The years went by again. At last all was changed in England. The monarchy was restored, and the land was smiling and content. One day there was a private reading in the Queen’s chamber of the palace. The voice of the reader moved in pleasant yet vibrant modulations:
“The King was now come to a time when his enemies wickedly began to
plot against him secretly and to oppose him in his purposes; which,
in his own mind, were beneficent and magnanimous. From the shire
where his labours had been most unselfish came the first malignant
insult to his person and the first peril to his life, prefiguring
the hellish plots and violence which drove him to his august
martyrdom—”
The King had entered quietly as the lady-in-waiting read this passage to the Queen, and, attracted by her voice, continued to listen, signifying to the Queen, by a gesture, that she and her ladies were not to rise. This was in the time when Charles was yet devoted to his Princess of Portugal, and while she was yet happy and undisturbed by rumours—or assurances—of her Lord’s wandering affections.
“And what shire was that?” asked the King at that point where the chronicler spoke of his royal father’s “august martyrdom.”
“The shire of Lincoln, your Majesty,” said the young lady who read, flushing. Then she rose from her footstool at the Queen’s feet, and made the King an elaborate courtesy.
Charles waved a gentle and playful gesture of dissent from her extreme formality, and, with a look of admiration, continued:
“My Lord Rippingdale should know somewhat of that ‘first violence’ of which you have read, Mistress Falkingham. He is of Lincolnshire.”
“He knows all, your Majesty; he was present at that ‘first violence.’”
“It would be amusing for Rippingdale to hear these records—my Lord Clarendon’s, are they not? Ah—not in the formal copy of his work? And by order of my Lord Rippingdale? Indeed! And wherefore, my Lord Rippingdale?”
“Shall I read on, your Majesty?” asked the young lady, with heightened colour, and a look of adventure and purpose in her eyes. Perhaps, too, there was a look of anger in them—not against the King, for there was a sort of eagerness or appealing in the glance she cast towards his Majesty.