“We need not,” coolly responded Catesby: “but if all be gone, who then shall be published or elected king?”
“Why, we have never entered into that consideration,” said Grant, dubiously.
“Had we not best enter into it? Our plans must be ready at once, when the time comes, not all hanging betwixt the eyelids.” (i.e. in uncertainty.)
“The Queen and Prince are safe to be there,” said Percy. “And in any case, the Prince were best away; for if all be true that is said, or the half thereof, he were like to do us more mischief than his father. He is not of the King’s humour, but more like old Bess—hath a will of his own, and was bred up strictly Protestant.”
“Bad, that!” said Catesby. “Then the Prince must go.”
“’Tis pity, though,” observed Robert Winter. “A bright little lad.”
Catesby laughed scornfully. “Come now, Robin, no sensibility (susceptibility, sentimentality), I beg! We cannot afford to be punctual (particular) in this affair. There are bright lads by the dozen everywhere, as cheap as blackberries. Now, what of the little Duke?”
The man who spoke thus was himself the father of two boys.
“He’ll not be much of aught at five years old,” said Winter. “Mr Percy, you were the most like of any of us to win him into your hands.”
Percy, as one of the band of gentleman pensioners, whose duty it was to wait on the King, had opportunities of access to the little Prince, beyond any of his accomplices.