At this date, there was in the kingdom but one Princess. The daughters of the monarch did not bear that title until the accession of the House of Stuart. "My Lady Princess," therefore, meant Joan of Kent, widow of the Black Prince, and mother of King Richard. She had been in her early youth a very giddy girl, and had sobered down in later life, under the instrumentality of Wycliffe, into the chief nursing mother of the Lollard Church. Her influence with her royal son was powerful, and she was one of the three practical rulers of England at this juncture. For the Princess to send for Roger might therefore mean something of greater import than a mere impulse of kindliness from a lady to a child.
"Is that sooth?"[#] demanded Sir Gerard, almost as excited as Mistress Grenestede.
[#] Truth.
"True as truth, I do ensure you. What shall hap of it, think you?"
"Dear heart, who wist? Shall it be now?"
"Nay, time enough. To-morrow. My Lord bade me don him in his best array, and at eight o' the clock Sir Lewis Clifford shall come for him."
"Who for?" demanded Roger, quite as ungrammatically, and looking up with an eager expression in his eyes.
"Lo' you now, if he be not a-hearkening!—Why, for you, fair Lord. At eight o' the clock to-morrow."
"Who cometh for me?"
"Sir Lewis de Clifford, Knight of the Body to my Lady Princess. Now hark you, sweet Lord; I trust you shall be of gentle conditions—not too masterful, nor yet abashed,[#] but with good manners. 'Tis a great thing for a young gentleman like you to be sent for to my Lady the Princess."