“It is simply, your grace, that this humble player, the least of the Queen’s servants, is alone to blame for all of that which follows. In the first place, the young man was no sooner informed of the peril of the governor of the castle than he desired to yield himself straightway to the will of the sovereign. But the player, mistakenly perhaps, was able to hold him from this most honorable course until a riper season. And in the meantime, the player set his mind to work in order to adduce a tangible proof of this young man’s innocence, so that when the time came for him to cast himself upon the mercy of the Queen, he should not appear empty-handed before her.
“Providence favored him. By means of a device which I will not describe, lest I tax the patience of your grace, the player was able to obtain an irrefragable proof of the young man’s innocence. By the same means, moreover, he was able to adduce clear evidence of those who were guilty. But of this I will presently speak more fully.
“In the meantime, however, while all this was going forward, the hour was drawing near for the new interlude to be given in the presence of the sovereign. And the player deemed such a season to be not the least favorable for two noble but ill-starred children of destiny to invoke justice and mercy of a woman, the first in the realm.”
At this point the player paused in his narrative. A profound silence descended upon all. Every person who had heard the singular story was now aware that it was no mere figment of a poet’s mind. It was a grim and terrible reality. And that unhappy fact was declared in the harsh and cruel eyes of the Queen.
For a full minute not a word was spoken. The player had given as much of his story as was vital to his design. And now with a true political instinct he refrained from adding another word, but left it to the Queen herself to speak.
She made no haste to do so. Astonished beyond measure, resentful, angry, she brought the whole of her powerful mind to bear upon the matter before giving expression to her thoughts. Dumbfounded as she was by the audacity and the indiscretion of this man, two facts dominated her now. The mystery attending the circumstances of the young man, Gervase Heriot’s escape from Nottingham Castle, was now made clear. The unlucky Sir John Feversham had neither art nor part in it after all. He had kept a stubborn silence for no other reason than to shield his daughter. And it was none other than that froward young woman who had given that charming performance in the new comedy but a few minutes ago. At last the Queen turned to her ladies with a look of sour triumph.
“Did I not say,” she cried, “that that was indeed no youth who strutted in doublet and trunk hose?”
A moment afterwards the august lady had turned imperiously to the player.
“This seems but a tame conclusion to your new interlude, Master Shakespeare.”
“Most humbly and respectfully do I beg your grace to devise an issue to this pitiful story.” The player had now sunk upon one knee. “It lies far beyond the compass of my own poor contrivance. But it is within the province of your grace to fashion it in either the comic or the tragic vein. Yet if it shall seem good to you to fashion it in the latter, there is one last boon that I have to crave for these children of fate, and on my knees I do so.”