



Produced by Tapio Riikonen and David Widger





THE LAST OF THE BARONS

By Edward Bulwer Lytton




DEDICATORY EPISTLE.

I dedicate to you, my indulgent Critic and long-tried Friend, the work
which owes its origin to your suggestion. Long since, you urged me
to attempt a fiction which might borrow its characters from our own
Records, and serve to illustrate some of those truths which History is
too often compelled to leave to the Tale-teller, the Dramatist, and the
Poet. Unquestionably, Fiction, when aspiring to something higher than
mere romance, does not pervert, but elucidate Facts. He who employs it
worthily must, like a biographer, study the time and the characters
he selects, with a minute and earnest diligence which the general
historian, whose range extends over centuries, can scarcely be
expected to bestow upon the things and the men of a single epoch. His
descriptions should fill up with colour and detail the cold outlines
of the rapid chronicler; and in spite of all that has been argued by
pseudo-critics, the very fancy which urged and animated his theme
should necessarily tend to increase the reader's practical and familiar
acquaintance with the habits, the motives, and the modes of thought
which constitute the true idiosyncrasy of an age. More than all, to
Fiction is permitted that liberal use of Analogical Hypothesis which is
denied to History, and which, if sobered by research, and enlightened
by that knowledge of mankind (without which Fiction can neither harm
nor profit, for it becomes unreadable), tends to clear up much that
were otherwise obscure, and to solve the disputes and difficulties of
contradictory evidence by the philosophy of the human heart.

My own impression of the greatness of the labour to which you invited me
made me the more diffident of success, inasmuch as the field of English
historical fiction had been so amply cultivated, not only by the most
brilliant of our many glorious Novelists, but by later writers of high
and merited reputation. But however the annals of our History have been
exhausted by the industry of romance, the subject you finally pressed
on my choice is unquestionably one which, whether in the delineation of
character, the expression of passion, or the suggestion of historical
truths, can hardly fail to direct the Novelist to paths wholly untrodden
by his predecessors in the Land of Fiction.

Encouraged by you, I commenced my task; encouraged by you, I venture,
on concluding it, to believe that, despite the partial adoption of that
established compromise between the modern and the elder diction,
which Sir Walter Scott so artistically improved from the more rugged
phraseology employed by Strutt, and which later writers have perhaps
somewhat overhackneyed, I may yet have avoided all material trespass
upon ground which others have already redeemed from the waste. Whatever
the produce of the soil I have selected, I claim, at least, to have
cleared it with my own labour, and ploughed it with my own heifer.

The reign of Edward IV. is in itself suggestive of new considerations
and unexhausted interest to those who accurately regard it. Then
commenced the policy consummated by Henry VII.; then were broken up the
great elements of the old feudal order; a new Nobility was called
into power, to aid the growing Middle Class in its struggles with the
ancient; and in the fate of the hero of the age, Richard Nevile, Earl of
Warwick, popularly called the King-maker, "the greatest as well as the
last of those mighty Barons who formerly overawed the Crown," [Hume
adds, "and rendered the people incapable of civil government,"--a
sentence which, perhaps, judges too hastily the whole question at issue
in our earlier history, between the jealousy of the barons and the
authority of the king.] was involved the very principle of our existing
civilization. It adds to the wide scope of Fiction, which ever loves
to explore the twilight, that, as Hume has truly observed, "No part
of English history since the Conquest is so obscure, so uncertain, so
little authentic or consistent, as that of the Wars between the two
Roses." It adds also to the importance of that conjectural research
in which Fiction may be made so interesting and so useful, that "this
profound darkness falls upon us just on the eve of the restoration of
letters;" [Hume] while amidst the gloom, we perceive the movement of
those great and heroic passions in which Fiction finds delineations
everlastingly new, and are brought in contact with characters
sufficiently familiar for interest, sufficiently remote for adaptation
to romance, and above all, so frequently obscured by contradictory
evidence, that we lend ourselves willingly to any one who seeks to help
our judgment of the individual by tests taken from the general knowledge
of mankind.

