The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 by W. Harrison Ainsworth (best novels to read for beginners TXT) 📕

with mingled emotions of rage and despair, had become absolutely appalling.

"The same as your own, as I have said," replied the other;--"a few hasty words impugning the justice of this vindictive court. Better had I have cut out my tongue than have given utterance to them. But my case more nearly resembled yours than I have yet explained, for, like you, I had incurred the displeasure of Sir Giles Mompesson, and was by him delivered to these hellish tormentors. Acting under cover of the Star-Chamber, and in pursuance of its iniquitous decrees, he nailed me to the pillory, and so fast, that the ears through which the spikes were driven were left behind. Think how you would like that, Sir Jocelyn? Think what you would feel, if you stood there on that infamous post, a spectacle to the base and shouting rabble, with a paper fastened to your breast, setting forth your crimes, and acquainting all that you were a Star-Chamber delinquent?"

"Enough, Sir," interrupted Sir Jocelyn.

"Ay, enough--more than enough," rejoined the other; "but I cannot spare you the whole of the recital, however painful it may be to you. My own sufferings will be yours, if you heed not. So I shall go on. In robbing me of my ears, the executioner had only half done his work. He had still further to deface the image of his Maker,--and he hesitated not in his task. No savage in the wilds could have treated his deadliest enemy worse than he treated me; and yet the vile concourse applauded him, and not a word of pity escaped them. My sentence was fully carried out; my features for ever disfigured; and the letters of shame indelibly stamped upon my cheek. You may read them there now if you will look at me."

"You thrill me with horror," said Sir Jocelyn.

"Ay, mine is not a mirthful history, though that fiend in human form, Sir Giles, hath often laughed at it," rejoined the promoter. "It might make you shudder, and perchance move you to tears, if you could hear it all; but for the present, I shall confine myself to such portions of it as bear upon your own perilous position--and I therefore hold myself out as a lesson to you. Again, I bid you look upon this ravaged countenance, and say, if by any stretch of fancy you can persuade yourself it was once as comely as your own. You find it difficult to believe my words--yet such was the fact. Ay," he continued, in a tone of profoundest melancholy, "I was once proud of the gifts nature had vouchsafed me; too proud, alas! and I was punished for my vanity and self-boasting. In those days I loved--and was beloved in return--by a damsel beautiful as Aveline. After my horrible punishment, I beheld her no more. Knowing she must regard me with aversion, I shunned her. I desired not to be an object of pity. Bring this home to your own breast, Sir Jocelyn, and think how direful would be your lot to be driven for ever from her you love. Yet, such has been my case."

"I cannot bear the contemplation--it were madness," cried the young man.

There was a brief pause, after which Lanyere resumed his story.

"At the time of being cast into the Fleet Prison, my prospects were fair enough. When I came forth I was utterly ruined. Existence was a burden to me, and I should have ended my days by my own hand, if the insatiable desire of vengeance had not bound me to the world. For this alone I consented to live--to bear the agonies of blighted love--to endure the scorn and taunts of all with whom I was brought into contact. Nay, I attached myself to him who had so deeply wronged me, to ensure revenge upon him. My great fear was, lest I should be robbed of this precious morsel; and you may remember that I struck up your sword when it had touched his breast. He must die by no other hand than mine."

"Your vengeance has been tardy," observed Sir Jocelyn.

"True," replied the other. "I have delayed it for several reasons, but chiefly because I would have it complete. The work is begun, and its final accomplishment will not be long postponed. I will not destroy him till I have destroyed the superstructure on which he has built his fortunes--till all has crumbled beneath him--and he is beggared and dishonoured. I have begun the work, I say. Look here!" he cried, taking a parchment from his doublet. "You would give much for this deed, Sir Jocelyn. This makes me lord of a large property in Norfolk, with which you are well acquainted."

"You cannot mean the Mounchensey estates?" cried Sir Jocelyn. "Yet now I look at the instrument, it is so."

"I obtained this assignment by stratagem," said the promoter; "and I have thereby deprived Sir Giles of the most valuable portion of his spoils; and though; he thinks to win it back again, he will find himself deceived. My measures are too well taken. This is the chief prop of the fabric it has taken him so long to rear, and ere long I will shake it wholly in pieces."

"But if you have become unlawfully possessed of this property, as would appear to be the case by your own showing, you cannot hope to retain it," said the young knight.

"Trust me, Sir Jocelyn, I shall prove a better title to it than Sir Giles could exhibit," rejoined Lanyere; "but this is not a time for full explanation. If I carry out my schemes, you will not be the last person benefited by them."

"Again, I ask you, what possible interest you can feel in me?" demanded the young knight with curiosity.

