Full download ebook at ebookmass.

com

Writing Mary I : History, Historiography, and

Fiction Valerie Schutte

For dowload this book click link below

https://ebookmass.com/product/writing-mary-i-
history-historiography-and-fiction-valerie-
schutte/

OR CLICK BUTTON

DOWLOAD EBOOK

Download more ebook from https://ebookmass.com

More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

Mary I in Writing: Letters, Literature, and

Representation Valerie Schutte

https://ebookmass.com/product/mary-i-in-writing-letters-
literature-and-representation-valerie-schutte/

Art, History, and Postwar Fiction Kevin Brazil

https://ebookmass.com/product/art-history-and-postwar-fiction-
kevin-brazil/

Psychology PSYC2020/PSYC2021 Custom Edition by Schutte,

E (ed) et a Schutte

https://ebookmass.com/product/psychology-
psyc2020-psyc2021-custom-edition-by-schutte-e-ed-et-a-schutte/

Essays on Biblical Historiography: From Jeroboam II to

John Hyrcanus I 1st Edition Israel Finkelstein

https://ebookmass.com/product/essays-on-biblical-historiography-
from-jeroboam-ii-to-john-hyrcanus-i-1st-edition-israel-
finkelstein/
Crisis, Collapse, Militarism and Civil War: The History
and Historiography of 18th Century Iran Michael
Axworthy (Editor)

https://ebookmass.com/product/crisis-collapse-militarism-and-
civil-war-the-history-and-historiography-of-18th-century-iran-
michael-axworthy-editor/

Algebra I All-in-One for Dummies 1st Edition Mary

Sterling

https://ebookmass.com/product/algebra-i-all-in-one-for-
dummies-1st-edition-mary-sterling/

Philip V of Macedon in Polybius' Histories: Politics,

History, and Fiction Emma Nicholson

https://ebookmass.com/product/philip-v-of-macedon-in-polybius-
histories-politics-history-and-fiction-emma-nicholson/

Major Problems in American History, Volume I

https://ebookmass.com/product/major-problems-in-american-history-
volume-i/

Abbatial Authority and the Writing of History in the

Middle Ages Benjamin Pohl

https://ebookmass.com/product/abbatial-authority-and-the-writing-
of-history-in-the-middle-ages-benjamin-pohl/
 Writing Mary I
History, Historiography, and Fiction

Edited by
Valerie Schutte
Jessica S. Hower
 Queenship and Power

Series Editors
Charles E. Beem, University of North Carolina, Pembroke, NC, USA
Carole Levin, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE, USA
This series focuses on works specializing in gender analysis, women’s
studies, literary interpretation, and cultural, political, constitutional, and
diplomatic history. It aims to broaden our understanding of the strategies
that queens—both consorts and regnants, as well as female regents—
pursued in order to wield political power within the structures of
male-dominant societies. The works describe queenship in Europe as well
as many other parts of the world, including East Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa,
and Islamic civilization.

More information about this series at

https://link.springer.com/bookseries/14523
Valerie Schutte · Jessica S. Hower
Editors

Writing Mary I
History, Historiography, and Fiction
Editors
Valerie Schutte Jessica S. Hower
Beaver Falls, PA, USA Southwestern University
Georgetown, TX, USA

ISSN 2730-938X ISSN 2730-9398 (electronic)

Queenship and Power
ISBN 978-3-030-95131-3 ISBN 978-3-030-95132-0 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95132-0

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2022
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights
of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc.
in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such
names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for
general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and informa-
tion in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither
the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with
respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been
made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps
and institutional affiliations.

Cover illustration: De Luan/Alamy Stock Photo

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
To Eloise and Bates—our sources of inspiration and sleep deprivation.
 Acknowledgements

Writing Mary I is the second volume in our series of essays on England’s

first queen regnant. As with the first, we owe our contributors thanks for
their tireless effort in writing thoughtful and thought-provoking essays
while under the strenuous conditions and significant limitations imposed
by national and international lockdowns as well as myriad other profes-
sional and personal hardships. We are consistently amazed with and
thrilled by the fresh, innovative research that continues to be produced
on Mary I and that demonstrates the necessity of this collection.
We also thank the wonderful staff and editors at Palgrave Macmillan—
namely Sam Stocker, Charles Beem, and Carole Levin—for their support
and guidance.
To our spouses, thank you for tolerating never-ending conversations
about Mary and queenship, and making us better scholars for it.

vii
 Praise for Writing Mary I

“This fascinating collection of wide-ranging essays provides an extensive

exploration of multiple aspects of the life, reign, image, and afterlife of
Mary I. It offers a deeper, more thorough examination of Mary, placing
her center stage and convincingly establishing her importance as the first
ruling queen of England without recourse to comparisons with her more
well-known sister Elizabeth. The end result of these new insights is an
expansion of knowledge about Mary and a significant contribution to
Marian scholarship that provides a valuable resource for academics and
students alike.”
—Sarah Duncan, Professor of History, Spring Hill College, Alabama, USA

ix
 Contents

Introduction 1
Jessica S. Hower and Valerie Schutte

Ambassador and Princess

‘A Paragon of Beauty, Goodness, and Virtue’: Princess
Mary in the Writings of Imperial Ambassador Eustace
Chapuys 11
Derek M. Taylor
Imperial Meddler/Marian Mentor: Eustace Chapuys
and Mary Tudor in Film and Television 35
William B. Robison

European Entanglements
Venetian Diplomacy Under Mary I 61
Samantha Perez
A Narrative That Was Not Her Own: Mary I
as Mediterranean Queen 87
Darcy Kern

xi
xii CONTENTS

Speaking from Spain

From Lioness to Exemplary Yet Unsuccessful Queen: Mary
I in Early Modern Spain 115
Kelsey J. Ihinger
Images of Mary I in Modern Spanish Media 141
Tamara Pérez-Fernández

Fact or Fiction
Dressed to Kill: The Fashioning of “Bloody Mary” 167
Emilie M. Brinkman
Mary I in The Ringed Castle 191
Alexander Samson
Still Bloody Mary: Mary I in Historical Fiction 217
Stephanie Russo

Index 241
 Notes on Contributors

Emilie M. Brinkman is a historian of early modern Europe specializing in

material culture, politics, and gender. She graduated from Purdue Univer-
sity in 2018 with her Ph.D. in Early Modern European History. She holds
an M.A. in History from Miami University as well as a B.A. in History and
A.A. in Art History from Thomas More College. She combines her work
as an independent lecturer and scholar with part-time roles at Thomas
More University in Crestview Hills, Kentucky and Maryville University
in St. Louis. Her research areas include seventeenth-century political
culture; fashion and material culture; display, representation, and iden-
tity; and the intersection of Renaissance history and modern pop culture.
Her work on the history of modern British weddings has been featured
in The Washington Post. She is currently working on her first monograph,
“The Politics of Fashion in Stuart Britain, 1603–1714,” which examines
how fashion and material objects served as a site for political discourse
and agency during the seventeenth century.
Jessica S. Hower earned her Ph.D. in History at Georgetown Univer-
sity in 2013, after completing her M.A. there in 2009 and her B.A. at
Union College in 2006. She is currently an associate professor of History
at Southwestern University, a small liberal arts college outside of Austin,
Texas, where she teaches on Britain, Ireland, the British Empire, the Early
Modern Atlantic World, comparative colonialism, gender, and memory.
Her first monograph, Tudor Empire: The Making of Britain and the
British Atlantic World, 1485–1603 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), explores

