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Updated: May 31, 2025
I can serve the country no better as Sir John Enderby than as plain John Enderby, and I can serve my children best by shepherding my shattered fortunes for their sakes." For a moment Charles seemed thoughtful, as though Enderby's reasons appealed to him, but Lord Rippingdale had now the chance which for ten years he had invited, and he would not let it pass.
His distress was so moving that even Rippingdale was constrained to say: "He did it for your sake. His Majesty will " With a gesture of despair Enderby turned and entered the house, and passed into the library, where he found his daughter. Pale and tearful she threw herself into his arms.
"My lord begs me to ask that you will come forth and speak with him, Sir John?" "My compliments to Lord Rippingdale, Sir Richard, and say that I can better entertain his Majesty's commissioner within my own house." "And all who wait with him?" asked the young officer, with a dry sort of smile. "My lord, and his officers and gentlemen, but not his troopers."
One of the King's gentlemen had fallen, and another was wounded. Lord Rippingdale was hard pressed, but in what seemed the last extremity of the King and his party there came a shout from the other side of the stream: "God save the King! For the King! For the King!"
"I will not yield up my estates, nor my person, nor my son and daughter, of my free will." With an incredulous smile, Rippingdale was about to leave and enter upon a siege of the house, when he saw young Enderby and caught a strange look in his face. "Young gentleman," said he, "are you a cipher in this game? A barony hangs on this. Are you as stubborn and unruly as the head of your house?"
"See to it, my Lord Rippingdale," he said, "that our knight here pays to the last penny for the courtesy of the accolade. You shall levy upon his estate." "We are both gentlemen, your Majesty, and my rights within the law are no less than your Majesty's," said Enderby stoutly. "The gentleman forgets that the King is the fountain of all law," said Lord Rippingdale obliquely to the King.
When they had gone he listened for a time, but hearing no sound of surprise or discovery, he returned to the supper room, where Garrett Enderby sat drinking with Lord Rippingdale and the cavaliers. Seven years went by before John Enderby saw his son again or set foot in Enderby House.
"The King may command my life, my Lord Rippingdale," was Enderby's reply, "he may take me, body and bones and blood, for his service, but my poor name must remain as it is when his Majesty demands a price for honouring it." "Treason," said Lord Rippingdale just so much above his breath as the King might hear.
He spoke his mind with candour, and to him the King was still a man to whom the truth was to be told with directness, which was the highest honour one man might show another. "Rank treason!" repeated Lord Rippingdale, loudly. "Enderby has been in bad company, your Majesty. If you are not wholly with the King, you are against him.
Once or twice as he rode on in the declining afternoon he muttered to himself. Now it was: "My Lord Rippingdale, indeed!" or "Not even for a King!" or "Sir John Enderby, forsooth! Sir John Enderby, forsooth!" Once again he spoke, reining in his horse beside a tall cross at four corners, near Stickford by the East Fen.
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