is living!"

"Ay, but not by your will," answered Catherine Beauchamp; "for you have long thought me dead--dead by the act of your own hand. My Lord the King," she continued, "all that this excellent girl has said is true. On a night you well remember, eager to learn from this man who you really were, I sought him by the banks of the stream, where he had promised to wait and tell me that and other matters, as he said, nearly affecting me. It was wrong of me to do so; but I had done much that was wrong ere then, and I had no scruples. He told me who you were; and then, seeing that no great love existed between myself and poor Harry Dacre, he sought to win my wealth, by inducing me to violate the contract with my promised husband and wed him: what put such a vain notion in his mind, I know not; but I laughed and taunted him with bitter scorn; and he then told me that I should be his or die. At first I feared not: but when I found him lift his hand and grasp me by the throat, I screamed aloud for help, and struggled hard. He mastered me, however, in an instant, and plunged me in the stream. As I fell, I vowed that, if Heaven would send me help, I would make a pilgrimage to St. James of Galicia. The waters, however, soon closed above my head, and in the one dreadful moment which I had for thought--as if the past had been cleared up and illumined by a flash of lightning--all the faults and follies of my former life stood out before me distinct and bright, stripped of the vain imaginations with which I had covered them. I rose again for a moment to the air; and then I vowed that, if God spared me, I would pledge myself to the altar, and renouncing all that ensnared me, live out the rest of time in penitence and prayer. I soon lost all recollection, however, and when first I woke as from sleep, in great feebleness and agony, I found myself in a litter, borne on towards the abbey. Consciousness was speedily gone again: and when next I roused myself from that dull slumber, my good uncle Richard, the abbot, and an old monk of his convent, were the only persons near. As soon as I could speak, I told them of my vows, and engaged them to keep my recovery a profound secret, till I had taken the veil. The deeds that have been done, however, compel me to come forward now, and tell the truth. I have told it simply and without disguise; but yet I would fain plead for this man's life. To him, as well as to others, I have had great faults, and towards none more than poor Sir Harry Dacre. In a month, however, my vows will be taken, and he will be free; but I would fain not cloud the peace with which I renounce the world, by bringing death on my bad cousin's head; and you, Sire, after such a mighty victory, can well afford to pardon."

But Henry waved his hand: "Not a word for him!" he said; "loaded with so many crimes, I give him up to trial; and by the sentence of his judges will I abide. Remove the prisoners, and keep them under safe ward; one word more, fair lady," he continued, as the men-at-arms led Simeon of Roydon and Ned Dyram from the presence, "how has it so fortunately chanced that you are here to-day?"

"I have travelled far, my Liege," replied Catherine Beauchamp, in a gayer tone; "have made my pilgrimage, and passed part of my noviciate in a cell of the order I have chosen near Dijon. Coming back I met with some Canonesses, who were travelling under the escort of some troops of Burgundy, and with them journeyed to Peronne, whence, under the escort of Sir Richard of Woodville, and accompanied by this good maiden, I came hither. I will not waste your time, my Liege, by telling all the adventures that befel me by the way; but I have to ask pardon of my noble cousin Richard, here, for teasing him somewhat in Westminster and Nieuport, and doing him a still worse turn in Ghent by a letter to Sir John Grey. But, good faith, to say the truth, I thought he was a lighter lover than he has proved himself, and now that I know all, I crave his forgiveness heartily."

"You have it, sweet Kate," answered Richard of Woodville; "but you have several things to hear yet," he continued, in his blunt way, "and some perhaps that may not be very palatable to you."

"Nay, I have heard all," answered Catherine Beauchamp; "but I stand no more in the way of that love, which I had long seen turning to another, when I spurned it from me myself. My vows at the altar will remove all obstacles; and I trust that Dacre will see me as a sister and a friend, though it be but to bid me adieu for ever."

"And I, Woodville," said the King, turning to the young knight, "I, too, would ask you pardon, if I had ever truly suspected you. Such, however, is not the case; and there are many here who can testify, that though I was willing that you should be made to prove your innocence, I never doubted that you could do so. For services rendered, however, and high deeds done, as well as in compensation for much that you have suffered, I give you one half of the forfeited estates of the traitor Sir Thomas Grey, to hold for ever of us and of our heirs, on presentation of a mace, such as that which beat down the adversary of my brother Humphrey upon the day of Agincourt. Sir John Grey, my good old friend, I think you, too, have a gift to give. Come, let me see it given;" and leading forward Richard of Woodville, he brought him to the side of Mary Grey. The old knight placed her hand in his, and the King said "Benedicite."

Ella Brune turned away her head. Her cheek glowed; but there were no tears in her eyes; and, ere many months were gone, she was a cloistered nun in the same convent with Catherine Beauchamp.

FOOTNOTES

Footnote 1: The beard was, at this time, usually shaved off by the English nobles; but many of the older barons still retained it, and I find the mustachio very frequently in contemporaneous representations of younger knights.

Footnote 2: A common expression of the lower classes of Londoners in old times.

Footnote 3: The recorded words of Henry Chicheley, Archbishop of Canterbury.

Footnote 4: Barros, Dec. i. lib. i. cap. 6.

Footnote 5: In many countries, the distinction of station, if not of birth, was very strictly enforced, especially at meals; and I think it is Meyrick who mentions the ordonnance of some foreign prince, by which no one was permitted, under the grade of chivalry, to sit at the table with a knight, unless he were a cross-bowman, the son of a knight.

Footnote 6: His after advancement to the Earldom of Tankerville was won by deeds of arms, which shows that he must have been still hale and robust at this time.

Footnote 7: Dulle Grite.--This great cannon, or bombard, was forged for the siege of Oudenarde, in 1382, and is nearly twenty feet long, and about eleven in circumference.

Footnote 8: Some authors, and especially Monstrelet, represent the Duke of Burgundy as effecting his escape from the forest of Villeneuve St. George; but the reader of course cannot entertain the slightest doubt that the author of the present veracious history is, like all other modern historians and critics, better acquainted with the events of distant times than the poor ignorant people who lived in them.

Footnote 9: It may be necessary to remark that the incident here mentioned is not imaginary, but a recorded historical fact, most disgraceful to those who played the treacherous juggle.

Footnote 10: This term was greatly affected at the period we speak of, not only by kings, but by all powerful nobles.

Footnote 11: It is a strange omission on the part of the historians of the day, that in relating the escape of John of Croy, they have not mentioned the name of Richard of Woodville.

Footnote 12: The actual removal of the Canonesses of Cambray took place a few months later.

THE END.