"Thou art a knave--an ungrateful knave," said Leicester; "but he that hath done can undo--thou shalt not prank thee in thy authority long!"
This threat he uttered aloud, with less than his usual policy and discretion; and having done so, he entered the presence-chamber, and made his reverence to the Queen, who, attired with even more than her usual splendour, and surrounded by those n.o.bles and statesmen whose courage and wisdom have rendered her reign immortal, stood ready to receive the hommage of her subjects. She graciously returned the obeisance of the favourite Earl, and looked alternately at him and at Suss.e.x, as if about to speak, when Bowyer, a man whose spirit could not brook the insult he had so openly received from Leicester, in the discharge of his office, advanced with his black rad in his hand, and knelt down before her.
"Why, how now, Bowyer?" said Elizabeth, "thy courtesy seems strangely timed!"
"My Liege Sovereign," he said, while every courtier around trembled at his audacity, "I come but to ask whether, in the discharge of mine office, I am to obey your Highness"s commands, or those of the Earl of Leicester, who has publicly menaced me with his displeasure, and treated me with disparaging terms, because I denied entry to one of his followers, in obedience to your Grace"s precise orders?"
The spirit of Henry VIII. was instantly aroused in the bosom of his daughter, and she turned on Leicester with a severity which appalled him, as well as all his followers.
"G.o.d"s death! my lord." such was her emphatic phrase, "what means this?
We have thought well of you, and brought you near to our person; but it was not that you might hide the sun from our other faithful subjects.
Who gave you license to contradict our orders, or control our officers?
I will have in this court, ay, and in this realm, but one mistress, and no master. Look to it that Master Bowyer sustains no harm for his duty to me faithfully discharged; for, as I am Christian woman and crowned Queen, I will hold you dearly answerable.--Go, Bowyer, you have done the part of an honest man and a true subject. We will brook no mayor of the palace here."
Bowyer kissed the hand which she extended towards him, and withdrew to his post, astonished at the success of his own audacity. A smile of triumph pervaded the faction of Suss.e.x; that of Leicester seemed proportionally dismayed, and the favourite himself, a.s.suming an aspect of the deepest humility, did not even attempt a word in his own esculpation.
He acted wisely; for it was the policy of Elizabeth to humble, not to disgrace him, and it was prudent to suffer her, without opposition or reply, to glory in the exertion of her authority. The dignity of the Queen was gratified, and the woman began soon to feel for the mortification which she had imposed on her favourite. Her keen eye also observed the secret looks of congratulation exchanged amongst those who favoured Suss.e.x, and it was no part of her policy to give either party a decisive triumph.
"What I say to my Lord of Leicester," she said, after a moment"s pause, "I say also to you, my Lord of Suss.e.x. You also must needs ruffle in the court of England, at the head of a faction of your own?"
"My followers, gracious Princess," said Suss.e.x, "have indeed ruffled in your cause in Ireland, in Scotland, and against yonder rebellious Earls in the north. I am ignorant that--"
"Do you bandy looks and words with me, my lord?" said the Queen, interrupting him; "methinks you might learn of my Lord of Leicester the modesty to be silent, at least, under our censure. I say, my lord, that my grandfather and my father, in their wisdom, debarred the n.o.bles of this civilized land from travelling with such disorderly retinues; and think you, that because I wear a coif, their sceptre has in my hand been changed into a distaff? I tell you, no king in Christendom will less brook his court to be c.u.mbered, his people oppressed, and his kingdom"s peace disturbed, by the arrogance of overgrown power, than she who now speaks with you.--My Lord of Leicester, and you, my Lord of Suss.e.x, I command you both to be friends with each other; or by the crown I wear, you shall find an enemy who will be too strong for both of you!"
"Madam," said the Earl of Leicester, "you who are yourself the fountain of honour know best what is due to mine. I place it at your disposal, and only say that the terms on which I have stood with my Lord of Suss.e.x have not been of my seeking; nor had he cause to think me his enemy, until he had done me gross wrong."
