University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER VI.

Piccolomini.

On the following day, the council, consisting of
some four or five gentlemen, were assembled at the
Proprietary Mansion. About noon their number was
rendered complete, by the arrival of Colonel George
Talbot, who, mounted on a spirited, milk-white steed
that smoked with the hot vigour of his motion, dashed
through the gate and alighted at the door. A pair
of pistols across his saddle-bow, and a poniard,
partially disclosed under his vest, demonstrated the
precautions of the possessor to defend himself against
sudden assault, and no less denoted the quarrelsome
aspect of the times. His frame was tall, athletic, and
graceful; his eye hawk-like, and his features prominent
and handsome, at the same time indicative of
quick temper and rash resolve. There was in his
dress a manifestation of the consciousness of a good
figure—it was the costume of a gallant of the times;

and his bearing was characteristic of a person accustomed
to bold action and gay companionship.

Talbot was a near kinsman of the Baltimore family,
and besides being a member of the Proprietary's
council, he held the post of Surveyor General, and
commanded, also, the provincial militia on the northern
frontier, including the settlements on the Elk
River, where he owned a large manor, upon which
he usually resided. At the present time he was in
the temporary occupation of a favourite seat of the
Proprietary, at Mattapany on the Patuxent, whither
the late summons had been despatched to call him to
the council.

This gentleman was a zealous Catholic, and an
ardent personal friend of his kinsman, the Proprietary,
whose cause he advocated with that peremptory
and, most usually, impolitic determination which his
imperious nature prompted, and which served to
draw upon him the peculiar hatred of Fendall and
Coode, and their partisans. He was thus, although
a sincere, it may be imagined, an indiscreet adviser
in state affairs, little qualified to subdue or allay that
jealous spirit of proscription which, from the epoch of
the Protectorate down to this date, had been growing
more intractable in the province.

Such was the individual who now with the firm
stride and dauntless carriage of a belted and booted
knight of chivalry, to which his picturesque costume
heightened the resemblance, entered the apartment
where his seniors were already convened.

“Well met!” he exclaimed, as he flung his hat and

gloves upon a table and extended his hand to those
who were nearest him. “How fares it, gentlemen?
What devil of mutiny is abroad now? Has that pimpled
fellow of fustian, that swiller of the leavings of
a tap room, the worshipful king of the Burgesses,
master Jack Coode, got drunk again and begun to
bully in his cups? The falconer who hammered at
my door last night, as if he would have beaten your
Lordship's house about my ears, could tell me nothing
of the cause of this sudden convocation, save that
Driving Dick had come in hot haste from James
Town with letters that had set the mansion here all
agog, from his Lordship's closet down to the scullery.”

“With proper abatement for the falconer's love of
gossip,” said the Proprietary, “he told you true.
The letters are there on the table. When you have
read them, you will see that with good reason I
might make some commotion in my house.

Talbot ran his eye over the papers. “Well, and
well—an old story!” he said, as he threw one letter
aside and took up another. “Antichrist—the Red
Lady of Babylon—the Jesuits—and the devil: we
have had it so often that the lecture is somewhat
stale. The truculent Papists are the authors of all
evil! We had the Geneva band in fashion for a time;
but that wore out with old Noll. And then comes
another flight of kestrels, and we must have the
thirty-nine articles served up for a daily dish. That
spider, Master Yeo, has grown to be a crony of his
grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, and is busy to

knit his web around every poor catholic fly of the
province.”

“This must be managed without temper,” said
Darnall, the oldest member present, except the Chancellor.
“Our adversaries will find their advantage
in our resolves, if made in the heat of passion.”

“You say true,” replied Talbot. “I am a fool in
my humour; but it doth move me to the last extremity
of endurance to be ever goaded with this shallow
and hypocritical pretence of sanctity. They prate
of the wickedness of the province, forsooth! our evil
deportment, and loose living, and notorious scandal!
all will be cured, in the opinion of these solemn Pharisees,
by turning that good man, Lord Charles and
his friends out of his own province, and by setting
up parson Yeo in a fat benefice under the wing of an
established church.”

“Read on,” said Lord Baltimore, “and you shall
see the sum of all, in the argument that it is not fit
Papists should bear rule over the free-born subjects
of the English crown; and, as a conclusion to that, a
summary order to discharge every friend of our holy
church from my employ.”

Talbot read the letter to the end.

“So be it!” he ejaculated, as he threw the letter
from him, and flung himself back into his chair.
“You will obey this high behest? With all humbleness,
we will thank these knaves for their many condescensions,
and their good favours. Your uncle,
the Chancellor here, our old frosted comrade, is the
first that your Lordship will give bare-headed to the

sky. As for myself, I have been voted an incarnate
devil in a half dozen conclaves—and so Fendall shall
be the surveyor. I hope your Lordship will remember
that I have a military command—a sturdy strong-hold
in the fort of Christina—and some stout fellows
with me on the border. It might be hard to persuade
them to part company with me.”

“Peace, I pray you, peace!” interrupted the Proprietary;
“you are nettled, Talbot, and that is not
the mood for counsel.”