xiii
xiv NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

over a century of theorizing about and activity in the world beyond

England’s borders, showing how enterprise aboard at once mirrored,
responded to, and provoked politics and culture at home, while decisively
shaping the broader Atlantic context. Other projects have appeared in
Rethinking History: The Journal of Theory and Practice, Cannibalism and
the Early Modern Atlantic, and Britain and the World, and The Oxford
Handbook of Thomas More’s Utopia (forthcoming).
Kelsey J. Ihinger received her Ph.D. in Spanish from the University of
Wisconsin-Madison. Her research focuses on the depiction of England in
early modern Spain, the creation of Spain’s early modern imperial identity,
and the relationship between history and fiction in texts that depict histor-
ical events and characters. She has published her work on the theatrical
representations of Elizabeth I and Mary Stuart in Spanish drama with the
Bulletin of the Comediantes and is currently preparing a manuscript on
England’s place in the creation of Spain’s imperial image in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries.
Darcy Kern earned her Ph.D. at Georgetown University and is Asso-
ciate Professor of History at Southern Connecticut State University. Her
research interests include language, translation, politics, and authority;
Anglo-Spanish interactions; and cultural exchange in Western Europe
and the Atlantic. She has published in journals such as Renaissance and
Reformation, the Journal of Medieval History; and Philological Quarterly.
Her chapter on Thomas More’s Utopia in Spain and Mexico is forth-
coming in the Oxford Handbook of Utopia. She is currently finishing
her first monograph, Translating Politics in Renaissance Europe. She has
held fellowships with the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Huntington
Library, UCLA’s Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, the Amer-
ican Catholic Historical Association, and the Connecticut State University
System and has been a seminarian at the Folger Shakespeare Library and
the Rare Books School (UVa).
Samantha Perez is currently an Assistant Professor at Southeastern
Louisiana University where she serves as the graduate coordinator for the
Master’s program. She completed her Ph.D. from Tulane University in
2017 with a dissertation entitled “Roman Inheritance: Romanitas and
Civic Identity in Trecento Siena” which explores the republic’s coordi-
nated efforts to fabricate its own antiquity and assert an association with
classical Rome in the early Renaissance. Her research interests are chiefly
 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xv

questions of identity and responses to other-ness in the early modern

period and currently focus on diplomatic and economic encounters
between Japanese and Italians in the late sixteenth century.
Tamara Pérez-Fernández is an Assistant Professor at the University of
Valladolid, where she teaches courses on English language and liter-
ature. She holds a degree in English Studies from the University of
Valladolid, and a Ph.D. in English Studies from the Universities of
Valladolid and Salamanca. Her research focuses on the paratextual mate-
rials and the textual transmission of the works of Geoffrey Chaucer and
John Gower, and specifically on the role of the scribes. As part of the
research project “Exile, Diplomacy, and Textual Transmission: Networks
of Exchange between the Iberian Peninsula and the British Isles,” funded
by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, she
has written about Anglo-Spanish relations in the late middle ages and the
early modern period.
William B. Robison earned his Ph.D. at Louisiana State University
in 1983 and is Professor of History and Head of the Department of
History and Political Science at Southeastern Louisiana University; editor
of History, Fiction, and ‘The Tudors’: Sex, Politics, Power, and Artistic
License in Showtime’s Television Series (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016); co-
author of The Tudors on Film and Television (McFarland, 2013); co-editor
of Historical Dictionary of Late Medieval England (Greenwood, 2002)
and Historical Dictionary of Stuart England (Greenwood, 1996); author
of articles, book chapters, essays, and reviews dealing with early modern
England, film history, and popular culture; director of the film Louisiana
During World War II (2013); a published poet; a BMI-affiliated musi-
cian; and at work on a new edition of The Tudors on Film and Television,
a book project about politics, religion, and society in Tudor Surrey, and
another on the comic appropriation of the Tudors in film, fiction, and
popular culture.
Stephanie Russo is a Senior Lecturer and Discipline Chair of Liter-
ature at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. She is the author of
The Afterlife of Anne Boleyn: Representations of Anne Boleyn in Fiction
and on the Screen (2020) and Women in Revolutionary Debate: Female
Novelists from Burney to Austen (2012). She specializes in historical
fiction, and particularly in historical fiction about early modern women.
xvi NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

She is currently working on a project on the use of anachronism in

contemporary historical fiction, film, and television.
Alexander Samson is a Reader in Early Modern Studies at Univer-
sity College London. His research interests include the early colonial
history of the Americas, Anglo-Spanish intercultural interactions and
early modern English and Spanish drama. His book Mary and Philip:
The Marriage of Tudor England and Habsburg Spain was published by
Manchester University Press in 2020. He runs the Golden Age and
Renaissance Research Seminar and is director of UCL’s Centre for Early
Modern Exchanges and the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters.
Valerie Schutte is an independent scholar who specializes in royal Tudor
women and book dedications. She has edited or co-edited four volumes
on Queen Mary I, Shakespeare, and queenship, of which The Palgrave
Handbook of Shakespeare’s Queens (2018) won the 2020 Royal Studies
Journal book prize. Her first monograph is Mary I and the Art of Book
Dedications: Royal Women, Power, and Persuasion (2015), which is the
first comprehensive study of Mary’s books and those dedicated to her.
Schutte’s second monograph, Princesses Mary and Elizabeth Tudor and
the Gift Book Exchange, was published with ARC Humanities Press in
2021. She is currently editing a volume on the making and re-making of
Lady Jane Grey and Mary and writing a cultural biography of Anne of
Cleves.
Derek M. Taylor is a Ph.D. candidate in history at the State Univer-
sity of New York at Buffalo with a conferral date of September 1, 2021.
His research interests include early modern diplomacy, the migration of
Scots Catholics to Europe, post-Reformation Catholicism in Britain, and
female political leadership during the early modern era. His doctoral thesis
focuses on the life and career of Scottish author and intellectual George
Conn, who served as the papal emissary to the court of Queen Henri-
etta Maria from 1636 to 1639. Mr. Taylor currently serves as a history
instructor at West Virginia State University in Institute, West Virginia,
where he teaches courses in world history, British history, European
history, and the history of female leadership.
 Introduction

Jessica S. Hower and Valerie Schutte

Readers of the introduction to volume one of this two-part edited collec-

tion will be familiar with one line of Mary I’s famous Guildhall Speech, in
which she called upon “the worde of a Prince” to rally her subjects against
the rebellion of Sir Thomas Wyatt in early February 1554, and that line’s
significance for the eleven essays that followed. The most careful of those
readers will have also noted a mention of several clauses—plural—that
are ripe for reexamination and that function to encourage new scholar-
ship, not merely one. Indeed, much as the first manifested so many of the
themes central to the first volume, a second line serves the same purpose
for volume two. After expressing her hope that she and her loyal subjects
could be bound together in love and concord, both equally committed
to the realm and its rightful rule, and defending her upcoming marriage
to Philip of Spain as duly measured and considered, a Privy-Council-
approved means to honor and promote the English commonweal, Mary

J. S. Hower (B)
Southwestern University, Georgetown, TX, USA
e-mail: [email protected]
V. Schutte
Independent Researcher, Beaver Falls, PA, USA

