St. Nicholas/Volume 40/Number 10/Books and Reading

by Hildegarde Hawthorne

BOOKS AND READING

BY HILDEGARDE HAWTHORNE

THE PASSING OF THE MIDDLE AGES

With Henry VII, who came riding into London wearing dead Richard of Gloucester’s crown on his head, modern England may be said to have had its beginning. For now printing was coming into general use, gunpowder was being employed in warfare, and religious freedom was dawning in men’s minds, faint as the earliest Mush that ushers in a June morning. The homes of the people, all save the highest in the land, were still wretched enough from our point of view. Fires were built against the walls of the stone cottages, and the smoke found its way out as best it might; the furniture was of the roughest description, a log of wood served as a pillow, and under the rushes that strewed the clay floors the rubbish accumulated for months, assisting the spread of the plagues and pestilences that swept the whole known world from time to time. But people were beginning to plant carrots, salads, and other vegetables, and the great lords were forbidden to keep huge retinues of paid retainers, to do whatever wild bidding their captains might order. These thousands of men, deprived of the chance to sit about, weapon in hand, idle and vicious but well fed and watched over, were forced to go to work to earn their bread in peaceful ways, and industries began to flourish.

Henry VII does not appear to have made a striking impression on the romance writers however, possibly because he was rather a dry, cold, avaricious kind of king, under whom the country prospered, but who was neither picturesquely wicked nor admirably good.

Frank Cowper wrote a good story set in the early years of this reign, called “The Captain of the Wight.” There is plenty of stir and adventure to the pages, and quite a feeling of the times. And there are two books about The Fortunes of [[Perkin Warbeck|]], a remarkable impostor who claimed to be a son of one of the little Princes in the Tower, murdered by wicked Richard. But Perkin asserted that the elder had escaped and lived to become his father, and that Perkin was, therefore, a Plantagenet, and rightful heir to the throne,

You can fancy that this created tremendous excitement, and the book “A Trusty Rebel,” by Mrs. H. Clarke, gives us Perkin at his best, making all England hum with his goings-on. Mrs. Shelley has also made this bold adventurer her hero in her story of the same period, “Perkin Warbeck.” You ought to be able to find one of these books.

The last years of Henry’s reign, with the young Prince Henry as the hero, are told of in E. Everette Greene’s book
From photograph by Franz Haufstanengle..
Henry VIII
From the painting by Holbein. “The Heir of Hascombe Hall.” There are some fine scenes in the south of England and in London. A book that takes up the tale about where Greene drops it is “The Arrow of the North,” by R. H. Foster (Long, 1906). This is a rousing tale, full of adventure, that you will be sure to enjoy, and it is laid in other sections of England, so that the two pretty well cover the island from the latter part of the fifteenth century on to 1513.

If the English of the sixteenth century had been as fond of giving their kings nicknames as were their ancestors, the Saxons, Henry VIII would probably have been called the Magnificent. A strapping big fellow he was, and how he loved cloth-of-gold and pageants, and how he made his people like him from sheer admiration of his own splendid conceit. A tyrant, but such a human sort of creature that people forgave him his bad deeds. And there is a romance of Henry’s sister, Mary Tudor, which is told by Charles Major in a book you must get, though I dare say it is one that most of you know already—“When Knighthood was in Flower.”

The great Wolsey belongs in this time, and this was the era of the Reformation, begun by Martin Luther. Henry did not like Luther's ideas, and replied to them in a book of his own, which drew another book from Luther, and the world was very much excited.

There are several good stories of this part of England's life. There is G. P. R. James's tale of “Darnley, or The Field of the Cloth-of-Gold,” which is very romantic and full of descriptions of the looks and manners of English folk great and small, with Henry’s famous meeting with Francis I of France as an important occurrence in the story, Then Charlotte Yonge has one of
From photograph by Franz Haufstanengle..
Jane Seymour, wife of Henry VIII
From the painting by Holbein. her charming books set in this reign, with lots about Wolsey, who was, if possible, even more magnificent than the king, and certainly a far greater man. This is called “The Armourer’s Apprentice,” and tells how two nice lads came up from the New Forest to London to see what it
From photograph by Franz Haufstanengle..
Edward VI
From the painting by Holbein. held for them. It held a good deal, and it is all told so that you are glad to read it, and finish with a feeling that you know the things interested people in those days as well as they did themselves.

It was King Henry VIII who was first called “Defender of the Faith,” and Frank Mathew has written a story with this title (Lane, $1.50) that is said to be excellent, but I have not seen it, and can only report that it is quoted as “good.” A book I have read, however, and would willingly read over, is W. Harrison Ainsworth’s “Windsor Castle.”

