'Uncle,' she said, 'where got you the jewel in your bonnet?'
He started a little back at that, and the small veins in his yellow eye-whites grew inflamed with blood.
'Queen——' he brought out between rage and astonishment that she should dare the taunt.
'I think it came from the great chalice of the Abbey of Rising,' she said. 'We are valiant defenders of the Church, who wear its spoils upon our very brows.'
It was as if she had thrown down a glove to him and to a great many that were behind him.
She knew very well where she stood, and she knew very well what her uncle and his friends awaited for her, for Margot, her maid, brought her alike the gossip of the Court and the loudly voiced threats and aspirations of the city. For the Protestants—she knew them and cared little for them. She did not believe there were very many in the King's and her realm, and mostly they were foreign merchants and poor men who cared little as long as their stomachs were filled. If these had their farms again they would surely return to the old faith, and she was minded to do away with the sheep. For it was the sheep that had brought discontent to England. To make way for these fleeces the ploughmen had been dispossessed.
It was natural that Protestants should hate her; but with Norfolk and his like it was different. She knew very well that Norfolk came there that day and waited every day, watching anxiously for the first sign that the King's love for her should cool. She knew very well that they said in the Court that with the King it was only possession and then satiety. And she knew very well that when Norfolk's eyes searched her face it was for signs of dismay and of discouragement. And when Norfolk had said that he himself had placed the banners, the tents, the pavilions and carpets that made gay all that grim terrace of the air, he was essaying to make her think that the King was abandoning the task of doing her honour. This had made her angry, for it was such folly. Her uncle should have known that the King had discussed all these things with her, asking her what she liked, and that all these bright colours and these plaisaunces were what her man had gallantly thought out for her. She carried her challenge still further.
'It ill becomes us Howards and all like us,' she said, 'to talk of how we will defend the Church of God——'
'I am a swordsman only,' he said. 'Give me that——'
She was not minded to listen to him.