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2022
V. Schutte and J. S. Hower (eds.), Writing Mary I, Queenship
and Power, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95132-0_1
2 J. S. HOWER AND V. SCHUTTE

explained that she was not particularly desirous or eager to wed. “But,”
she declared, “if as my progenitors haue done before, it might please
God that I might leaue some fruite of my bodie behind me to be your
Gouernor, I trust you would not onely reioyce therat, but also I know
it would be to your great comforte.”1 Of course, and quite famously,
Mary did not leave any children behind at her death; she was, instead,
succeeded by her younger half-sister Elizabeth I. However, if we isolate
the middle portion of the sentence, in which the queen regnant hopes to
“leaue some fruite of my bodie behind me,” and define that fruit more
broadly than children alone, she was quite successful. Mary appreciated
the power and importance of what might remain after her death, as well
as how she was perceived more broadly. As such, her words encourage
us to do the most with the literary remains composed by the many who
have observed her, in life and in death, at home in England and further
afield abroad, to look at Mary from multiple perspectives, and to appre-
ciate the twists, turns, and continuities in her posthumous representation.
Put simply, the queen’s words serve as a wonderful exhortation to explore
the process and consequences of Writing Mary I .
Following on the heels of a first book dedicated to examining represen-
tations of Queen Mary I in writing, this second book explores the multi-
valent means of writing that queen into text, very capaciously defined,
from England to parts abroad, from the sixteenth century to the present,
and from ostensibly factual primary sources to equally ostensibly fictional
ones. In so doing, it retains the historiographical mission and thrust
of volume one, while complementing and expanding upon its themes,
including the value of transcending literary genres to create a holistic
assessment of how the queen perceived herself and has been perceived
by others across different kinds of sources, the utility of subjecting Mary
to the same sorts of questions and same degree of in-depth scrutiny that
her younger half-sister Elizabeth has received, the centrality of power and
authority alongside foreign diplomacy, and more—all in service of making
a significant contribution to the vibrant field that is twenty-first-century
Marian Studies. Readers eager for more are encouraged to peruse volume

1 Richard Grafton, A Chronicle at large and meere History of the affayres of Englande
and Kinges of the same, deduced from the Creation of the worlde, vnto the first habitation
of thys Islande; and so by continuance vnto the first yere of the reigne of our most deere
and souereigne Lady Queene Elizabeth: collected out of sundry Aucthors, whose names are
expressed in the next Page of this leafe (London, 1569), 1333.
 INTRODUCTION 3

one and its introduction for a more thorough conversation about the
existing scholarly literature and the two-volume collection’s intervention
in it, as well as for the first eleven essays on Mary as conveyed via the
written word.
Volume two opens by properly locating one of the most important
foreigners at Mary’s court near the center of her monarchy and unpacking
his vital contemporary role as well as his much more modest place in
modern popular memory, helping to unearth the sometimes remembered,
sometimes forgotten, and always important story of the “Ambassador
and Princess.”
Derek M. Taylor’s chapter reevaluates the relationship between Mary
and Holy Roman Imperial ambassador Eustace Chapuys. He argues
that returning to familiar, traditional source material—namely, Chapuys’s
correspondence with Charles V as translated and summarized in the
Calendar of State Papers, Spain and Letters and Papers of Henry VIII —
and elevating third-person accounts reveals a new, clearer understanding
of how Princess Mary was both viewed by and used by the Holy
Roman Empire in its diplomatic dealings with England. Moreover, Taylor
purports, Chapuys’s representations of Mary should be given more cred-
ibility than has hitherto been the case (and especially by comparison to
the ambassador’s renderings of Anne Boleyn) because of Mary’s young
age when they met, the genuine friendship that the pair built over time,
and the princess’s precarious place at court. Doing so turns Chapuys’s
letters from mere contextual evidence for the chaotic years when the
divorce crisis wracked Europe into the basis for new appraisals, like a
far more positive view of Mary than comes down to us from Protes-
tant polemics and Taylor’s contention that Chapuys’s concern was not to
damage Anne’s reputation, but rather to protect Mary. Through Taylor’s
Chapuys, we can see the adolescence and maturation of England’s first
regnant queen, and her important place in international politics.
William B. Robison explores Mary I’s relationship with Eustace
Chapuys in modern television and film, or more accurately, the rather
surprising dearth of on-screen representations of the pair. He focuses
on some of the most well-known and highly revered pieces of Tudorist
popular culture produced over the last twenty years to show how oppor-
tunities to depict the Mary–Chapuys dynamic have been refused or
ignored for the sake of apparently sexier topics, such as Henry VIII
and his six wives and the rivalry between Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen
of Scots, or of contemporary messages that seem to be at odds with
4 J. S. HOWER AND V. SCHUTTE

traditional perceptions of the two, like the women’s and civil rights move-
ments. While Mary and Chapuys often receive little or no screen time
separately, let alone together, Robison shows that the decision has more
to do with the biases of writers and producers than with the importance
of the princess and ambassador as historical figures and puts film markedly
at odds with newer historiographical trends. Significantly, Robison finds
that, for all its faults and in contrast to the supposedly more high-brow
Wolf Hall , Showtime’s The Tudors conveys Mary and Chapuys in a more
successfully, casting them as historical actors with their own agency who
were paramount to happenings at Henry’s court.
Moving beyond Mary I’s years as a hopeful future queen and
enveloping more than even the expansive Holy Roman Empire, the
second set of chapters in this volume draws our gaze to other locales
implicated in her reign, whether as a crucial diplomatic contact or
because she was their queen consort, despite the lack of attention these
“European Entanglements” have received in scholarly, popular, and
even contemporary accounts.
Samantha Perez examines Mary I and her court through the eyes of
the Venetian ambassadors stationed there. By shifting emphasis away from
the much more frequently examined Spanish and French perspectives
and thereby complicating the picture of mid-sixteenth-century European
diplomacy. She finds out just how important Mary was to navigating the
vicissitudes of Continental politics, restoration Catholicism, and Italian
affairs—as well as how acutely aware the Venetians were of that impor-
tance. Moreover, after briefly chronicling the rise of the Venetian embassy
in Tudor England early in the reign of Henry VII and then contin-
uing the narrative through to its departure over fifty years later, Perez
uses their ambassadorial correspondence to shed new light on the queen
herself, in matters of religion, rule, personality, and more, as viewed
through Venice’s lens. Offering a fresh contribution to current discus-
sions on Anglo-Italian relations and broader conceptions of early modern
monarchical authority, diplomatic dynamics, and foreign policy, Perez
argues that a Venetian look at Mary helps us better understand both the
significance of her reign and England’s role on the international stage.
Darcy Kern reminds us that owing to her marriage to Philip II, Mary
was not only queen of England, Ireland, and (nominally) France, but also
queen of Naples and, after 1556, of Spain—despite the lack of atten-
tion her role as consort in these more southern territories has received.
Kern explains why: as Mary never stepped foot in either country, the
 INTRODUCTION 5

