"What, the queen?" said my lady, white as a smock.
"Verily a queen," he answered gloomily. "I warrant you the Queen of Scots hath ended as she did begin, and dragged his grace into a pit from whence I promise you he will never now rise. A letter writ in her cipher to the Duke of Alva hath been intercepted, in which that luckless royal wight, ever fatal to her friends as to herself, doth say, 'that she hath a strong party in England, and lords who favor her cause; some of whom, albeit prisoners, so powerful, that the Queen of England should not dare to touch their lives.' Alack! those words, 'should not dare,' shall prove the death-warrant of my noble brother. Cursed be the day when he did get entangled in that popish siren's plots!"
"Speak not harshly of her, good my lord," quoth Lady Surrey, in her gentle voice. "Her sorrows do bear too great a semblance to our own not to bespeak from us patience in this mishap."
"Nan," said Lord Berkeley, "thou art of too mild a disposition. 'Tis the only fault I do find with thee. Beshrew me, if my wife and thee could not make exchange of some portion of her spirit and thy meekness to the advantage of both. I warrant thee Phil's wife should hold a tight hand over him."
"I read not that precept in the Bible, my lord," quoth she, smiling. "It speaketh roundly of the duty of wives to obey, but not so much as one word of their ruling."
"Thou hadst best preach thy theology to my Lady Berkeley," he answered; "and then she—"
"But I pray you, my lord, is it indeed your opinion that the queen will have his grace's life?"
"I should not give so much as a brass pin, Nan, for his present chance of mercy at her hands," he replied sadly. And his words were justified in the event.
Those relentless enemies of the duke, my Lords Burleigh and Leicester, —who, at the time of the queen's illness, had stood three days and three nights without stirring from her bedside in so great terror lest she should die and he should compass the throne through a marriage with the Queen of Scots, that they vowed to have his blood at any cost if her majesty did recover,—so dealt with parliament as to move it to send a petition praying that, for the safety of her highness and the quieting of her realm, he should be forthwith executed. And from that day to the mournful one of his death, albeit from the great reluctance her majesty had evinced to have him despatched, his friends, yea unto the last moment, lived in expectancy of a reprieve; he himself made up his mind to die with extraordinary fortitude, not choosing to entertain so much as the least hope of life.
One day at that time I saw my Lady Margaret mending some hose, and at each stitch she made with her needle tears fell from her eyes. I offered to assist her ladyship; but she said, pressing the hose to her heart, "I thank thee, good Constance; but no other hands than mine shall put a stitch in these hose, for they be my father's, who hath worn them with these holes for many months, till poor Master Dyx bethought himself to bring them here to be patched and mended, which task I would have none perform but myself. My father would not suffer him to procure a new pair, lest it should be misconstrued as a sign of his hope or desire of a longer life, and with the same intent he refuseth to eat flesh as often as the physicians do order; 'for,' quoth he, 'why should I care to nourish a body doomed to such near decay?'" Then, after a pause, she said, "He will not wear clothes which have any velvet on them, being, he saith, a condemned person."