Round the great image of the "Last of the Barons" group Edward the
Fourth, at once frank and false; the brilliant but ominous boyhood of
Richard the Third; the accomplished Hastings, "a good knight and gentle,
but somewhat dissolute of living;" [Chronicle of Edward V., in Stowe]
the vehement and fiery Margaret of Anjou; the meek image of her "holy
Henry," and the pale shadow of their son. There may we see, also, the
gorgeous Prelate, refining in policy and wile, as the enthusiasm and
energy which had formerly upheld the Ancient Church pass into the
stern and persecuted votaries of the New; we behold, in that social
transition, the sober Trader--outgrowing the prejudices of the rude
retainer or rustic franklin, from whom he is sprung--recognizing
sagaciously, and supporting sturdily, the sectarian interests of his
order, and preparing the way for the mighty Middle Class, in which our
Modern Civilization, with its faults and its merits, has established its
stronghold; while, in contrast to the measured and thoughtful notions
of liberty which prudent Commerce entertains, we are reminded of the
political fanaticism of the secret Lollard,--of the jacquerie of the
turbulent mob-leader; and perceive, amidst the various tyrannies of the
time, and often partially allied with the warlike seignorie, [For it
is noticeable that in nearly all the popular risings--that of Cade, of
Robin of Redesdale, and afterwards of that which Perkin Warbeck made
subservient to his extraordinary enterprise--the proclamations of the
rebels always announced, among their popular grievances, the depression
of the ancient nobles and the elevation of new men.]--ever jealous
against all kingly despotism,--the restless and ignorant movement of a
democratic principle, ultimately suppressed, though not destroyed, under
the Tudors, by the strong union of a Middle Class, anxious for security
and order, with an Executive Authority determined upon absolute sway.

Nor should we obtain a complete and comprehensive view of that most
interesting Period of Transition, unless we saw something of the
influence which the sombre and sinister wisdom of Italian policy
began to exercise over the councils of the great,--a policy of refined
stratagem, of complicated intrigue, of systematic falsehood, of
ruthless, but secret violence; a policy which actuated the fell
statecraft of Louis XI.; which darkened, whenever he paused to think and
to scheme, the gaudy and jovial character of Edward IV.; which appeared
in its fullest combination of profound guile and resolute will in
Richard III.; and, softened down into more plausible and specious
purpose by the unimpassioned sagacity of Henry VII., finally attained
the object which justified all its villanies to the princes of its
native land,--namely, the tranquillity of a settled State, and the
establishment of a civilized but imperious despotism.

Again, in that twilight time, upon which was dawning the great invention
that gave to Letters and to Science the precision and durability of the
printed page, it is interesting to conjecture what would have been
the fate of any scientific achievement for which the world was less
prepared. The reception of printing into England chanced just at the
happy period when Scholarship and Literature were favoured by the great.
The princes of York, with the exception of Edward IV. himself, who had,
however, the grace to lament his own want of learning, and the taste
to appreciate it in others, were highly educated. The Lords Rivers and
Hastings [The erudite Lord Worcester had been one of Caxton's warmest
patrons, but that nobleman was no more at the time in which printing is
said to have been actually introduced into England.] were accomplished
in all the "witte and lere" of their age. Princes and peers vied with
each other in their patronage of Caxton, and Richard III., during his
brief reign, spared no pains to circulate to the utmost the invention
destined to transmit his own memory to the hatred and the horror of all
succeeding time. But when we look around us, we see, in contrast to the
gracious and fostering reception of the mere mechanism by which
science is made manifest, the utmost intolerance to science itself. The
mathematics in especial are deemed the very cabala of the black art.
Accusations of witchcraft were never more abundant; and yet, strange
to say, those who openly professed to practise the unhallowed science,
[Nigromancy, or Sorcery, even took its place amongst the regular
callings. Thus, "Thomas Vandyke, late of Cambridge," is styled (Rolls
Parl. 6, p. 273) Nigromancer as his profession.--Sharon Turner, "History
of England," vol iv. p. 6. Burke, "History of Richard III."] and
contrived to make their deceptions profitable to some unworthy political
purpose, appear to have enjoyed safety, and sometimes even honour, while
those who, occupied with some practical, useful, and noble pursuits
uncomprehended by prince or people, denied their sorcery were despatched
without mercy. The mathematician and astronomer Bolingbroke (the
greatest clerk of his age) is hanged and quartered as a wizard, while
not only impunity but reverence seems to have awaited a certain Friar
Bungey, for having raised mists and vapours, which greatly befriended
Edward IV. at the battle of Barnet.

Our knowledge of the intellectual spirit of the age, therefore, only
becomes perfect when we contrast the success of the Impostor with the
fate of the true Genius. And as the prejudices of the populace ran high
against all mechanical contrivances for altering the settled conditions
of labour, [Even in the article of bonnets and hats, it appears that
certain wicked falling mills were deemed worthy of a special anathema in
the reign of Edward IV. These engines are accused of having sought, "by
subtle imagination," the destruction of the original makers of hats and
bonnets by man's strength,--that is, with hands and feet; and an act of
parliament was passed (22d of Edward IV.) to put down the fabrication
of the said hats and bonnets by mechanical contrivance.] so probably,
in the very instinct and destiny of Genius which ever drive it to a war
with popular prejudice, it would be towards such contrivances that a
man of great ingenuity and intellect, if studying the physical sciences,
would direct his ambition.