queen was little known and rarely perceived as have any real authority
in either. More specifically, Kern argues that in Naples, Mary’s power
was inextricably linked to that of her husband and, as such, when he was
perceived of as weak (which was so often the case), so too was Mary. In
Spain, Mary was also marginalized and deemed lacking in royal authority
there, this time on the basis of her power in England, the dominance of
her Privy Council in political matters, and the nature of English society
and governance more generally; her appearance, sexuality, and fertility,
which failed to meet Spanish standards of beauty and fecundity; and her
distance, both physical and imagined, from the Mediterranean country
and its actual rule. To make matters worse, Philip did not really acknowl-
edge his wife as Queen of Spain either, going so far as to ignore her in
official correspondence near the end of her reign. Even though Mary was
queen consort of these two realms, she maintained little if any authority
among her Neapolitan and Spanish subjects and her image has been all
but lost as a consequence.
Fixing entirely on the site of Mary’s more famous consortship and
moving the chronology ahead, two more essays uncover how the queen
appears when “Speaking from Spain,” in the past and in the present.
Here, it seems that complexity, nuance, multiplicity, even favor in Mary’s
own lifetime and in the century that followed have given way to generality
and easy stereotyping in our time.
Kelsey J. Ihinger uses a close analysis of Mary I as depicted in Spain
during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to challenge the automatic
assumption that any mention of a blood-soaked, tragic Tudor monarch,
especially a “bloody” Tudor queen, necessarily refers to her, rather than
her father or half-sister, and bring to the fore a far more complicated
story. In the hands of Spanish writers, who produced everything from
traditional histories to pamphlets, popular plays, and poems, Mary’s image
was a positive, if ever-shifting one, subject to frequent reshaping and revi-
sion as Anglo-Spanish relations, the broader European context, and global
imperial politics themselves shifted. Eminently useful and malleable across
her lifetime and in death, and especially during the four critical stages that
Ihinger privileges, Mary functioned as a means by which her husband’s
subjects could comment on changing circumstances, transforming their
queen consort from a superlative and well-rounded leader, to a strong
if less agentic defender of the Catholic faith, to an inspiring symbol
of saintly piety, to a manifestation of Spain’s altered perceptions of an
ascendant England. Ihinger shows that there was, then, never one single,
6 J. S. HOWER AND V. SCHUTTE

stable Spanish Mary, but rather multiple versions, each constructed and
reconstructed to suit the architect’s needs.
Tamara Pérez-Fernández surveys modern Spanish media depictions
of Mary I. Charting the significant if modest burst of recent television
episodes, radio broadcasts, print articles, and digital pieces that portray
the queen for Spanish audiences, Pérez-Fernández finds that Mary is,
unsurprisingly, largely stereotyped as “Bloody Mary” and presented as
a failure of queenship and motherhood. Following extensive quantitative
as well as qualitative analysis, the author argues that conservative media
tends to be more interested in Mary and to offer a more sympathetic view
of her than its more progressive counterpart, yet neither offers a nuanced
picture of Spain’s queen consort, instead resorting to familiar images
of failure, unattractiveness, religious zealotry, instability, and childhood
trauma. Even though these renderings have emerged simultaneous with
groundbreaking revisionist histories and an increased interest in mining
the past for popular culture, the author shows that mainstream Spanish
sources have not adopted the newest historiography of Mary, resulting in
the regurgitation of old tropes. Nevertheless, there is reason for hope; as
the more in-depth, subtle study of important women in Spanish history
now grips the academy, perhaps it will one day grip the press and screen
as well.
The volume and, by extension, the full collection closes with a final
set of three chapters at the messy intersection of history and literature,
showcasing what it means to write about and portray Mary I in our own
time, whether in the form of screenplays, theatrical plays, or novels. The
authors demonstrate that there is both “Fact and Fiction” at work in
popular culture that centers on the queen or her era, but also find that
these pieces are few and far between and that not all of them are informed
by current historiographical trends or even what we “know” about the
past in which Mary lived. The scoresheet shows a decidedly mixed result.
In this, perhaps, historical fiction, in all of its forms, is not unlike academic
scholarship: there is much to commend revisionist work on Mary I, yet
there is still a long way to go.
Emilie M. Brinkman investigates the role of costume in the construc-
tion of Mary I’s negative reputation in history and in popular culture.
Beginning with arguably the most potent modern visual representation,
Shekhar Kapur’s Elizabeth (1998), then shifting back in time to fill in
the gap between the sixteenth and late twentieth centuries, Brinkman
examines descriptions of Mary’s dress during her lifetime, as well as how
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
him that if he knows a samurai’s duties, of which his father always
prated so much, he must be aware that a drunkard is not fit to be
intrusted with a sword, least of all with one like this. Go, and tell him
that if he cares for it more than you seem to have done, he must
come and humbly beg for it himself.”
There was somewhat of truth in this taunt, which the devilish
cunning of the other had formulated so as to make it more cutting
than the keenest-edged weapon. Seeing from the tenor of it that all
further parley would be useless, Yamagawa without another word or
look made his way back to his master’s room. As he entered,
Sennoske started in amazement and affright at the change which
half an hour had effected in the appearance of his old servant. The
signs of acute physical pain, as well as of mental anguish, were
graven in deep lines on his features, and spoke with equal emphasis
out of his hollow, sunken eyes; shuffling along as he did on his right
side, with his right hand convulsively clasping his left bosom, it is
probable that the terrible ordeal through which he had passed, had
brought on a partial heart-stroke. Yet overlying all these
manifestations of suffering, which became almost tangible and
somatic as it were by comparison, there was a look of utter, hopeless
despair,—such a look as is seen in certain types of incurable
madness; such a look as hunters see in some animals hunted down
to the last stages of exhaustion, with the dogs fastening on them,
and no hope of escape.
In a sufficiently coherent way to make himself understood,
Yamagawa explained the circumstances attending the loss of the
sword, without, however, hinting at the identity of the samurai
whom he had recognized among his despoilers. Sennoske, although
greatly annoyed and angry at the impudence of the demand
transmitted to him, showed no outward signs of perturbation, and in
reality a sincere pity for the poor old man before him mastered every
other emotion. From the version given to him, he could of course
scarcely understand why this accident, although implying a serious
neglect of duty on the part of Yamagawa according to the code then
prevailing, should yet have affected the old servitor in such a terrible
way; and in spite of the latter’s urgent solicitation to go at once
about the recovery of his weapon, he stayed to console and cheer
him.

ROADSIDE HOTEL.

