"Enough!" interrupted the king; "I know I am dishonored; but the villain shall die. Read the letter, Gloucester, and say what tortures shall stamp my vengeance!"
Gloucester opened the vellum, and read, in the queen's hand:
"Gentle minstrel! my lady countess tells me I must not see you again. Were you old or ugly, as most bards are, I might, she says; but being young, it is not for a queen to smile upon one of your calling. She bade me remember, that when I smiled, you smiled too; and that you asked me questions unbecoming your degree. Pray do not do this any more; though I see no harm in it; alas! I used to smile as I liked when I was in France. Oh, if it were not for those I love best, who are now in England, I wish I were there again! and you would go with me, gentle minstrel, would you not? And you would teach me to sing so sweetly! I would then never talk with you, but would always speak in song; how pretty that would be! and then we should be from under the eyes of this harsh countess. My ladies in France would let you come in and stay as long with me as I pleased. But as I cannot go back again, I will make myself happy here in spite of the countess, who rules me more as if she were my stepmother than I hers; but then to be sure she is a few years older.
"I will see you this evening, and your sweet harp shall sing all my heart-aches to sleep. My French lady of honor will conduct you secretly to my apartments. I am sure you are too honest even to guess at what the countess thinks you might fancy when I smile on you. But, gentle minstrel, presume not, and you shall ever find an indulgent mistress in M—
"P.S. At the last vespers to-night, my page shall come for you."
Gloucester knew the queen's handwriting; and not being able to contradict that this letter was hers, he inquired how it came into his majesty's hands.
"I found it," replied Soulis, "in crossing the courtyard; it lay on the ground, where, doubtless, it had been accidentally dropped by the queen's messenger."
Gloucester, wishing to extenuate for the queen's sake, whose youth and inexperience he pitied, affirmed that, from the simplicity with which the note was written, from her innocent references to the minstrel's profession, he could not suppose that she addressed him in any other character.
"If he be only a base itinerant harper," replied the king, "the deeper is my disgrace; for, if a passion of another king than music be not portrayed in every word of this artful letter, I never read a woman's heart!"
The king continued to comment on the fatal scroll with the lynx-eye of jealousy, loading her name with every opprobrium. Gloucester inwardly thanked Heaven that none other than Soulis and himself were present to hear Edward fasten such foul dishonor on his queen. The generous earl could not find other arguments to assuage the mountain ire of her husband. She might be innocent of actual guilt, or indeed of being aware of more than a queen's usual interest in a poor wandering minstrel was, as the king said, in every line. Gloucester remaining silent, Edward believed him convinced of the queen's crime; and being too wrathful to think of caution, he sent for the bishop and others of his lords, and when they entered, vented to them also his injury and indignation. Many were not inclined to be of the same opinion with their sovereign; some thought with Gloucester, others deemed the letter altogether a forgery; and a few adopted the severer inferences of her husband; but all united (even those determined to spare the queen) in recommending an immediate apprehension and private execution of the minstrel.