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HOUSE OF TORMENT

A Tale of the Remarkable Adventures of Mr. John Commendone
Gentleman to King Philip II of Spain at the English Court

by

C. RANGER-GULL

Author of "The Serf," etc.







New York
Dodd, Mead and Company
1911

Published September, 1911

The Quinn & Boden Co. Press
Rahway, N. J.




DEDICATION TO DAVID WHITELAW

SOUVENIR OF A LONG FRIENDSHIP


     _My dear David,_

     _Since I first met you, considerably more than a decade ago, in
     a little studio high up in a great London building, we have
     both seen much water flow under the bridges of our lives._

     _We have all sorts of memories, have we not?_

     _Late midnights and famishing morrows, in the gay hard days
     when we were endeavouring to climb the ladder of our Art; a
     succession of faces, a welter of experiences. Some of us fell
     in the struggle; others failed and still haunt the reprobate
     purlieus of Fleet Street and the Strand! There was one who
     achieved a high and delicate glory before he died--"Tant va la
     cruche a l'eau qu'a la fin elle se casse."_

     _There is another who is slowly and surely finding his way to a
     certainty of fame._

     _And the rest of us have done something, if not--as yet--all we
     hoped to do. At any rate, the <DW72>s of the first hills lie
     beneath us. We are in good courage and resolute for the
     mountains._

     _The mist eddies and is spiralled below in the valleys from
     which we have come, but already we are among the deep sweet
     billows of the mountain winds, and I think it is because we
     have both found our "Princess Galvas" that we have got this far
     upon the way._

     _We may never stand upon the summit and find that tempest of
     fire we call the Sun full upon us. But the pleasure of going on
     is ours still--there will always be that._

     _Ever your friend,
     C. RANGER-GULL._




CONTENTS


       I IN THE QUEEN'S CLOSET; THE FOUR FACES

      II THE HOUSE OF SHAME; THE LADDER OF GLORY

     III THE MEETING WITH JOHN HULL AT CHELMSFORD

      IV PART TAKEN IN AFFAIRS BY THE HALF TESTOON

       V THE FINDING OF ELIZABETH

      VI A KING AND A VICTIM. TWO GRIM MEN

     VII HEY HO! AND A RUMBELOW!

    VIII "WHY, WHO BUT YOU, JOHNNIE!"

      IX "MISERICORDIA ET JUSTITIA"

       X THE SILENT MEN IN BLACK

      XI IN THE BOX

     XII "TENDIMUS IN LATIUM"




CHAPTER I

IN THE QUEEN'S CLOSET; THE FOUR FACES


Sir Henry Commendone sat upon an oak box clamped with bands of iron and
watched his son completing his morning toilette.

"And how like you this life of the Court, John?" he said.

The young man smoothed out the feather of his tall cone-shaped hat.
"Truly, father," he answered, "in respect of itself it seems a very good
life, but in respect that it is far from the fields and home it is
naught. But I like it very well. And I think I am likely to rise high. I
am now attached to the King Consort, by the Queen's pleasure. His
Highness has spoken frequently with me, and I have my commission duly
written out as _caballerizo_."

"I never could learn Spanish," the elder man replied, wagging his head.
"Father Chilches tried to teach me often of an afternoon when you were
hawking. What does the word mean in essence?"

"Groom of the body, father--equerry. It is doubtless because I speak
Spanish that it hath been given me."

"Very like, Johnnie. But since the Queen, God bless her, has come to the
throne, and England is reconciled to Holy Church, thou wert bound to
get a post at Court. They could not ignore our name. I wrote to the
Bishop of London myself, he placed my request before the Queen's Grace,
and hence thou art here and in high favour."

The young man smiled. "Which I shall endeavour to keep," he answered.
"And now I must soon go to the Queen's lodging. I am in attendance on
King Philip."

"And I to horse with my men at noon and so home to Kent. I am glad to
have seen thee, Johnnie, in thy new life, though I do not love London
and the Court. But tell me of the Queen's husband. The neighbours will
all want news of him. It's little enough they like the Spanish match in
Kent. Give me a picture of him."

"I have been at Court a month," John Commendone answered, "and I have
learned more than one good lesson. There is a Spanish saying that runs
this way, '_Palabras y plumas viento las Heva_' (Words and feathers are
carried far by the wind). I will tell you, father, but repeat nothing
again. Kent is not far away, and I have ambition."