“Sorrow is bad for old age,” he said; “it withers up the tree of life
quicker and surer than the cold north winds wither the blooming
chrysanthemum. Cheer up, and do not let me see you so downcast
at this trumpery business, especially now that we are nearing home.
As soon as I have regained my sword, I shall feel like teaching these
gentry a lesson at which you may have to assist me; so—”
“Yes, as soon as you have regained possession of your sword,”
said the other, interrupting him. “Oh, pray, my dear master, go at
once! this suspense is horrible.”
Sennoske at these words started up, filled with dark forebodings.
He felt that there must be something more in this affair than he yet
apprehended, and he hesitated no longer. Calling a servant, he had
himself conducted to the room which Yamagawa had mistakenly
entered; and announcing his name, made a fair apology for what
had occurred, and courteously but firmly asked for the return of his
sword. Taka Suke, who had sent him the message to come, and who
was evidently the leader of the party, replied to him in what was
plainly a prepared speech:—
“I have heard of you, Sennoske, and of the renown which you
have gained on the field of battle; but it seems to me that, in spite
of this, you are greatly deficient in the duties and obligations of a
samurai. Courage and bravery and prowess in battle are common
enough in our country; but a sword like this of yours is rarely found,
and its possession probably more than any quality of your own has
helped you to achieve success and renown. You know the old saying,
‘The sword is the soul of the samurai.’ It owes its origin to a feeling
hallowed by the custom of centuries,—a feeling which has been
outraged by the careless, negligent way in which this treasure has
been handled. Your youth and inexperience may plead in
extenuation of yourself, but the fault of your retainer, who is a
samurai, and old enough to know his duty, cannot be condoned; and
we will listen to no demand for the restoration of this blade unless it
is accompanied by the head of that drunken brute through whose
culpable carelessness it might easily have been lost or spoiled.”
“But this is preposterous,” Sennoske rejoined; “this is horrible! You
surely cannot mean what you say—and yet the life of a faithful old
retainer is not a fit subject for sport. I recollect him from the day
when consciousness first dawned upon me; memory recalls him as
watching over my childhood, guiding and instructing my early youth,
in the most disinterested, self-sacrificing way. I would willingly risk
my life for him at any moment; and sword was never yet forged, nor
ever will be, which could weigh equally in the balance with such
faithfulness and such devotion as he has always shown. I respect
your feelings; but this man has suffered more than enough already
for his one fault. I again beg you to return me the sword which
belongs to me, and to which no one but myself can lay any claim.”
Sennoske, although greatly excited and incensed, had succeeded
in repressing any outward signs of excitement or anger; he had
spoken with quiet dignity, and when referring to the man whom he
had left in such a dejected state his tones became tender and
pathetic. It appeared to him that the whole proceeding was a
deliberate attempt to deprive him of his matchless blade; yet—to his
honor be it said—at the moment, the idea of its possible loss
troubled him less than the thought of the probable effect of that loss
on his old retainer. His solicitude for Yamagawa caused him to be
wary, and to show more moderation in his speech than he otherwise
would have done, in view of the arrogant manner in which he had
been treated. The next answer which he received, however, was well
calculated, in its cold, sneering, and evidently studied insolence of
tone and bearing, to make him lose every vestige of self-control.
 BUDDHIST TEMPLE. (MONK AND ACOLYTE.)

“Go to, boy,” said Take Suke, “go to! This sentimental twaddle may
do when you meet half-grown girls who admire softness or
meekness, or when you are in the company of enervated Shingon or
Obaku priests, who would fain palliate their own condition by holding
up soft-hearted effeminacy as something to be admired. I would
sacrifice by the score and by the hundred as good serving-men as
ever drew breath to gain possession of this sword—or of one like it,”
he corrected himself. “More than ever I insist: bring me the head of
that drunken beast, and I will return you your sword.”
It was the very extremity of the provocation which for a moment
paralyzed Sennoske, and that moment was sufficient for his
presence of mind partially at least to assert itself. He understood the
object of the insult offered to him, and he could see that the least
indiscretion, a single false step, would insure his own destruction.
Taka Suke while talking had, contrary to all rule and etiquette, drawn
the sword out of its scabbard, and while apparently playing with the
naked blade, and weighing it in his hand, had never allowed his
sinister eye for a second to be removed from the face of the young
soldier. All the other inmates of the room had half risen, and their
hands were suspiciously near their sword-hilts. It had flashed
through Sennoske’s mind to throw himself forward and try to wrench
the sword from the other’s hands; but opposed as he was by seven
resolute men, and only partially armed himself, with nothing but his
short dirk in his girdle, he abandoned the thought as soon as it
came, knowing that such an attempt would be the height of
madness. Yet he felt that his self-command was fast leaving him,
and that another speech like the last would surely precipitate him to
his own destruction; so he withdrew abruptly, to collect himself and
to resolve upon some course of action.
 YAMAGAWA COMMITTING SEPPUKU (HARA-KIRI).

The servant who had brought him hither, and who under pretence,
probably, of waiting for orders had listened to the whole
conversation, conducted him back to his own room. On entering it
he found there a number of superior Ise officers, who, hurrying back
like himself, had just arrived, and to whom Yamagawa had told the
affair of the sword. One look at his master satisfied the old servitor
that the former’s mission had been unsuccessful; but he could learn
no particulars, for to all inquiries Sennoske, who wished to spare him
the shock of the communication, at least for the present, gave only
evasive replies. Happening to look at the servant of the house, still
standing by the half-open door, with eyes and ears intent upon what
was going on, Yamagawa immediately divined that the fellow had
listened at the other room; and pulling him in by the sleeve, he
ordered him, with short word of command, to tell all he had heard
there. To do this was of course a serious breach of etiquette; it was,
however, with no thought of taking umbrage at the freedom
assumed by his old servitor, but only to spare him the shock of what
was coming, that Sennoske interfered. Nevertheless, his assumed
displeasure remained unheeded, and even unnoticed. Giving the
young fellow a good shaking, Yamagawa again ordered him to
repeat what had taken place in the other room; and trembling and
stammering, the other, in spite of his fright, gave a sufficiently lucid
account of what he had witnessed.
A muttered word, or rather ejaculation, unintelligible to those
present, was the old samurai’s only reply as he returned to his seat,
—in which, however, he moved round, so as partly to turn his back
to his companions. No one spoke. The men present were mostly
veterans, men of action and not of words; and every one was
considering the circumstances of the case, revolving within himself
what had best be done before he gave tongue to his thoughts. The
dead silence, which was in strange contrast with the sound of
laughter and revelry borne to them from other parts of the house,
was gloomy, and had begun to be oppressive, when it was broken
by the sound of something trickling on the mats. All started, but
Sennoske was the first to divine its terrible import. A single bound
brought him to the side of Yamagawa; but it was too late. The latter
on turning round had arranged his dress in conformity with the rule
on such occasions, and had quietly and noiselessly committed hara-
kiri. He had done it deliberately and carefully, and the wound which
he had inflicted upon himself was the regulation cut of six inches in
length by one inch deep.

ARROWS AND MILITARY HEAD-DRESS.

 CHAPTER X.
The first great grief which his young life had known now came
upon Sennoske as he knelt by the side of his old attendant. A
thousand recollections of the watchful care, kindness, and unvarying
zeal and attachment of Yamagawa overwhelmed him, until he
became thoroughly unmanned, and could only sob in a broken
voice: “Oh, Yamagawa! why have you done this to me?”
“Listen to me, Sennoske,” replied the old samurai,— whose
present composure and serenity were in striking contrast with his
appearance of half an hour before, his face, which showed no
evidence of physical pain in spite of the suffering caused by his
wound, being lit up by a happy smile at the evident deep-felt love
and sympathy expressed by his young master,—“listen to me
carefully, for my time is short.” As he spoke, he compressed tightly
with both hands the gaping wound from which his blood and life
were slowly oozing out. “The great enemy of your house, who has
been the cause of all the misfortunes which have befallen it, is now
the possessor of your sword. You know him by reputation. It is the
notorious Taka Suke, in comparison with whose shameless, brazen-
faced effrontery all other acts of Hōjō arrogance might well be
characterized as humility itself. Here in my lap is my kakioki, my last
will and testament, addressed to you, explaining everything. It was
to be given to you in case of my death. Take it now and read it
aloud.” Seeing that Sennoske, with his hands before his face, was
still sobbing bitterly, he motioned to another of the party to do what
he had asked; and the man addressed, an old soldier, at once
complied, taking the document and reading as follows:
“It is now nearly twelve years ago that a quarrel broke out
between the Dukes of Ando Taro and Ando Goro, in the province of
Mutsu; this quarrel assuming considerable proportions, the Hōjō
government at Kamakura sent out Taka Suke with full powers to
arbitrate and judge between the contending parties. He was
comparatively unknown at that time, and was received by both
Dukes with marks of great distinction, as became his mission, and,
as is the custom, with lavish gifts. But whatever was presented to
him was like a few kernels of rice thrown to a famished dog, it only
whetted his appetite for more. In the most barefaced manner he and
his satellites asked for more and more, and received it
indiscriminately from both sides. His chamberlains, his mistresses,
his servants down to the lowest horse-boy and scullion, all had to be
fed over and over again.

