'I know not, lad, I know not,' he said. 'He speaks fair enough, but I doubt there is too much wind under his cap for us to count too much on his steadfastness. Still, better a popinjay at Court than no friend at all. Things look black indeed if all he says be true. God knows what counsel is being breathed in the Queen's ears, but 'tis certain her right hand is held out to Spain. