The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1902-02-13
CHAPTER II-CONTINUED.
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face expanded. Inc uSler on TeturH-
ing from the execution of his hospital BILE
orders, found him pacing the room with
look of prosperous calculation,
thoughtful look in his eyes, smile
playinC round his wide firm mouth.
Reginald Hardelot, a comedy young
man of six -and-twenty, was relative
and protege, and one of his most conf
dental servants, the regulator of admis-
sion to his privacy. The chancellor
had found him discreet, and no man
was deeper in his confidence.
II shall want you this afternoon to
ride some distance for me" he said.
"Hold yourself in readiness to start
an hour after noon. Have two yeomen
ready to accompany you. Meantime,
find out whether the Duke of Lancaster
is at the Savoy. If he is there, tell
him what we know, and appoint an
interview for me-"
We need hardly to explain to our
readers that John of Gaunt, the Duke
of Lancaster, the eldest uncle of the
boy-king, Richard, was the most power
full subject of the crown, and suspected
of aiming at being something more
than subject. His palace at the
Savoy was the grandest house in Eng
land. The Chancellor Sudbury was his
nominee, and desired to keep well with
him. Nobody knew what might hap
pen in those distracted times.
Important as the news was, much as
depended on it, the chancellor did not
omit his customary sitting at West
minister. Not even his most confden-
tial servant must see him hesitate;
and, as he sat and heard, and melted
out justice, he could make up his mind
finally on other matters. His plans
were all ready he had only to revise
them, and get everything clear in his
head for action.
Half an hour after noon he was back
at Lambeth, and found the alert Regin-
aid waiting for him with another item
of news which amused him in the midst
of graver cares.
John of Gaunt was not at the Savoy
Palace; he had gone out of town few
days before, ostenisbly to hunt from
Havering in Hainhault Forest. He
had been hunting, but after nobler
game than boar or deer-an heiress for
his eldest son, Henry Bolingbroke.
1t was cleverly managed. The two
daughters of the deceased Earl of Here
ford were reputed to be the two wealth
lest heiresses in England. The kings
youngest uncle, the Earl of Bucking-
ham, who has already been mentioned
as being in France at the head of an
expedition, had married the elder, and
had formed little plot for getting the
whole of the vast estates into his hands.
The youngest sister, Mary Bohun, was
of a gentle, retiring disposition, with
taste for music and letters; and if she
could have been persuaded to take the
veil and embrace the life religious, the
Hereford estates would have fallen I'M
divided to the eldest sister and her hus-
band. With this view the polite
buckingham had SURROUNDED her with
spiritual advisers who discoursed to her
Of the quiet delights of the cloister,
and tried to disgust her with. the mar
ried state and the distractions of
the life worldly. She lived with her
married sister at Pleshy, with gentle,
persuasive nuns from Lirtford as her
companions; and they had almost sue
ceeded in weaving her from the world,
when John of Gaunt came to the rescue
The whole of the Hereford estates
would make his brother Buckingham,
already his most formidable rival,
altogether too dangerous; half of them
would make an excellent dowry for the
wife of his son Henry. Accordingly,
taking advantage of his brothers alb
sence in France, he enlisted the services
of the lady's aunt, who paid visit to
Pleshy, and invited the promising pros
elyte home with her for short stay
John of Gaunt's visit to Havering and
Hainhault Forest was meant TO cover
the movement. Once out of the hands
of her spiritual advisers, Mary Bohun
was speedily wooed and won by the
young Henry Bolingbroke, at that time
one of the handsomest and most dis
tinguished knights in Europe.
1t was the gossip of this manoeuvre
that Reginald Hardelot brought to his
master. 1t proved, as things hap
pened, at least as important an occur
renee as the death of the French king,
for Mary Bohuns wealth helped Boiling
broke to the throne, and though she
did not herself live to be queen, she
bore her husband four fair sons, the
eldest of whom was prince Hail."
Henry ", the hero of Aigncourt.
But this.by the way. The chancellor
could not see so far ahead; but he was
fully sensible of the advantage gained
over Buckingham, and with an amused
L