“Dame Ysabeau, la prophécie
Que li sage dit ne ment mie,
Que la royne sut ceus grever
Qui tantost laquais sot aymer—”[4]
and so on. It was a lengthy ditty, and in its wording not oversqueamish; the Queen’s career in England was detailed without any stuttering, and you would have found the catalogue unhandsome. Yet Sir Gregory delivered it with an incisive gusto, desperately countersigning his own death warrant. Her treacheries, her adulteries and her assassinations were rendered in glowing terms whose vigor seemed, even now, to please their contriver. Yet the minstrel added a new peroration.
Sang Sir Gregory:
“Ma voix mocque, mon cuer gémit—
Peu pense à ce que la voix dit,
Car me membre du temps jadis
Et d’ung garson, d’amour surpris,