“These pious cut-throats here,” said Talbot, “who
talk of our degeneracy, slander us to the whole
world: and, faith, I am not of the mind to bear it! I
speak plainly what I have thought long since—and
would rather do than speak. I would arrest the ring-leaders
upon a smaller scruple of proof than I would
set a vagrant in the stocks. You have Fendall now,
my Lord—I would have his fellows before long: and
the space between taking and trying should not add
much to the length of their beards:—between trying
and hanging, still less.”

“As to that,” said the Proprietary, “every day
brings us fresh testimony of the sedition afoot, and
we shall not be slow to do justice on the parties. We
have good information of the extent of the plot against
us, and but wait until an open act shall make their
guilt unquestionable. Master Coode is now upon bail
only because we were somewhat too hasty in his
arrest. There are associates of Fendall's at work
who little dream of our acquaintance with their designs.”

“When does your provincial court hold its sessions?”
inquired the Surveyor.

“In less than a month.”

“It should make sure work and speedy,” said Talbot.
“Master Fendall should find himself at the end
of his tether at the first sitting.”

“Ay, and Coode too,” said one of the council:
“notwithstanding that the burgesses have stepped
forward to protect him. The House guessed well of
the temper against your Lordship in England, when
they stood up so hardily, last month, in favour of
Captain Coode, after your Lordship had commanded
his expulsion. It was an unnatural contumacy.”

“In truth, we have never had peace in the province,”
said another, “since Fendall was allowed to
return from his banishment. That man hath set on
hotter, but not subtler spirits than his own. He has
a quiet craftiness which never sleeps nor loses sight
of his purpose of disturbance.”

“Alas!” said the Proprietary, “he has not lacked
material to work with. The burgesses have been
disaffected ever since my father's death. I know not
in what point of kindness I have erred towards them.
God knows I would cherish affection, not ill-will.
My aim has ever been to do justice to all men.”

“Justice is not their aim, my Lord,” exclaimed
Talbot. “Oh, this zeal for church is a pretty weapon!
and honest Captain Coode, a dainty champion to
handle it! I would cut the spurs from that fowl, if I
did it with a cleaver!”

“He is but the fool in the hands of his betters,”

interposed Darnall. “This discontent has a broad
base. There are many in the province who, if they
will not take an open part against us, will be slow to
rebuke an outbreak—many who will counsel in secret
who dare not show their faces to the sun.”

“These men have power to do us much harm,”
said Lord Baltimore; “and I would entreat you,
gentlemen, consider, how, by concession to a moderate
point, which may comport with our honour, we
may allay these irritations. Leaving that question
for your future advisement, I ask your attention to
the letters. The King has commanded—for it is
scarce less than a royal mandate.”

“Your Lordship,” said Talbot, sarcastically, “has
fallen under his Majesty's disfavour. You have,
doubtless, failed somewhat in your courtesies to Nell
Gwynn, or the gay Duchess; or have been wanting
in some observance of respect to old Tom Killigrew,
the King's fool. His Majesty is not wont to
look so narrowly into state affairs.”

“Hold, Talbot!” interrupted the Proprietary. “I
would not hear you speak slightingly of the King.
He hath been friendly to me, and I will not forget it.
Though this mandate come in his name, King Charles,
I apprehend, knows but little of the matter. He has
an easy conscience for an importunate suitor. Oh,
it grieves me to the heart, after all my father's care
for the province—and surely mine has been no less—
it grieves me to see this wayward fortune coming
over our hopes like a chill winter, when we looked
for springtide, with its happy and cheerful promises.

I am not to be envied for my prerogative. Here, in
this new world, I have made my bed, where I had no
wish but to lie in it quietly: it has become a bed of
thorns, and cannot bring rest to me, until I am mingled
with its dust. Well, since rebellion is the order
of the times, I must e'en myself turn rebel now against
this order.”

“Wherein might it be obeyed, my Lord?” asked
Darnall. “You have already given all the rights of
conscience which the freemen could ask, and the
demand now is that you surrender your own. What
servant would your Lordship displace? Look around
you: is Anthony Warden so incapable, or so hurtful
to your service that you might find plea to dismiss
him?”

“There is no better man in the province than
Anthony Warden,” replied the Proprietary, with
warmth; “a just man; a good man in whatever duty
you scan him; an upright, faithful servant to his post.
My Lords of the Ministry would not and could not,
if they knew him, ask me to remove that man. I will
write letters back to remonstrate against this injustice.”

“And say you will not displace a man, my Lord,
come what may!” exclaimed Talbot. “This battle
must be fought—and the sooner the better! Your
Lordship will find your justification in the unanimous
resolve of your council.”

This sentiment was echoed by all present, and
by some of the more discreet an admonition was
added, advising the Proprietary to handle the subject

mildly with the ministry, in a tone of kind expostulation,
which, as it accorded with Lord Baltimore's
own feeling, met his ready acquiescence.

After despatching some business of less concern,
the members of the council dispersed.