SENDING A PRESENT.

“Your father, who was Ando Goro’s karo, or first counsellor, saw his
master’s substance melt away under this system of extortion which
he did not dare oppose, while as yet there was no pretence on the
part of Taka Suke of even looking into the merits of the case, much
less of rendering a decision. The ducal treasury was exhausted; the
many rare and costly articles accumulated by generations of the
Duke’s ancestors, and the whole of your father’s private fortune, had
been swallowed up by this fellow’s greed. There was absolutely
nothing left to give, when Ando Goro in strong terms and angry
words, more than hinting at Hōjō misrule, demanded judgment. This
just suited the wily arbitrator. Carefully selecting time and place and
company so as to be cruelly effective, with coarse taunt and jeer he
insulted the Duke and goaded him to madness. Regardless of policy
and of the chances against him, regardless of the advice and
remonstrance of his trusted karo, Ando Goro planned a revolt. His
movements, however, had been carefully watched, and his plans
were allowed to ripen sufficiently clearly to demonstrate his guilt.
When this point was reached he was seized and thrown into prison.
In this case judgment was not delayed; within ten days his territory
was confiscated, and he himself paid the penalty of his life. His wife
shared her husband’s fate; his two infant sons were seized, and
disappeared, no one knowing how or where; and all his principal
retainers were severely punished, some suffering death, some
imprisonment and some exile.
 A KARO (CHIEF COUNSELLOR).

“Only one man seemed to remain exempt from persecution, and

he was the karo. He had arranged his affairs, and expected, hour
after hour, day by day, to be summoned to prison and death; but no
summons came. Your father was a man who had commanded honor
and respect second to none where he had lived. Untouched by even
a breath of suspicion in his high and responsible position, with rare
physical and mental graces, and incomparable in all manly
accomplishments, the inhabitants of the province, high and low,
looked up to him with a respect amounting to reverence. But the
times were corrupt, and his long years of faithful service failed to
make men believe that he had remained true to his trust, when day
after day continued that strange immunity from arrest while every
one else belonging to his master’s house had suffered. Too many
were only over-ready to sell themselves to the Hōjō; and although in
this instance it seemed utterly incredible, yet men equally high in
position and character had before been won by Hōjō purses and
Hōjō promises.

AN EXECUTION.
 “Your father’s nature was delicate and sensitive, in spite of his
physical prowess and of the outwardly cold equanimity of his
character. Loyal as loyalty itself, conscious of the rectitude of his
actions and thoughts, he met those who had once bowed down to
the ground in his presence, and who now had only a scornful glance
for him, with equal scorn and pride, which only went to confirm their
suspicions of what they considered his shameless desertion. Never
did a samurai look more anxiously for decree of promotion and
advancement than did your father for the order which should
consign him to the grave. At first, when with every minute he was
expecting his doom, he had no thought of kataki-uchi; and even
later on he saw no possible way of breaking single-handed through
the cordon of guards and satellites which protected his and his late
lord’s enemy. When, however, fifteen days had elapsed, during which
he had, as it seemed, been utterly ignored, he publicly registered a
vow that whenever chance or his own exertions should bring him
into the presence of Taka Suke, he would kill him, or perish in the
attempt. He had recorded his vow in the usual manner, taking care,
however, to give it the greatest possible publicity, so that he against
whom it was directed could not pretend to be ignorant of it.
“Your father succeeded apparently in forcing notice upon himself;
for the same day, as evening came on, a posse of soldiers entered
his house. His swords and weapons were taken from him, and his
arms pinioned; but this was not done in the coarse, brutal way in
which prisoners generally are treated, the leader of the soldiers
showing all possible consideration, and even apologizing for what he
did. A large and convenient nori mono (palanquin) had been brought
to the door, and in this Mutto was carried more like a chief followed
by his retainers than a disgraced rebel prisoner. His captors took him
directly to the castle, into the presence of Taka Suke, when all
retired, leaving the two men alone.
 A LORD ENTERING HIS NORI-MONO.

“‘I should have sent for you before this,’ said the host to his
prisoner-guest, ‘but I wished to give you time to do justice to your
grief for your late lord, although he but little deserved it. Probably
Ando Goro’s only posthumous claim to the regard of mankind
consists in the good sense which he displayed in selecting you for his
karo; and all the good he ever achieved, as is well known, was of
your doing. Had he followed your counsel he would still be the lord
of his province, honored and respected. He chose instead to give
way to the promptings of his own wicked passions; he rose in revolt
against the lawful government of the country, and he has met the
fate which is the just due of every rebel. All who surrounded him
aided and abetted his evil designs with the exception of yourself,
who were the only one, as I know full well, to try to dissuade him
from his folly and crime. In common with every one else, I have
always entertained feelings of high regard and admiration for your
mental and physical accomplishments as well as for your moral
character, as shown by your faithfulness and devotion. It was not my
intention that you should stand before me as you do now; your
unfortunate expression of to-day has forced me, however, to adopt
these precautions; but these bonds shall fall at the first word which
shows that you understand my feelings and accept my offer of
friendship and friendly interest. You shall be appointed this very day
temporarily to the government of your late lord’s territories, which is
all that my authority empowers me to do at present; but I doubt not
—nay, I am sure—that with the first signs of zeal and faithfulness
the Hōjō government will confirm your appointment and make you
the actual duke, with the title hereditary in your family.’
“This language astounded your father, although it failed to move
him or to shake his resolution in the slightest degree. ‘I am utterly
unable,’ he replied, ‘to understand the meaning of your magnificent
offers, and I am too indifferent in regard to them to look into their
motive. As far as my honor and faithfulness, which you rate so
highly, are concerned, the one would be forever tarnished, and the
other prove itself false and valueless, were I to accept your proposal.
If I have acquired a good name and reputation, I owe it merely to
the possession and practice of those qualities which should be the
birth-right of every one of our class, and which have enabled me to
serve my late master loyally, but, alas! as events have shown, only
too inefficiently. My duty now is plain,—to avenge my lord, if
possible, or else to die as becomes a faithful samurai.’
“‘I expected some such reply from you,’ rejoined the other,
‘although I hoped that the sincere desire for your welfare which I
have so openly shown would cause you to put your refusal in a
milder form. You have the consciousness of having done everything
for Ando Goro which it was possible to do; but his headstrong nature
would not brook control, or even advice, and his destruction lies at
his own door. You can do nothing more for him, and your country
has certainly some claim to your services. Men of your stamp are
needed now, when strife and rebellion are everywhere raising their
heads; and in place of a useless sacrifice to one whom you served
faithfully as long as faithfulness would benefit him, it were a better,
a higher, and a worthier ambition to try to insure internal peace,
tranquillity, and prosperity to our glorious empire.’