This story is as brilliant and changing as a medieval procession, All the great men and women of the time of Henry's prime come into the tale; Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour are the two heroines, while the mysterious legend of Herne the Hunter runs its ghostly way from chapter to chapter. There are two editions, both published by Dutton, one without illustrations, and the other with delightful pictures by Doré. Included in the body of the book is the entire history of Windsor Castle, from the mythical times when King Arthur is said to have erected a magic castle there with the help of Merlin, down to the days of Queen Victoria.

Published in Everyman’s Library, where, by the way, you can often find books that are not possible to get elsewhere, are Anne Manning's two quaint and charming narratives. One, “The Household of Sir Thomas More,” is supposed to be the journal of Sir Thomas’s daughter, and gives a wonderful impression of actual knowledge and experience of the things narrated. The scene of the second book is laid in the latter days of Edward VI and the time of Queen Mary, and it tells, too, the brief, pathetic story of lady Jane Grey. Its title is “The Colloquies of Edward Osborne.” Do not miss these two books.

One year (1539) of Henry’s reign is told in dazzling style by Ford Madox Hueffer in “The Fifth Queen.” It is almost more a picture than a story, so vivid are the scenes. And another story most of you know belongs to this king’s reign, Mark Twain’s “The Prince and the Pauper.” The story tells a strange adventure of the young Edward, and gives, in addition, some notion of the roughness and brutality of those far-away days, making one glad of the world's progress during four hundred years. It is a little classic, a touching and beautiful story that you will not read without a few tears.

King Edward was but a child when his magnificent father died, and his reign was chiefly managed by Hereford and others of the great lords. The poor young king died at sixteen. He seems to have been good and gentle, fine of mind and spirit. He was a Protestant, as was his half-sister Elizabeth, but the successor to the throne was [[Mary|]], who was Catholic. So the Protestant faction got the king to will his throne to the Lady Jane Grey. This cost the poor young girl her life. A story that tells her sad adventures is Edith C. Kenyon’s “A Queen of Nine Days.”

A delightful account of some exciting occurrences in the reign of Queen Mary is told by Max Pemberton, in “I Crown Thee King.” The scene is Sherwood Forest, and the hero is a Northman, Roy, Count of Brieves. There is a romance with Mary, and much of interest.

There is also a romantic tale of Elizabeth’s young girlhood, a romance cut short by the execution of her lover by command of King Edward. This is also by Ainsworth, and is called “The Constable of the Tower.” All of Ainsworth’s books are splendid reading, and you can usually get them with a little trouble.

A story by Frank Mathew, “The Royal Sisters,” gives an impression that is true and good of the stress and ill-concealed dislike between Mary and Elizabeth. It is written almost entirely in dialogue, which always makes easy reading, and the characterization is often very amusing.

The last years of Mary's reign form the background for one of Stanley J. Weyman’s best books, “The Story of Francis Chudde” (Longmans, $1.25). Life in England at that time was a hazardous affair, more so than it had been during the rest of the century, and there is n’t much that goes on that Francis misses. The story is well written, and Mr. Weyman took much pains to have the historic setting accurate, especially as to manners and customs. His people are thoroughly alive, his plot is exciting, and all of you will feel sorry when it is finished.

Mary died a sad and embittered woman, as these various stories will show you. Under her, England was torn with dissensions, and not a day but saw its executions, until the wretched queen came to be known as “Bloody Mary.”

But a new time was coming for England, Her great days were at hand—“the spacious times of great Elizabeth,” when the island was to extend its dominions to the New World, was to humble proud Spain, till then thought invincible, and was to breed a mighty race of heroes, men great in all the walks of life. The greatest playwright of the world was growing up to young manhood during the first half of the great queen's reign. Lord Bacon, deep and varied thinker, was to make his imperishable additions to literature. Raleigh, the gallant, and the splendid leader of men, was but one among a host of mighty captains and sailors and fine lords, as Spenser was the first of a noble host of poets. There seemed to be no end to what England could do or be in the latter half of the sixteenth century.

Naturally, there are many romances of this time. More than this, there are the writings of the day itself, for English has now become our own tongue, with differences too slight to trouble us of the present moment—if we should be carried back to the reign of Elizabeth, we could easily converse with the men and women we met. And so the great writers of the age place their era before us with words and thoughts of our own, so that it is no longer difficult for us to reconstruct the exact daily existence of prince and poor man, high-born lady and peasant maid.

There has never been a more picturesque time on earth than this of Elizabeth. Next month, I shall talk with you of some of the books telling her story, and England’s story during her life. They are among the best of their kind.