Whether the author, in the invention he has assigned to his philosopher
(Adam Warner), has too boldly assumed the possibility of a conception so
much in advance of the time, they who have examined such of the works
of Roger Bacon as are yet given to the world can best decide; but
the assumption in itself belongs strictly to the most acknowledged
prerogatives of Fiction; and the true and important question will
obviously be, not whether Adam Warner could have constructed his model,
but whether, having so constructed it, the fate that befell him was
probable and natural.

Such characters as I have here alluded to seemed, then, to me, in
meditating the treatment of the high and brilliant subject which your
eloquence animated me to attempt, the proper Representatives of the
multiform Truths which the time of Warwick the King-maker affords to our
interests and suggests for our instruction; and I can only wish that the
powers of the author were worthier of the theme.

It is necessary that I now state briefly the foundation of the
Historical portions of this narrative. The charming and popular "History
of Hume," which, however, in its treatment of the reign of Edward IV. is
more than ordinarily incorrect, has probably left upon the minds of many
of my readers, who may not have directed their attention to more
recent and accurate researches into that obscure period, an erroneous
impression of the causes which led to the breach between Edward IV. and
his great kinsman and subject, the Earl of Warwick. The general notion
is probably still strong that it was the marriage of the young king to
Elizabeth Gray, during Warwick's negotiations in France for the alliance
of Bona of Savoy (sister-in-law to Louis XI.), which exasperated the
fiery earl, and induced his union with the House of Lancaster. All our
more recent historians have justly rejected this groundless fable,
which even Hume (his extreme penetration supplying the defects of his
superficial research) admits with reserve. ["There may even some doubt
arise with regard to the proposal of marriage made to Bona of Savoy,"
etc.--HUME, note to p. 222, vol. iii. edit. 1825.] A short summary of
the reasons for this rejection is given by Dr. Lingard, and annexed
below. ["Many writers tell us that the enmity of Warwick arose from his
disappointment caused by Edward's clandestine marriage with Elizabeth.
If we may believe them, the earl was at the very time in France
negotiating on the part of the king a marriage with Bona of Savoy,
sister to the Queen of France; and having succeeded in his mission,
brought back with him the Count of Dampmartin as ambassador from Louis.
To me the whole story appears a fiction. 1. It is not to be found in the
more ancient historians. 2. Warwick was not at the time in France. On
the 20th of April, ten days before the marriage, he was employed in
negotiating a truce with the French envoys in London (Rym. xi. 521), and
on the 26th of May, about three weeks after it, was appointed to treat
of another truce with the King of Scots (Rym. xi. 424). 3. Nor could he
bring Dampmartin with him to England; for that nobleman was committed a
prisoner to the Bastile in September, 1463, and remained there till
May, 1465 (Monstrel. iii. 97, 109). Three contemporary and well-informed
writers, the two continuators of the History of Croyland and Wyrcester,
attribute his discontent to the marriages and honours granted to the
Wydeviles, and the marriage of the princess Margaret with the Duke of
Burgundy."--LINGARD, vol. iii. c. 24, pp. 5, 19, 4to ed.] And, indeed,
it is a matter of wonder that so many of our chroniclers could have
gravely admitted a legend contradicted by all the subsequent conduct
of Warwick himself; for we find the earl specially doing honour to the
publication of Edward's marriage, standing godfather to his first-born
(the Princess Elizabeth), employed as ambassador or acting as minister,
and fighting for Edward, and against the Lancastrians, during the five
years that elapsed between the coronation of Elizabeth and Warwick's
rebellion.

The real causes of this memorable quarrel, in which Warwick acquired his
title of King-maker, appear to have been these.

It is probable enough, as Sharon Turner suggests, [Sharon Turner:
History of England, vol. iii. p. 269.] that Warwick was disappointed
that, since Edward chose a subject for his wife, he neglected the more
suitable marriage he might have formed with the earl's eldest daughter;
and it is impossible but that the earl should have been greatly chafed,
in common with all his order, by the promotion of the queen's relations,
[W. Wyr. 506, 7. Croyl. 542.] new men and apostate Lancastrians. But it
is clear that these causes for discontent never weakened his zeal for
Edward till the year 1467, when we chance upon the true origin of the
romance concerning Bona of Savoy, and the first open dissension between
Edward and the earl.

In that year Warwick went to France, to conclude an alliance with Louis
XI., and to secure the hand of one of the French princes [Which of the
princes this was does not appear, and can scarcely be conjectured. The
"Pictorial History of England" (Book v. 102) in a tone of easy decision
says "it was one of the sons of Louis XI." But Louis had no living
sons at all at the time. The Dauphin was not born till three years
afterwards. The most probable person was the Duke of Guienne, Louis's
brother.] for Margaret, sister to Edward IV.; during this period, Edward
received the bastard brother of Charles, Count of Charolois, afterwards
Duke of Burgundy, and arranged a marriage between Margaret and the
count.

Warwick's embassy was thus dishonoured, and the dishonour was aggravated
by personal enmity to the bridegroom Edward had preferred.