Numerous invitations were sent to her to visit
the court, which, though recommended by letters from divers of the
court-ladies, who had been acquainted, traditionally at least, with her
family, and enforced by a letter from Catherine of Braganza, written by
her own hand, in which she acknowledged the obligations of the king to
the house of Mortimer, were steadily rejected by the high-minded heiress
of its honours and its spirit.--“From these towers,” said she to Mrs
Ann, “my grandfather led forth his vassals and tenants in aid of his
king,--to these towers he led what was left of them back, when the royal
cause seemed lost for ever. Here he lived and died for his
sovereign,--and here will I live and die. And I feel that I shall do
more effectual service to his Majesty, by residing on my estates, and
protecting my tenants, and repairing,”--she added with a smile,--“even
with my needle, the rents made in the banners of our house by many a
Puritan’s bullet, than if I flaunted it in Hyde-Park in my glass coach,
or masqueraded it all night in that of (6)St James’s, even though I were
sure to encounter the Duchess of Cleveland on one side, and Louise de
Querouaille on the other,--fitter place for them than me.”--And so
saying, Mrs Margaret Mortimer resumed her tapestry work. Mrs Ann looked
at her with an eye that spoke volumes,--and the tear that trembled in it
made the lines more legible. (6) See a comedy of Wycherly’s, entitled, “Love in a Wood, or St
  James’s Park,” where the company are represented going there at night
  in masks, and with torches. “After the decided refusal of Mrs Margaret Mortimer to go to London, the
family resumed their former ancestorial habits of stately regularity,
and decorous grandeur, such as became a magnificent and well-ordered
household, of which a noble maiden was the head and president. But this
regularity was without rigour, and this monotony without apathy--the
minds of these highly fated females were too familiar with trains of
lofty thinking, and images of noble deeds, to sink into vacancy, or feel
depression from solitude. I behold them,” said the stranger, “as I once
saw them, seated in a vast irregularly shaped apartment, wainscotted
with oak richly and quaintly carved, and as black as ebony--Mrs Ann
Mortimer, in a recess which terminated in an ancient casement window,
the upper panes of which were gorgeously emblazoned with the arms of the
Mortimers, and some legendary atchievements of the former heroes of the
family. A book she valued much(7) lay on her knee, on which she fixed
her eyes intently--the light that came through the casement chequering
its dark lettered pages with hues of such glorious and fantastic
colouring, that they resembled the leaves of some splendidly-illuminated
missal, with all its pomp of gold, and azure, and vermilion. (7) Taylor’s Book of Martyrs. “At a little distance sat her two grand-nieces, employed in work, and
relieving their attention to it by conversation, for which they had
ample materials. They spoke of the poor whom they had visited and
assisted,--of the rewards they had distributed among the industrious and
orderly,--and of the books which they were studying; and of which the
well-filled shelves of the library furnished them with copious and noble
stores. “Sir Roger had been a man of letters as well as of arms. He had been
often heard to say, that next to a well-stocked armoury in time of war,
was a well-stocked library in time of peace; and even in the midst of
his latter grievances and privations, he contrived every year to make an
addition to his own. “His grand-daughters, well instructed by him in the French and Latin
languages, had read Mezeray, Thuanus, and Sully. In English, they had
Froissart in the black-letter translation of Pynson, imprinted 1525. Their poetry, exclusive of the classics, consisted chiefly of Waller,
Donne, and that constellation of writers that illuminated the drama in
the latter end of the reign of Elizabeth, and the commencement of that
of James,--Marlow, and Massinger, and Shirley, and Ford--_cum multis
aliis_. Fairfax’s translations had made them familiar with the
continental poets; and Sir Roger had consented to admit, among his
modern collection, the Latin poems (the only ones then published) of
Milton, for the sake of that _in Quintum Novembris_,--for Sir Roger,
next to the fanatics, held the Catholics in utter abomination.”

“Then he will be damned to all eternity,” said Aliaga, “and that’s some
satisfaction.”

“Thus their retirement was not inelegant, nor unaccompanied with those
delights at once soothing and elating, which arise from a judicious
mixture of useful occupation and literary tastes. “On all they read or conversed of, Mrs Ann Mortimer was a living
comment. Her conversation, rich in anecdote, and accurate to minuteness,
sometimes rising to the loftiest strains of eloquence, as she related
“deeds of the days of old,” and often borrowing the sublimity of
inspiration, as the reminiscences of religion softened and solemnized
the spirit with which she spake,--like the influence of time on fine
paintings, that consecrates the tints it mellows, and makes the colours
it has half obscured more precious to the eye of feeling and of taste,
than they were in the glow of their early beauty,--her conversation was
to her grand-nieces at once history and poetry. “The events of English history then not recorded, had a kind of
traditional history more vivid, if not so faithful as the records of
modern historians, in the memories of those who had been agents and
sufferers (the terms are probably synonimous) in those memorable
periods. “There was an entertainment then, banished by modern dissipation now,
but alluded to by the great poet of that nation, whom your orthodox and
undeniable creed justly devotes to eternal damnation. “In winter’s tedious nights sit by the fire,

    * * * * * *

    ----------------and tell the tales
    Of woful ages long ago betid;
    And send the hearers weeping to their beds. * * * * * *

    We cited up a thousand heavy times.”

    * * * * * *

“When memory thus becomes the depository of grief, how faithfully is the
charge kept!--and how much superior are the touches of one who paints
from the life, and the heart, and the senses,--to those of one who dips
his pen in his ink-stand, and casts his eye on a heap of musty
parchments, to glean his facts or his feelings from them! Mrs Ann
Mortimer had much to tell,--and she told it well. If history was the
subject, she could relate the events of the civil wars--events which
resembled indeed those of all civil wars, but which derived a peculiar
strength of character, and brilliancy of colouring, from the hand by
which they were sketched.