Darnley; or, The Field of the Cloth of Gold

On the morning of the 24th day of March, 1520, a traveller was seen riding in the small, rugged cross-road which, traversing the eastern part of Kent, formed the immediate communication between Wye[1] and Canterbury. Far be it from me to insinuate that this road pursued anything like a direct course from the one place to the other: on the contrary, it seemed, like a serpent, to get on only by twisting; and yet truly, as its track now lies pictured on the old county map before me, I can discover no possible reason for its various contortions, inasmuch as they avoid neither ascents nor descents, but proceed alike over rough and smooth, hill and dale, appearing only to wind about for the sake of variety. I can conceive the engineer who planned it laughing in his sleeve at the consummate meanderings which he compelled his travellers to undergo. However, as at the time I speak of this was the only road through that part of the country, every traveller was obliged to content himself with it, such as it was, notwithstanding both its circumvolutions and its ruggedness.

Indeed, the horseman and his beast, who on the afore-mentioned morning journeyed on together towards Canterbury, were apparently well calculated to encounter what the profane vulgar call the ups and downs of life; for never a stouter cavalier mounted horse, and never a stouter horse was mounted by cavalier; and there was something in the strong, quadrate form of each, in the bold, free movement of every limb, and in the firm, martial regularity of their pace, which spoke a habitual consciousness of tried and unfailing power.

The rider was a man of about five or six-and-twenty, perhaps not so old; but the hardy exposed life which had dyed his florid cheek with a tinge of deep brown, had given also to his figure that look of set, mature strength which is not usually concomitant with youth. But strength with him had nothing of ungracefulness, for the very vigour of his limbs gave them ease of motion. Yet there was something more in his aspect and in his carriage than can rightly be attributed to the grace induced by habits of martial exercise, or to the dignity derived from consciousness of skill or valour: there was that sort of innate nobility of look which we are often weakly inclined to combine in our minds with nobility of station, and that peculiar sort of grace which is a gift, not an acquirement.

To paint him to the mind's eye were very difficult, though to describe him were very easy; for though I were to say that he was a tall, fair man, with the old Saxon blood shining out in his deep blue eye, and in his full, short upper lip, from which the light brown moustache turned off in a sweep, exposing its fine arching line; though I were to speak of the manly beauty of his features, rendered scarcely less by a deep scar upon his forehead; or were I to detail, with the accuracy of a sculptor, the elegant proportion of every limb, I might, indeed, communicate to the mind of the reader the idea of a much more handsome man than he really was; but I should fail to invest the image with that spirit of gracefulness which, however combined with outward form, seems to radiate from within, which must live to be perfect, and must be seen to be understood.

His apparel was not such as his bearing seemed to warrant: though good, it was not costly, and though not faded, it certainly was not new. Nor was the fashion of it entirely English: the gray cloth doublet slashed with black, as well as the falling ruff round his neck, were decidedly Flemish; and his hose of dark stuff might probably have been pronounced foreign by the connoisseurs of the day, although the variety of modes then used amongst our change-loving nation justified a man in choosing the fashion of his breeches from any extreme, whether from the fathomless profundity of a Dutchman's ninth pair, or from the close-fitting garment of the Italian sworder. The traveller's hose approached more towards the latter fashion, and served to show off the fair proportions of his limbs without straitening him by too great tightness, while his wide boots of untanned leather, pushed down to the ankle, evinced that he did not consider his journey likely to prove long, or, at least, very fatiguing.

In those days, when, as old Holinshed assures us, it was not safe to ride unarmed, even upon the most frequented road, a small bridle path, such as that which the traveller pursued, was not likely to afford much greater security. However, he did not appear to have furnished himself with more than the complement of offensive arms usually worn by every one above the rank of a simple yeoman; namely, the long, straight, double-edged sword, which, thrust through a broad buff belt, hung perpendicularly down his thigh, with the hilt shaped in form of a cross, without any farther guard for the hand; while in the girdle appeared a small dagger, which served also as a knife: added to these was a dag or pistol, which, though small, considering the dimensions of the arms then used, would have caused any horse-pistol of the present day to blush at its own insignificance.

In point of defensive armour, he carried none, except a steel cap, which hung at his saddle-bow, while its place on his head was supplied by a Genoa bonnet of black velvet, round which his rich chesnut hair curled in thick profusion.

Here have I bestowed more than a page and a half upon the description of a man's dress and demeanour, which, under most circumstances, I should consider a scandalous and illegitimate waste of time, paper, and attention; but, in truth, I would fain, in the present instance, that my reader should see my traveller before his mind's eye, exactly as his picture represents him, pricking along the road on his strong black horse, with his chest borne forward, his heel depressed, his person erect, and his whole figure expressing corporeal ease and power.

Very different, however, were his mental sensations, if one might believe the knitted look of thought that sat upon his full, broad brow, and the lines that early care seemed to have busily traced upon the cheek of youth. Deep meditation, at all events, was the companion of his way; for, confident in the surefootedness of his steed, he took no care to hold his bridle in hand, but suffered himself to be borne forward almost unconsciously, fixing his gaze upon the line of light that hung above the edge of the hill before him, as if there he spied some object of deep interest, yet, at the same time, with that fixed intensity which told that, whilst the eye thus occupied itself, the mind was far otherwise employed.

It was a shrewd March morning, and the part of the road at which the traveller had now arrived opened out upon a wide wild common, whereon the keen north-west blast had full room to exercise itself unrestrained. On the one side the country sloped rapidly down from the road, exposing an extensive view of some fine level plains, distributed into fields, and scattered with a multitude of hamlets and villages; the early smoke rising from the chimneys of which, caught by the wind, mingled with the vapour from a sluggish river in the bottom, and, drifting over the scene, gave a thousand different aspects to the landscape as it passed. On the other hand, the common rose against the sky in a wide sloping upland, naked, desolate, and unbroken, except where a clump of stunted oaks raised their bare heads out of an old gravel-pit by the road-side, or where a group of dark pines broke the distant line of the ground. The road which the traveller had hitherto pursued proceeded still along the side of the hill, but, branching off to the left, was seen another rugged, gravelly path winding over the common.