Sir Henry chuckled. "Prudent lad," he said; "thou art born to be about a
palace. I'll say nothing."

"Well then, here is your man, a pedant and a fool, a stickler for little
trifles, a very child for detail. Her Grace the Queen and all the nobles
speak many languages. Every man is learned now. His Highness speaks but
Spanish, though he has a little French. Never did I see a man with so
small a mind, and yet he thinks he can see deep down into men's hearts
and motives, and knows all private and public affairs."

Sir John whistled. He plucked at one of the roses of burnt silver
embroidered upon the doublet of green tissue he was wearing--the gala
dress which he had put on for his visit to Court, a garment which was a
good many years behind the fashion, but thought most elegant by his
brother squires in Kent.

"So!" he said, "then this match will prove as bad for the country as all
the neighbours are saying. Still, he is a good Catholic, and that is
something."

John nodded carelessly. "More so," he replied, "than is thought becoming
to his rank and age by many good Catholics about the Court. He is as
regular at mass, sermons, and vespers as a monk--hath a leash of friars
to preach for his instruction, and disputes in theology with others half
the night till Her Grace hath to send one of her gentlemen to bid him
come to bed."

"Early days for that," said the Kentish gentleman, "though, in faith,
the Queen is thirty-eight and----"

John started. "Whist!" he said. "I'm setting you an evil example, sir.
Long ears abound in the Tower. I'll say no more."

"I'm mum, Johnnie," Sir Henry replied. "I'll break in upon thee no more.
Get on with thy tale."

"'Tis a bargain then, sir, and repeat nothing I tell you. I was saying
about His Highness's religion. He consults Don Diego Deza, a Dominican
who is his confessor, most minutely as to all the actions of life,
inquiring most anxiously if this or that were likely to burden his
conscience. And yet--though Her Grace suspects nothing--he is of a very
gross and licentious temper. He hath issued forth at night into the
city, disguised, and indulged himself in the common haunts of vice. I
much fear me that he will command me to go with him on some such
expedition, for he begins to notice me more than any others of the
English gentlemen in his company, and to talk with me in the Spanish
tongue...."

The elder man laughed tolerantly.

"Every man to his taste," he said; "and look you, Johnnie, a prince is
wedded for state reasons, and not for love. The ox hath his bow, the
faulcon his bells, and as pigeon's bill man hath his desire and would be
nibbling!"

John Commendone drew himself up to his full slim height and made a
motion of disgust.

"'Tis not my way," he said. "Bachelor, I hunt no fardingales, nor would
I do so wedded."

"God 'ild you, Johnnie. Hast ever taken a clean and commendable view of
life, and I love thee for it. But have charity, get you charity as you
grow older. His Highness is narrow, you tell me; be not so yourself.
Thou art not a little pot and soon hot, but I think thou wilt find a
fire that will thaw thee at Court. A young man must get experience. I
would not have thee get through the streets with a bragging look nor
frequent the stews of town. But young blood must have its May-day.
Whilst can, have thy May-day, Johnnie. Have thy door shadowed with green
birches, long fennel, St. John's wort, orphine, and white lilies. Wilt
not be always young. But I babble; tell me more of King Philip."

The tall youth had stood silent while his father spoke, his grave, oval
face set in courteous attention. It was a coarse age. Henry the Eighth
was not long dead, and the scandals of his court and life influenced all
private conduct. That Queen Mary was rigid in her morals went for very
little. The Lady Elizabeth, still a young girl, was already committing
herself to a course of life which--despite the historians of the popular
textbooks--made her court in after years as licentious as ever her
father's had been. Old Sir Henry spoke after his kind, and few young men
in 1555 were so fastidious as John Commendone.

He welcomed the change in conversation. To hear his father--whom he
dearly loved--speak thus, was most distasteful to him.

"His Highness is a glutton for work," the young man went on. "I see him
daily, and he is ever busy with his pen. He hateth to converse upon
affairs of state, but will write a letter eighteen pages long when his
correspondent is in the next room, howbeit the subject is one which a
man of sense would settle in six words of the tongue. Indeed, sir, he is
truly of opinion that the world is to move upon protocols and
apostilles. Events must not be born without a preparatory course of his
obstetrical pedantry! Never will he learn that the world will not rest
on its axis while he writeth directions of the way it is to turn."

Sir Henry shook himself like a dog.

