HYMN-POEMS ON NOTABLE TEXTS. BY THE REV. S. J. STONE, B. A. AUTHOR OF LYRA FIDELIUM.' No. IV. THE ATTRACTION OF THE CROSS. 'I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto ME.'-St. John, xii. 32. (Tune, St. Matthias.) Is there no hope for those who lie Yea, hearken! Israel, lift thine head, O look and listen! see thy Lord, O see, the boundlessness of grace, Is seen, is said, the doom of death. Death doomed, sin purged, the Serpent slain, Amen! for whither should I go? Amen. No. V. THE PERFECT DAY. 'Until the Day break and the shadows flee away.'—Canticles, ii. 17. (Tune, Troyte No. 1.) DARK is the sky that overhangs my soul, Unholy phantoms from the deep arise, And gather through the gloom before mine eyes; I bear the lamp my Master gave to me, He maketh all things good unto His own, He will be near me in the awful hour When the last Foe shall come in blackest power; In Him, my God, my Glory, I will trust: Amen. CAMEOS FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. CAMEO C. THE KING-MAKER. 1467-1471. RICHARD NEVIL, Earl of Warwick, occupied the chief place in the eyes of the nation, from his exceeding bounteousness to the poor, and the splendour of his household, as well as the enormous force that he was able to bring into the field, by the uniting of so many great feudal estates in his person, and by his immense family connection. He was Otherwise his personal greatness is not very apparent. esteemed a patriot, but he maintained no national right, and seems to have chiefly earned his fame as representing the universal hatred to Somerset. His sword was regarded as ensuring success to his cause, but this was more from the overwhelming mass of followers that he could bring into the field, than from any qualities of generalship. In this he seems to have been inferior to his father, Lord Salisbury; and to have been greatly surpassed by the young King Edward IV. He was also viewed as a man of piety, and he certainly had devout observances in his household, and expressed himself piously; but his religion did not withhold him either from oath-breaking or savage revenge. His really great merit seems to have been that he seldom allowed any pillage of the country people, being able to supply his armies from his vast resources; and also, that he preferred attacking the nobles and gentry to harrying their followers, who, of course, depended on them; and thus, until Towton, the battles in which he was engaged, though deadly to the nobles, numbered comparatively few dead amongst the commonalty. His wife, Anne Beauchamp, was a gracious, pious, and excellent lady, to whom no doubt much of his popularity was due; but a second time were the two great earldoms of Warwick and Salisbury devoid of a male heir. Two daughters only, Isabel and Anne, had been born to them, and these, the greatest heiresses in England, seem to have been from the first destined to King Edward's two young brothers, George and Richard, the Dukes of Clarence and Glocester, so soon as they should be of an age to marry. The Woodvilles, who always wanted to keep all the heiresses for themselves, and were jealous of the Warwick influence, led Edward to shew much displeasure at the proposed marriage between Clarence and Isabel. During Warwick's visit to Louis XI. in 1467, they caused the King to deprive Warwick's brother, the Archbishop of York, of the Chancellorship; and when the French ambassadors were sent back insulted by Edward's scanty gifts, the Earl retired in displeasure to Middleham, while they reported that he had become his master's bitter enemy. Agents of Margaret of Anjou were continually being arrested; and one poor shoe-maker, in London, was pinched to death with red-hot pincers for refusing to betray those whom he had assisted in her correspondence. Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke, made an attempt in Wales, but he was defeated by Lord Herbert, and lost the old Red Rose fastness, Harlech Castle, where a prisoner was taken, who reported that Warwick was regarded in the French court as a Lancastrian. King Edward sent the man to Middleham to be confronted with the Earl; the charge was adjudged frivolous, and a sort of reconciliation ensued; but Edward kept a body-guard of a hundred archers about him. Warwick bided his time, and held under his influence his intended son-in-law, George Duke of Clarence. The Prince was far less clever than either of his brothers, and was weak and unprincipled; but he seems to have really loved Lady Isabel Nevil, who was besides the greatest match in the kingdom, and Edward's interference extremely angered him. 