"For me, madam," said the Earl of Suss.e.x, "I cannot appeal from your sovereign pleasure; but I were well content my Lord of Leicester should say in what I have, as he terms it, wronged him, since my tongue never spoke the word that I would not willingly justify either on foot or horseback.
"And for me," said Leicester, "always under my gracious Sovereign"s pleasure, my hand shall be as ready to make good my words as that of any man who ever wrote himself Ratcliffe."
"My lords," said the Queen, "these are no terms for this presence; and if you cannot keep your temper, we will find means to keep both that and you close enough. Let me see you join hands, my lords, and forget your idle animosities."
The two rivals looked at each other with reluctant eyes, each unwilling to make the first advance to execute the Queen"s will.
"Suss.e.x," said Elizabeth, "I entreat--Leicester, I command you."
Yet, so were her words accented, that the entreaty sounded like command, and the command like entreaty. They remained still and stubborn, until she raised her voice to a height which argued at once impatience and absolute command.
"Sir Henry Lee," she said, to an officer in attendance, "have a guard in present readiness, and man a barge instantly.--My Lords of Suss.e.x and Leicester, I bid you once more to join hands; and, G.o.d"s death! he that refuses shall taste of our Tower fare ere he sees our face again. I will lower your proud hearts ere we part, and that I promise, on the word of a Queen!"
"The prison?" said Leicester, "might be borne, but to lose your Grace"s presence were to lose light and life at once.--Here, Suss.e.x, is my hand."
"And here," said Suss.e.x, "is mine in truth and honesty; but--"
"Nay, under favour, you shall add no more," said the Queen. "Why, this is as it should be," she added, looking on them more favourably; "and when you the shepherds of the people, unite to protect them, it shall be well with the flock we rule over. For, my lords, I tell you plainly, your follies and your brawls lead to strange disorders among your servants.--My Lord of Leicester, you have a gentleman in your household called Varney?"
"Yes, gracious madam," replied Leicester; "I presented him to kiss your royal hand when you were last at Nonsuch."
"His outside was well enough," said the Queen, "but scarce so fair, I should have thought, as to have caused a maiden of honourable birth and hopes to barter her fame for his good looks, and become his paramour.
Yet so it is; this fellow of yours hath seduced the daughter of a good old Devonshire knight, Sir Hugh Robsart of Lidcote Hall, and she hath fled with him from her father"s house like a castaway.--My Lord of Leicester, are you ill, that you look so deadly pale?"
"No, gracious madam," said Leicester; and it required every effort he could make to bring forth these few words.
"You are surely ill, my lord?" said Elizabeth, going towards him with hasty speech and hurried step, which indicated the deepest concern.
"Call Masters--call our surgeon in ordinary.--Where be these loitering fools?--we lose the pride of our court through their negligence.--Or is it possible, Leicester," she continued, looking on him with a very gentle aspect, "can fear of my displeasure have wrought so deeply on thee? Doubt not for a moment, n.o.ble Dudley, that we could blame THEE for the folly of thy retainer--thee, whose thoughts we know to be far otherwise employed. He that would climb the eagle"s nest, my lord, cares not who are catching linnets at the foot of the precipice."
"Mark you that?" said Suss.e.x aside to Raleigh. "The devil aids him surely; for all that would sink another ten fathom deep seems but to make him float the more easily. Had a follower of mine acted thus--"
"Peace, my good lord," said Raleigh, "for G.o.d"s sake, peace! Wait the change of the tide; it is even now on the turn."
The acute observation of Raleigh, perhaps, did not deceive him; for Leicester"s confusion was so great, and, indeed, for the moment, so irresistibly overwhelming, that Elizabeth, after looking at him with a wondering eye, and receiving no intelligible answer to the unusual expressions of grace and affection which had escaped from her, shot her quick glance around the circle of courtiers, and reading, perhaps, in their faces something that accorded with her own awakened suspicions, she said suddenly, "Or is there more in this than we see--or than you, my lord, wish that we should see? Where is this Varney? Who saw him?"