"Next to myself, you have been most injured by Sir Giles, and even more than myself are you an object of dislike to him. These would suffice to excite my sympathy towards you; but I have other and stronger reasons for my friendly feeling towards you, which in due season you shall know."

"All your proceedings are mysterious," observed Sir Jocelyn.

"They must needs be so from the circumstances in which I am placed. I am compelled to veil them as I do my hateful features from the prying eyes of men: but they will be made clear anon, and you will then understand me and my motives better. Ha! what is this?" he suddenly exclaimed, as a noise outside attracted his attention. "Fly! fly! there is danger."

But the warning was too late. Ere the young man, who stood irresolute, could effect his retreat from the back of the cottage, the door was thrown open, and a serjeant-at-arms, with three attendants in black gowns and flat caps, and having black staves in their hands, entered the room.

Sir Jocelyn had partly drawn his sword, but restored it to the scabbard on a glance from Lanyere.

"Resistance must not be offered," said the latter, in a low tone. "You will only make a bad matter worse."

The serjeant-at-arms, a tall, thin man, with a sinister aspect, advanced towards the young knight, and touching him with his wand, said--"I attach your person, Sir Jocelyn Mounchensey, in virtue of a warrant, which I hold from the High Court of Star-Chamber."

"I yield myself your prisoner, Sir," replied Sir Jocelyn. "Whither am I to be taken?"

"You will be taken before the Lords of the Council in the first instance, and afterwards, in all probability, be consigned to the custody of the wardens of his Majesty's gaol of the Fleet," replied the serjeant-at-arms.

"I would fain know the nature of my offence?" said Sir Jocelyn.

"You will learn that when the interrogatories are put to you," replied the official. "But I am told you have disparaged the dignity of the High Court, and that is an offence ever severely punished. Your accuser is Sir Giles Mompesson."

Having said thus much, the serjeant-at-arms turned to the promoter, and inquired, "Are you not Clement Lanyere?"

"Why do you ask?" rejoined the other.

"Because if you are he, I must request you to accompany me to Sir Giles Mompesson."

"Lanyere is my name," replied the other; "and if I decline to attend you, as you request, it is from no disrespect to you, but from distaste to the society into which you propose to bring me. Your warrant does not extend to me?"

"It does not, Sir," replied the serjeant-at-arms. "Nevertheless--"

"Arrest him!" cried a voice at the back of the house,--and a window being thrown open, the face of Sir Giles Mompesson appeared at it--"Arrest him!" repeated the extortioner.

The serjeant-at-arms made a movement, as if of compliance; but Lanyere bent towards him, and whispered a few words in his ear, on hearing which the official respectfully retired.

"Why are not my injunctions obeyed, Sir?" demanded Sir Giles, furiously, from the window.

"Because he has rendered me good reason why he may not be molested by us--or by any one else," replied the officer, significantly.

Lanyere looked with a smile of triumph at the extortioner, and then turning to Sir Jocelyn, who seemed half disposed to make an attack upon his enemy, said in an under-tone, "Harm him not. Leave him to me."

After which he quitted the cottage.

Sir Giles then signed to the serjeant-at-arms to remove his prisoner, and disappeared; and the attendants, in sable cloaks, closing round Sir Jocelyn, the party went forth.


CHAPTER XXII.

The Old Fleet Prison.


Mention is made of a prison-house standing near the River Fleet as early as the reign of Richard I.; and this was one of the oldest jails in London, as its first wardens, whose names are on record, Nathaniel de Leveland, and Robert his son, paid, in 1198, a fine of sixty marks for its custody; affirming "that it had been their inheritance ever since the Conquest, and praying that they might not be hindered therein by the counter-fine of Osbert de Longchamp," to whom it had been granted by the lion-hearted monarch.

The next warden of the Fleet, in the days of John, was Simon Fitz-Robert, Archdeacon of Wells,--probably a near relative of Robert de Leveland, as the wardship of the daughter of the said Robert, as well as the custody of the jail, was also committed to him. The freehold of the prison continued in the Leveland family for upwards of three centuries; until, in the reign of Philip and Mary it was, sold to John Heath for L2300--a large sum in those days, but not more than the value of the property, which from the way it was managed produced a large revenue to its possessor.

The joint wardens of the Fleet at the time of our history were Sir Henry Lello and John Eldred; but their office was executed by deputy in the person of Joachim Tunstall, by whom it was rented. As will naturally be supposed, it was the object of every deputy-warden to make as much as he could out of the unfortunate individuals committed to his charge; and some idea of the infamous practices of those persons may be gathered, from a petition presented to the Lords of the Council in 1586 by the then prisoners of the Fleet. In this it is stated that the warden had "let and set to farm the victualling and lodging of all the house and prison of the Fleet to one John Harvey, and the other profits of the said Fleet he had let to one Thomas Newport, the deputy there under the warden; and these being very