'I'll let Edward know that we are all one man's sons, however near he brings strangers,' grumbled Clarence; and his rage and that of Warwick were inflamed to the greatest degree, by a report that Edward did not merely forbid the marriage out of jealousy, but because, fickle and licentious to the last degree, he himself admired the lady, and had insulted her by his attentions. Isabel was sent with her mother and sister to Calais, where, shortly after, her father and lover following, she was married at the church of St. Nicholas, by her uncle, the Archbishop, July 1st, 1469. It was at this very time that a great insurrection broke out in Yorkshire. It does not seem to have been Lancastrian, and the immediate cause was an old due of a portion of corn to the Hospital of St. Leonard's ; but therewith came violent complaints of the Woodville nobility; and the whole peasantry of the north took up arms and marched on York, under command of a leader called Robin of Redesdale. Warwick's brother, now created Earl of Northumberland, saved York by defeating them, and putting Robin to death; but otherwise he did not follow up the victory, and the peasants not only remained in arms, but were joined by all Warwick's tenantry. Edward, roused into full activity, marched against them, and wrote orders with his own hand to Warwick and Clarence to join him, while he advised the Woodvilles to leave the army, hoping thus to content the people. Lords Herbert and Stafford were with him at Nottingham, and were despatched by him to reconnoitre the insurgents, who were near Northampton. The nobles had become terribly insolent and lawless, all the chivalrous courtesies of war had been forgotten, and a sharp dispute broke out between Herbert and Stafford about quarters, the consequence of which was, that Stafford marched off with all his forces, and Herbert being left alone with merely his own seven thousand men, was attacked by the insurgents at Edgecote, near Banbury, and though he fought bravely, and his brother with a pole-axe twice cut his way through the enemy, both were taken, and immediately beheaded. Then the victors, dispersing, captured Lord Stafford, and pounced upon Grafton Castle, where they seized Lord Rivers and his son John Woodville, and beheaded all, pretending, either truly or falsely, that they had authority from the Earl of Warwick. He, with his new son-in-law, was already in England, and found the King near Coventry; at first they treated him with respect, but soon he found, to his rage and fury, that he had no choice, but was in fact a captive, and was carried off against his will to Middleham; so that England was in the extraordinary condition of having two kings, both captive in different places, under the charge of one Earl ! This eclipse of the White Rose seemed favourable to the Red, and Sir Humfrey Neville, who, in spite of his name, was an ardent Lancastrian, and had spent the five years, since the Battle of Hexham, in a cavern on the banks of the Derwent, came forth, and collected all the old borderer partizans of King Henry. Warwick found that while he kept Edward a prisoner, no one would join his standard, and he therefore restored him to royal honours at York, under the surveillance of the Archbishop; he himself marched northward, routed the Lancastrians, and brought the gallant Sir Humfrey a captive to York, where he too was beheaded. Then all returned to London, and spent Christmas in a grand state of reconciliation. Edward and Clarence embraced under their mother's eye; and the King, before all his council, proposed that his eldest daughter Elizabeth, and he had as yet no son, should be given in marriage to the son of Warwick's brother John, the only male heir of all the Nevils. Moreover, he gratified all the English by a proposal to invade France, after the fashion of the glorious days of old, and alarmed Louis XI. so much that he issued summonses to all his vassals to prepare for the defence of the country. Warwick and the Nevils felt that Edward was not the puppet they wanted upon the throne; and they had learnt to believe that they themselves were the state and the country. It was a horrible period of mutual distrust, bloodshed, and broken faith, and no one had the slightest confidence in anyone's word. In the course of this spring, Archbishop Nevil invited the King to meet his brother and the Earl of Warwick at the Moor in Hertfordshire. Edward came; but while he was washing his hands before supper, Sir John Ratcliff whispered to him that a hundred men were lying in ambush to capture him, and throw him into prison. Edward asked no further questions, but slipped out at the door unseen, threw himself on a horse, and galloped alone to Windsor. Then came fresh apologies, explanations, and reconciliations; but in the midst another popular insurrection began in Lincolnshire. |