Of Bryan Bowntance,
the Host of the Garter Of the Duke of
Shoreditch Of
the Bold Words uttered by Mark Fytton, the
Butcher, and how he
was cast into the Vault of the Curfew
Tower.
Turning off on the right, the earl
and his companion continued to descend the hill until
they came in sight of the Garter a snug
little hostel, situated immediately beneath the Curfew
Tower.
Before the porch were grouped the
earl’s attendants, most of whom had dismounted,
and were holding their steeds by the bridles.
At this juncture the door of the hostel opened, and
a fat jolly-looking personage, with a bald head and
bushy grey beard, and clad in a brown serge doublet,
and hose to match, issued forth, bearing a foaming
jug of ale and a horn cup. His appearance was
welcomed by a joyful shout from the attendants.
“Come, my masters!” he
cried, filling the horn, “here is a cup of stout
Windsor ale in which to drink the health of our jolly
monarch, bluff King Hal; and there’s no harm,
I trust, in calling him so.”
“Marry, is there not, mine host;”
cried the foremost attendant. “I spoke
of him as such in his own hearing not long ago, and
he laughed at me in right merry sort. I love
the royal bully, and will drink his health gladly,
and Mistress Anne Boleyn’s to boot.”
And he emptied the horn.
“They tell me Mistress Anne
Boleyn is coming to Windsor with the king and the
knights-companions to-morrow is it so?”
asked the host, again filling the horn, and handing
it to another attendant.
The person addressed nodded, but he
was too much engrossed by the horn to speak.
“Then there will be rare doings
in the castle,” chuckled the host; “and
many a lusty pot will be drained at the Garter.
Alack-a-day! how times are changed since I, Bryan
Bowntance, first stepped into my father’s shoes,
and became host of the Garter. It was in 1501 twenty-eight
years ago when King Henry the Seventh,
of blessed memory, ruled the land, and when his elder
son, Prince Arthur, was alive likewise. In that
year the young prince espoused Catherine of Arragon,
our present queen, and soon afterwards died; whereupon
the old king, not liking for he loved his
treasure better than his own flesh to part
with her dowry, gave her to his second son, Henry,
our gracious sovereign, whom God preserve! Folks
said then the match wouldn’t come to good; and
now we find they spoke the truth, for it is likely
to end in a divorce.”
“Not so loud, mine host!”
cried the foremost attendant; “here comes our
young master, the Earl of Surrey.”
“Well, I care not,” replied
the host bluffly. “I’ve spoken no
treason. I love my king; and if he wishes to
have a divorce, I hope his holiness the Pope will
grant him one, that’s all.”
As he said this, a loud noise was
heard within the hostel, and a man was suddenly and
so forcibly driven forth, that he almost knocked down
Bryan Bowntance, who was rushing in to see what was
the matter. The person thus ejected, who was
a powerfully-built young man, in a leathern doublet,
with his muscular arms bared to the shoulder, turned
his rage upon the host, and seized him by the throat
with a grip that threatened him with strangulation.
Indeed, but for the intervention of the earl’s
attendants, who rushed to his assistance, such might
have been his fate. As soon as he was liberated,
Bryan cried in a voice of mingled rage and surprise
to his assailant, “Why, what’s the matter,
Mark Fytton? are you gone mad, or do you
mistake me for a sheep or a bullock, that you attack
me in this fashion? My strong ale must have got
into your addle pate with a vengeance.
“The knave has been speaking
treason of the king’s highness,” said the
tall man, whose doublet and hose of the finest green
cloth, as well as the how and quiverful of arrows
at his back, proclaimed him an archer “and
therefore we turned him out!”
“And you did well, Captain Barlow,” cried
the host.