"And the Queen mad for such a husband as this!" he said.

"Aye, worships him as it were a saint in a niche. A skilled lutanist
with a touch on the strings remarkable for its science, speaking many
languages with fluency and grace, Latin in especial, Her Grace yet
thinks His Highness a great statesman and of a polished easy wit."

"How blind is love, Johnnie! blinder still when it cometh late. A cap
out of fashion and ill-worn. 'Tis like one of your French withered
pears. It looks ill and eats dryly."

"I was in the Queen's closet two days gone, in waiting on His Highness.
A letter had come from Paris, narrating how a member of the Spanish
envoy's suit to that court had been assassinated. The letter ran that
the manner in which he had been killed was that a Jacobin monk had given
him a pistol-shot in the head--'_la facon que l'on dit qu'il a ette tue,
sa ette par un Jacobin qui luy a donne d'un cou de pistolle dans la
tayte_.' His Highness took up his pen and scrawled with it upon the
margin. He drew a line under one word '_pistolle_'; 'this is perhaps
some kind of knife,' quoth he; 'and as for "_tayte_," it can be nothing
else but head, which is not _tayte_, but _tete_ or _teyte_, as you very
well know.' And, father, the Queen was all smiles and much pleased with
this wonderful commentary!"

Sir Henry rose.

"I will hear no more," he said. "It is time I went. You have given me
much food for thought. Fare thee well, Johnnie. Write me letters with
thy doings when thou canst. God bless thee."

The two men stood side by side, looking at each other in silence, one
hale and hearty still, but with his life drawing to its close, the other
in the first flush of early manhood, entering upon a career which
promised a most brilliant future, with every natural and material
advantage, either his already, or at hand.

They were like and yet unlike.

The father was big, burly, iron-grey of head and beard, with hooked nose
and firm though simple eyes under thick, shaggy brows.

John was of his father's height, close on six feet. He was slim, but
with the leanness of perfect training and condition. Supple as an eel,
with a marked grace of carriage and bearing, he nevertheless suggested
enormous physical strength. The face was a pure oval with an olive tinge
in the skin, the nose hooked like his sire's, the lips curved into a
bow, but with a singular graveness and strength overlying and informing
their delicacy. The eyes, of a dark brown, were inscrutable. Steadfast
in regard, with a hint of cynicism and mockery in them, they were at the
same time instinct with alertness and a certain watchfulness. He seemed,
as he stood in his little room in the old palace of the Tower, a
singularly handsome, clever, and capable young man, but a man with
reservations, with secrets of character which no one could plumb or
divine.

He was the only son of Sir Henry Commendone and a Spanish lady of high
birth who had come to England in 1512 to take a position in the suite of
Catherine of Arragon, three years after her marriage to Henry VIII.
During the early part of Henry's reign Sir Henry Commendone was much at
Windsor and a personal friend of the King. Those were days of great
brilliancy. The King was young, courteous, and affable. His person was
handsome, he was continually engaged in martial exercises and all forms
of field sports. Sir Henry was one of the band of gay youths who tilted
and hawked or hunted in the Great Park. He fell in love with the
beautiful young Juanita de Senabria, married her with the consent and
approbation of the King and Queen, and immediately retired to his manors
in Kent. From that time forward he took absolutely no part in politics
or court affairs. He lived the life of a country squire of his day in
serene health and happiness. His wife died when John--the only issue of
the marriage--was six years old, and the boy was educated by Father
Chilches, a placid and easy-going Spanish priest, who acted as domestic
chaplain at Commendone. This man, loving ease and quiet, was
nevertheless a scholar and a gentleman. He had been at the court of
Charles V, and was an ideal tutor for Johnnie. His religion, though
sincere, sat easily upon him. The Divorce from Rome did not draw him
from his calm retreat, the oath enforcing the King's supremacy had no
terrors for him, and he died at a good old age in 1548, during the
protectorate of Somerset.

From this man Johnnie had learnt to speak Spanish, Italian, and French.
Naturally quick and intelligent, he had added something of his mother's
foreign grace and self-possession to the teachings and worldly-wisdom of
Don Chilches, while his father had delighted to train him in all manly
exercises, than whom none was more fitted to do.

Sir Henry became rich as the years went on, but lived always as a simple
squire. Most of his land was pasturage, then far more profitable than
the growing of corn. Tillage, with