ŌTŌ NO MIYA, THE MIKADO’S SON, IN HIS MOUNTAIN

RETREAT WHEN FLEEING FROM THE HŌJŌ.
 “‘Your code of samurai morality is different from what I have been
taught, Taka Suke,’ said the ex-karo, slightly raising his voice, though
its tones remained quiet and firm. ‘Chiugi [faithfulness to one’s lord
and master] would be little worth the name if it were obligatory only
while in the receipt of bounties and favors from one’s lord, and could
be disregarded when not synonymous with self-interest. It is not the
doings of men who act like this that are told to us in songs and
romances, that form the heritage of our heroes, and that fire and
inflame the minds of our youth. Is not kataki-uchi the first of all
duties? And where does it find its highest justification but in
faithfulness in avenging the death and appeasing the manes of our
lord and master? The ruin of my late lord and of his house lies at
your door. Why have you spared me when mercy was not shown to
woman or child, to the helpless or to the innocent? I owe you no
thanks for it. Were these arms free, I should strike you down now;
and nothing can reconcile me to life but the hope, slight as it may
be, of some day being able to accomplish my vengeance. This is my
duty; and in devoting my life to it, my country can claim nothing
more. When you speak of “rebellion and strife raising their heads,”
you can mean only rebellion against the Hōjō usurpers; but were I
not bound to the fulfilment of a higher obligation, such rebellion
would find in me one of its most ardent partisans.’
“‘And do you not think of your wife?’ Taka Suke still persisted.
‘Have you no feeling of pity for her, who, if you insist upon your
refusal, must suffer a cruel death; none for your son, who, if he
grows up in the likeness of his father, with the advantages which
your new position would confer upon him, might become one of
Japan’s most famous men, perpetuating your name and renown to
the latest generations?’
“‘My wife is a samurai’s wife, and knows she must take her share
of the pains and penalties, as well as enjoy the privileges and
advantages, of her position; my son had better die a lingering death
than succeed through the shame and disgrace of his father.’
 “‘Yes,’ Taka Suke, now dropping his mask, replied angrily, ‘I know
you are one of those who believe in chiugi and kataki-uchi and all
those devices which are implicitly followed by fools and weak-
minded persons, but which men of sense make use of only to suit
the occasion. I can understand the beauty of kataki-uchi when used
against those who have injured me, and of chiugi when it governs
the behavior of my dependants. It is true our cause is threatened,
and it is necessary for the continuance of Hōjō power that men of
influence, wherever they may be found, should be enlisted in its
support. Such men as you, respected by samurai and by the rabble,
equally ready with sword, tongue, and pen, are rare enough, and
their action influences thousands of others. I do not yet despair of
bringing you over to our side. Men of your stamp are inclined to
sacrifice themselves, satisfied with the delusion that their virtues will
be lauded and appreciated after their death. But I will leave you no
such consolation. I will have it spread about that through you your
master was betrayed. I will have you brought to the castle of
Kamakura; and while it will be said that you have left your family in
order to enjoy a licentious life with the wages of your treason, you
shall pine away a close prisoner. What do you say to this prospect;
and how, under these circumstances, will your name be spoken of
by posterity?’
 A PRISON.

“Outwardly calm and composed, although this speech did not fail
to stir him to the deepest anger and indignation, Mutto replied:
‘Whatever you may do, the truth will sooner or later be certain to
prevail. Knowing that it is impossible to appease the manes of my
murdered lord with your blood, I can only show my devotion by
committing seppuku, which I will not now defer any longer. No
honest man’s finger shall point at me in scorn, no disloyal samurai
shall cite me and claim me as a living companion in shame. I will
have the satisfaction of having lived and died as a feudal retainer
should live and die,—loyal to my lord and master.’
“‘No, no! you shall have no such satisfaction. I will not leave you
to delude yourself with this thought,’ Taka Suke vehemently broke in.
‘You do not yet know all. Ando Goro, it is true, paid the penalty for
his treason with his life; but his two young sons yet live. Yes, they
yet live,’ he repeated with cold emphasis, as Mutto turned pale and
started, half in joy, half in affright, with a nameless dread of what
might be coming; ‘but you will never learn their abode, for they have
been taken to a distant isle, where they are carefully watched by
men devoted to me. I have changed my intention as to the
measures to be adopted in regard to you, and you shall go from this
place free and untrammelled. But you shall pledge your knightly
word that you will make no attempt against my life or against your
own; and the safety of these two boys shall answer for your fidelity.
In case of your death they shall be made to follow you at once into
the shadowy land to which you are so anxious to go; and I shall also
make immediate and careful disposition that any attempt at my life,
whether successful or not, shall give them no longer time on earth
than relays of fleet-running messengers require to carry them their
doom. What say you to this, Numa? Had you not better at once
enter my service and watch over a life which now must be very
precious to you?’ Taka Suke asked this question with a sneer; it was
thrown away, however, for the last revelation had done its work, and
the man before him was utterly prostrate and broken-hearted. ‘But I
will not press you for an answer now’, the Hōjō chief continued. ‘You
shall give me the promise I asked for, sealing it with your blood; and
then you can take your own time. And remember that whenever you
choose to come to me, all the honors and emoluments promised
shall be yours at once, without further reference or allusion to what
has passed between us.’
 POSTAL COURIERS.