“Call me rather the Duke of
Shoreditch,” rejoined the tall archer; “for
since his majesty conferred the title upon me, though
it were but in jest, when I won this silver bugle,
I shall ever claim it. I am always designated
by my neighbours in Shoreditch as his grace; and I
require the same attention at your hands. To-morrow
I shall have my comrades, the Marquises of Clerkenwell,
Islington, Hogsden, Pancras, and Paddington, with
me, and then you will see the gallant figure we shall
cut.”
“I crave your grace’s
pardon for my want of respect,” replied the host.
“I am not ignorant of the distinction conferred
upon you at the last match at the castle butts by
the king. But to the matter in hand. What
treason hath Mark Fytton, the butcher, been talking?”
“I care not to repeat his words,
mine host,” replied the duke; “but he
hath spoken in unbecoming terms of his highness and
Mistress Anne Boleyn.”
“He means not what he says,”
rejoined the host. “He is a loyal subject
of the king; but he is apt to get quarrelsome over
his cups.”
“Well said, honest Bryan,”
cried the duke; “you have one quality of a good
landlord that of a peacemaker. Give
the knave a cup of ale, and let him wash down his
foul words in a health to the king, wishing him a
speedy divorce and a new queen, and he shall then sit
among us again.”
“I do not desire to sit with
you, you self-dubbed duke,” rejoined Mark; “but
if you will doff your fine jerkin, and stand up with
me on the green, I will give you cause to remember
laying hands on me.”
“Well challenged, bold butcher!”
cried one of Surrey’s attendants. “You
shall be made a duke yourself.”
“Or a cardinal,” cried
Mark. “I should not be the first of my brethren
who has met with such preferment.”
“He derides the Church in the
person of Cardinal Wolsey!” cried the duke.
“He is a blasphemer as well as traitor.”
“Drink the king’s health
in a full cup, Mark,” interposed the host, anxious
to set matters aright, “and keep your mischievous
tongue between your teeth.”
“Beshrew me if I drink the king’s
health, or that of his minion, Anne Boleyn!”
cried Mark boldly. “But I will tell you
what I will drink. I will drink the health of
King Henry’s lawful consort, Catherine of Arragon;
and I will add to it a wish that the Pope may forge
her marriage chains to her royal husband faster than
ever.”
“A foolish wish,” cried
Bryan. “Why, Mark, you are clean crazed!”
“It is the king who is crazed,
not me!” cried Mark. “He would sacrifice
his rightful consort to his unlawful passion; and you,
base hirelings, support the tyrant in his wrongful
conduct!”
“Saints protect us!” exclaimed
Bryan. “Why, this is flat treason.
Mark, I can no longer uphold you.”
“Not if you do not desire to
share his prison, mine host,” cried the Duke
of Shoreditch. “You have all heard him call
the king a tyrant. Seize him, my masters!”
“Let them lay hands upon me
if they dare!” cried the butcher resolutely.
“I have felled an ox with a blow of my fist before
this, and I promise you I will show them no better
treatment.”
Awed by Mark’s determined manner,
the bystanders kept aloof.
“I command you, in the king’s
name, to seize him!” roared Shoreditch.
“If he offers resistance he will assuredly be
hanged.”
“No one shall touch me!” cried Mark fiercely.
“That remains to be seen,”
said the foremost of the Earl of Surrey’s attendants.
“Yield, fellow!”
“Never!” replied Mark; “and I warn
you to keep off.”
The attendant, however, advanced;
but before he could lay hands on the butcher he received
a blow from his ox-like fist that sent him reeling
backwards for several paces, and finally stretched
him at full length upon the ground. His companions
drew their swords, and would have instantly fallen
upon the sturdy offender, if Morgan Fenwolf, who, with
the Earl of Surrey, was standing among the spectators,
had not rushed forward, and, closing with Mark before
the latter could strike a blow, grappled with him,
and held him fast till he was secured, and his arms
tied behind him.
“And so it is you, Morgan Fenwolf,
who have served me this ill turn, eh?” cried
the butcher, regarding him fiercely. “I
now believe all I have heard of you.”