"An it please your Grace," said Bowyer, "it is the same against whom I this instant closed the door of the presence-room."
"An it please me?" repeated Elizabeth sharply, not at that moment in the humour of being pleased with anything.--"It does NOT please me that he should pa.s.s saucily into my presence, or that you should exclude from it one who came to justify himself from an accusation."
"May it please you," answered the perplexed usher, "if I knew, in such case, how to bear myself, I would take heed--"
"You should have reported the fellow"s desire to us, Master Usher, and taken our directions. You think yourself a great man, because but now we chid a n.o.bleman on your account; yet, after all, we hold you but as the lead-weight that keeps the door fast. Call this Varney hither instantly.
There is one Tressilian also mentioned in this pet.i.tion. Let them both come before us."
She was obeyed, and Tressilian and Varney appeared accordingly. Varney"s first glance was at Leicester, his second at the Queen. In the looks of the latter there appeared an approaching storm, and in the downcast countenance of his patron he could read no directions in what way he was to trim his vessel for the encounter. He then saw Tressilian, and at once perceived the peril of the situation in which he was placed.
But Varney was as bold-faced and ready-witted as he was cunning and unscrupulous--a skilful pilot in extremity, and fully conscious of the advantages which he would obtain could he extricate Leicester from his present peril, and of the ruin that yawned for himself should he fail in doing so.
"Is it true, sirrah," said the Queen, with one of those searching looks which few had the audacity to resist, "that you have seduced to infamy a young lady of birth and breeding, the daughter of Sir Hugh Robsart of Lidcote Hall?"
Varney kneeled down, and replied, with a look of the most profound contrition, "There had been some love pa.s.sages betwixt him and Mistress Amy Robsart."
Leicester"s flesh quivered with indignation as he heard his dependant make this avowal, and for one moment he manned himself to step forward, and, bidding farewell to the court and the royal favour, confess the whole mystery of the secret marriage. But he looked at Suss.e.x, and the idea of the triumphant smile which would clothe his cheek upon hearing the avowal sealed his lips. "Not now, at least," he thought, "or in this presence, will I afford him so rich a triumph." And pressing his lips close together, he stood firm and collected, attentive to each word which Varney uttered, and determined to hide to the last the secret on which his court-favour seemed to depend. Meanwhile, the Queen proceeded in her examination of Varney.
"Love pa.s.sages!" said she, echoing his last words; "what pa.s.sages, thou knave? and why not ask the wench"s hand from her father, if thou hadst any honesty in thy love for her?"
"An it please your Grace," said Varney, still on his knees, "I dared not do so, for her father had promised her hand to a gentleman of birth and honour--I will do him justice, though I know he bears me ill-will--one Master Edmund Tressilian, whom I now see in the presence."
"Soh!" replied the Queen. "And what was your right to make the simple fool break her worthy father"s contract, through your love Pa.s.sAGES, as your conceit and a.s.surance terms them?"
"Madam," replied Varney, "it is in vain to plead the cause of human frailty before a judge to whom it is unknown, or that of love to one who never yields to the pa.s.sion"--he paused an instant, and then added, in a very low and timid tone--"which she inflicts upon all others."
Elizabeth tried to frown, but smiled in her own despite, as she answered, "Thou art a marvellously impudent knave. Art thou married to the girl?"
Leicester"s feelings became so complicated and so painfully intense, that it seemed to him as if his life was to depend on the answer made by Varney, who, after a moment"s real hesitation, answered, "Yes."
"Thou false villain!" said Leicester, bursting forth into rage, yet unable to add another word to the sentence which he had begun with such emphatic pa.s.sion.
"Nay, my lord," said the Queen, "we will, by your leave, stand between this fellow and your anger. We have not yet done with him.--Knew your master, my Lord of Leicester, of this fair work of yours? Speak truth, I command thee, and I will be thy warrant from danger on every quarter."
"Gracious madam," said Varney, "to speak Heaven"s truth, my lord was the cause of the whole matter."