‘Poor child!’ echoed James, rather sarcastically.
‘Nay, ’tis not solely the rhyme,’ said Henry; ‘but this has been a wakeful night, and not without misgivings whether I am one who ought to look for joy in his children.’
‘What is past was not such that you alone should cry mea culpa,’ said James.
‘I never thought so till now,’ said Henry. ‘Yet who knows? My father was a winsome young man ere his exile, full of tenderness to us all, at the rare times he was with us. Who knows what cares may make of me ere my boy learns to knew me?’
‘You will not hold him aloof, and give him no chance of loving you?’
‘I trow not! I’ll have him with me in the camp, and he and my brave men shall be one another’s pride. Which Roman emperor is it that hears the nickname his father’s soldiers gave him as a child? Nay—Caligula was it? Omens are against me this morning.’
‘Then laughs them to scorn, and be yourself,’ said James. ‘Bless God for the goodly child, who is born to two kingdoms, won by his father’s and his grandsire’s swords.’
‘Ah!’ said Henry, depressed by failing health, a sleepless night, and hungry morning, ‘maybe it were better for him, soul and body both, did I stand here Duke of Lancaster, and good Edmund of March yonder were head of realm and army.’
‘Never would he be head of this army,’ said James. ‘He would be snoring at Shene; that is, if he could sleep for the trouble the Duke of Lancaster would be giving him.’
Henry laughed at last. ‘Good King Edmund, he would assuredly never try to set the world right on its hinges. Honest fellow, soon he will be as hearty in his congratulations as though he did not lie under a great wrong. Heigh-ho! such as he may be in the right on’t. I’ve marvelled of late, whether any priest or hermit could bring back my old assurance, that all this is my work on earth, or tell me if it be all one grand error. Men there have been like Cæsar, Alexander, or Charlemagne, who thought my thoughts and worked them out; and surely Church and nations cry aloud for purifying. Jerusalem, and a general council—I saw them once clear and bright before me; but now a mist seems to rise up from Richard’s blood, and hide them from me; and there comes from it my father’s voice when he asked on his deathbed what right I had to the crown. What would it be if I had to leave this work half done?’