“They be so. But the first left a lad and a lass; and that lad left a lass, and that lass left a lad—which is alive and jolly.”
This meant, that Queen Margaret of Scotland, elder sister of Henry the Eighth, had issue King James the Fifth, whose daughter was Mary Queen of Scots, and her son was James the Sixth, then living.
“You count the right lieth there?” queried Mr Tremayne.
Mr Underhill nodded his head decidedly.
“And is—yonder party—well or ill affected unto the Gospellers?—how hear you?”
“Lutheran to the back-bone—with no love for Puritans, as men do now begin to call us Hot Gospellers.”
“Thus is the Queen, mecounteth: and we have thriven well under her, and have full good cause to thank God for her.”
“Fifty years gone, Robin—when she was but a smatchet (a very young person)—I said that lass would do well. There is a touch of old Hal in her—not too much, but enough to put life and will into her.”
“There shall scantly be that in him.”
“Nay, I’ll not say so much. Meg had a touch of Hal, too. ’Twas ill turning her down one road an’ she took the bit betwixt her teeth, and had a mind to go the other. There was less of it in Mall, I grant you. And as to yon poor luckless loon, Mall’s heir,—if he wit his own mind, I reckon ’tis as much as a man may bargain for. England ne’er loveth such at her helm—mark you that, Robin. She may bear with them, but she layeth no affiance in them.”