“What have you heard of him?” asked Surrey,
advancing.
“That he has dealings with the
fiend with Herne the Hunter,” replied
Mark. “If I am hanged for a traitor, he
ought to be burnt for a wizard.”
“Heed not what the villain says,
my good fellow,” said the Duke of Shoreditch;
“you have captured him bravely, and I will take
care your conduct is duly reported to his majesty.
To the castle with him! To the castle! He
will lodge to-night in the deepest dungeon of yon
fortification,” pointing to the Curfew Tower
above them, “there to await the king’s
judgment; and to-morrow night it will be well for him
if he is not swinging from the gibbet near the bridge.
Bring him along.”
And followed by Morgan Fenwolf and
the others, with the prisoner, he strode up the hill.
Long before this Captain Bouchier
had issued from the hostel and joined the earl, and
they walked together after the crowd. In a few
minutes the Duke of Shoreditch reached Henry the Eighth’s
Gate, where he shouted to a sentinel, and told him
what had occurred. After some delay a wicket in
the gate was opened, and the chief persons of the party
were allowed to pass through it with the prisoner,
who was assigned to the custody of a couple of arquebusiers.
By this time an officer had arrived,
and it was agreed, at the suggestion of the Duke of
Shoreditch, to take the offender to the Curfew Tower.
Accordingly they crossed the lower ward, and passing
beneath an archway near the semicircular range of
habitations allotted to the petty canons, traversed
the space before the west end of Saint George’s
Chapel, and descending a short flight of stone steps
at the left, and threading a narrow passage, presently
arrived at the arched entrance in the Curfew, whose
hoary walls shone brightly in the moonlight.
They had to knock for some time against
the stout oak door before any notice was taken of
the summons. At length an old man, who acted as
bellringer, thrust his head out of one of the narrow
pointed windows above, and demanded their business.
Satisfied with the reply, he descended, and, opening
the door, admitted them into a lofty chamber, the
roof of which was composed of stout planks, crossed
by heavy oaken rafters, and supported by beams of
the same material. On the left a steep ladder-like
flight of wooden steps led to an upper room, and from
a hole in the roof descended a bell-rope, which was
fastened to one of the beams, showing the use to which
the chamber was put.
Some further consultation was now
held among the party as to the propriety of leaving
the prisoner in this chamber under the guard of the
arquebusiers, but it was at last decided against
doing so, and the old bellringer being called upon
for the keys of the dungeon beneath, he speedily produced
them. They then went forth, and descending a flight
of stone steps on the left, came to a low strong door,
which they unlocked, and obtained admission to a large
octangular chamber with a vaulted roof, and deep embrasures
terminated by narrow loopholes. The light of
a lamp carried by the bellringer showed the dreary
extent of the vault, and the enormous thickness of
its walls.
“A night’s solitary confinement
in this place will be of infinite service to our prisoner,”
said the Duke of Shoreditch, gazing around. “I’ll
be sworn he is ready to bite off the foolish tongue
that has brought him to such a pass.”
The butcher made no reply, but being
released by the arquebusiers, sat down upon a
bench that constituted the sole furniture of the vault.
“Shall I leave him the lamp?”
asked the bellringer; “he may beguile the time
by reading the names of former prisoners scratched
on the walls and in the embrasures.”
“No; he shall not even have
that miserable satisfaction,” returned the Duke
of Shoreditch. “He shall be left in the
darkness to his own bad and bitter thoughts.”
With this the party withdrew, and
the door was fastened upon the prisoner. An
arquebusier was stationed at the foot of the steps;
and the Earl of Surrey and Captain Bouchier having
fully satisfied their curiosity, shaped their course
towards the castle gate. On their way thither
the earl looked about for Morgan Fenwolf, but could
nowhere discern him. He then passed through the
wicket with Bouchier, and proceeding to the Garter,
they mounted their steeds, and galloped off towards
Datchet, and thence to Staines and Hampton Court.