“When your father left the castle after this interview he was a man
broken in body, in heart, and in spirit. In addition thereto came the
illness of his beloved wife, your mother, which in a few days
assumed a fatal character. After her death he found it impossible to
continue living in the same place, where all those whose esteem he
cared for now shunned him. He was on the verge of madness, and
only his flight, I believe, saved him from such a fate. We separated,
to avoid attracting attention and to elude pursuit. He confided you to
my care; and you must remember the night of our departure, when
we went one way and he another. In the middle of the night, like a
thief and a malefactor, he left the place where until now he had
been foremost in rank and position, as well as in the esteem of the
people. We met by appointment in a mountain retreat of Idzu, at the
house of an old friend and companion-in-arms who had turned priest
and was leading a quiet, secluded life. There we remained a year,
which enabled your father to regain his tranquillity; and then we
travelled on to Kuwana, where, as you know, he took service with
Ono ga Sawa. When making arrangements for his flight he had
taken care, in his fear for the safety of his master’s sons, that Taka
Suke should be informed after his departure that he had fled to a life
of seclusion, and would sacredly keep the vow he had taken. He has
since often regretted his twofold promise; for tidings which reached
him from one or two friends who remained true to him left very little
doubt that the young dukes had really been killed, and that Taka
Suke’s version of their exile was a fabrication to work upon the
feelings of a noble mind which had proved itself superior to all sordid
influences.”
The kakioki here came to an end, concluding with the usual
formulas, stamp, and seal pertaining to such a document. During the
reading, Yamagawa had retained his death-grip on his wound.
Superior will-power made him oblivious to physical pain, and
enabled him to retain consciousness until the testament had been
read to the end. Motioning now to Sennoske to come nearer, and
summoning all his energies, he succeeded, although in a scarcely
audible whisper, in saying his final words:—
“From what I have learned in the course of this campaign from
men of our old province who no longer feared the Hōjō, the doubt
as to the fate of Ando Goro’s sons has resolved itself into a certainty.
I ought to have acquainted you with all this at once, causing you to
search out that venomous beast, Taka Suke; but I hesitated,
knowing him to be as cunning as he is wicked, and brave and strong
withal. I also wished to let you first enjoy the pleasure and triumph
that await you at home; and I half hoped and half wished that
before long he would meet his just doom at other hands. I have
erred grievously in believing that the Fates which govern the world
would allow such a just vengeance to remain unfulfilled by him who
evidently was designed to execute it. The signal way in which the
divine will has been declared in this instance proves to me also that I
need have no fear for the result. I die happy in this consciousness;
and now, Sennoske, although I am of inferior rank, I know you will
show me the last and greatest mark of friendship which one samurai
can show to another.”
As he spoke he released the grip of his hands, the ghastly wound
opened wide, and he fell partly forward, with life evidently very
nearly extinct. Sennoske did not hesitate, for to withhold his hand
now would have been cruel as well as contrary to all law and usage.
Taking Yamagawa’s sword and grasping it firmly in both hands, with
a muttered blessing which the other seemed to understand and
acknowledge by a last flicker illuminating his face, his young master
made one sweeping downward stroke. The head rolled on the
ground, and a life of patient, unselfish, and sacrificing devotion came
to a sad but an honorable end.
STATE SWORD AND HEAD-DRESS.
 CHAPTER XI.
“Now for Taka Suke!” cried a younger member of the party,
excitedly. But he said no more, and hung his head abashed; for a
stern glance from his older companions showed him plainly that
many words and loud talk were not only not needed, but even out of
place at this moment. In glancing round the room, Sennoske saw
the servant who had attended him, and who, fascinated by what he
had seen and heard, had remained unnoticed in a corner. He was
summoned, and told to put Yamagawa’s head on one of the platters
lying on the floor, and to precede the young soldier to his enemy’s
room. The poor fellow hardly appreciated the active part assigned to
him in this drama. “I am not used to carrying cut-off heads,” he
stammered; “I shall be certain to commit some breach of etiquette:
so please excuse me.” As he spoke, with his head on the floor,
raising it at every few words to look around in a half-frightened, half-
foolish sort of way, and bringing it down again with a hard thump in
the unconscious excess of his apologetic speech, his appearance
under other circumstances would certainly have been sufficiently
ludicrous. A reiterated command caused him to slide upon his knees
to where the ghastly head lay on the floor; but as he brought his
hands near it, his courage failed him, and he made a precipitate rush
for the door. He was not allowed to leave, however, and a sharp
blow with a scabbard across his shoulders by one of the party, an
old soldier who had little sympathy for such scruples or
squeamishness, caused the physical pain partly to overcome his
nervous sensitiveness. Sennoske, with his usual consideration for the
feelings of others, seeing the state of mind the man was in, himself
gently placed the head on one of the platters; and the servant, with
averted face, then took heart to raise it up and to proceed to the
room of Taka Suke.
 The others present followed, but remained slightly in the rear,
having received strict orders from the young soldier not to interfere
or take any active part unless he called upon them. Sennoske felt a
wild, fierce delight at the thought of the struggle before him.
Physical action is always a relief for any great nervous strain, and
there are none but the veriest cravens who will not gladly accept it
as a welcome change, even when accompanied by personal risk and
danger. It is natural for health and strength to look for such an
outlet, and in the time in which Sennoske lived, education and
conventional usage did not repress the play of natural energies. With
his physical powers developed almost to perfection, the young
soldier actually hungered for an opportunity where his harassed
feelings might find vent in valorous deeds. The very thought of a
desperate hand-to-hand struggle did much to restore his coolness
and self-possession, which had been considerably disturbed by the
tragic scene through which he had passed, and by the revelations
which his old attendant had made to him.
As they came to the room where he now knew his mortal enemy
to be, Sennoske opened the sliding door to allow the servant to
enter; then following him, and taking the platter with its ghastly
burden out of his hand, he deposited it gently on the floor, while in a
clear, firm, and perhaps slightly authoritative tone he said: “Here is
the head of my retainer, as you demanded it; I now ask you to
return to me my sword.”
As soon as he entered he saw that he had come not a moment
too soon; for the packed portmanteaus lying about, as well as other
signs, showed that the party was on the eve of departure. Such, in
fact, had been their intention; it was only the knowledge that a
number of Ise samurai had arrived, and a fear that they were
watched and would not in a body be able to decamp with the sword
in their possession without being desperately opposed, that had
caused the delay and a parley, in the midst of which Sennoske came
upon them. All of them, and their leader not the least, were
evidently considerably surprised at the prompt and literal manner in
which Taka Suke’s command had been carried out. The Hōjō chief’s
alternative had been presented, it is true, very largely out of spite
against the man whom he hated, because that man had scorned his
offers and eluded his power; for in striking at Yamagawa he felt he
struck at Mutto and at Mutto’s son. Yet he hardly expected that his
extravagant claim would be acceded to, and under any
circumstances he calculated upon a delay that would enable him to
escape with the sword, which to a man in his position was an
invaluable prize. In the event of his being unable to escape,—a
contingency which the arrival of the Ise men rendered probable,—he
still believed it would be possible to represent Sennoske’s loss of the
sword in such a way as to appeal effectually to the prejudices of the
extremists on the subject of sword-etiquette among the samurai
travellers who had come to the inn. He thereby hoped to create a
diversion and to make the whole affair a subject of negotiation,
during which time he would have possession of the sword; and in
the end he would not be scrupulous in framing excuses and
contriving means for keeping it permanently.
Both his designs, however, were frustrated. The readiness with
which the man had been sacrificed seemed to argue that, after all,
in spite of what his young master had said, no very high value was
attached to his life; at any rate, the head there exposed took away
all excuse for keeping the sword any longer. This poor head now
troubled Taka Suke more than its possessor had ever done in life;
being a man who had seldom been thwarted, he would have given
much to draw the sword and cut the now inoffensive cause of his
disappointment in pieces. Sennoske, who was watching him
narrowly, partly divined what was passing through his mind, and
regained his self-possession more fully as the other showed outward
signs of anger and mortification. He again repeated his demand, but
with a stronger emphasis of authority, which seemed to intimate that
he had means to enforce it; and so Taka Suke, seeing that he could
not possibly frame a valid excuse for retaining the weapon, with a
muttered curse, half handed, half threw it over to his enemy.
Sennoske caught it; and as he found, with his accustomed grasp,
that it was indeed his trusty blade, he felt a shock which caused his
heart to beat almost audibly as it seemed to him, while his brain
seethed and throbbed against his temples with the tumultuous flood
of emotions which agitated it. But this excitement was only
momentary. He had slightly bent his head on receiving the weapon;
but quickly raising it again, he spoke calmly and clearly, with quiet
self-possession: “You have given me back my sword, my beloved
samurai sword; but the mere return of it is not sufficient. A faithful
and dearly cherished life had to be sacrificed to your ‘feelings of
honor,’ as you called them: all your heads must accompany the
return of this sword to satisfy my feelings of honor!” He had drawn
the sword as he concluded, and waited with chivalrous courage for a
second or two, until at least one other blade should be bared.
The combat was not as
unequal as it looked at first
sight. A heavy Japanese
sword, held as it is with
both hands, and not
admitting of any great
celerity of movement when
wielded by an ordinary
man, enables a master of
the art, with quickness and
agility to match, as was
here the case, easily to
keep at bay two, or even
three opponents. Sennoske
had placed himself against
a corner of the room; his
foes were all in front of
him, and the necessity of
requiring considerable room
to wield their weapons
prevented them from
overpowering him by too
A FENCING MATCH. many rushing upon him at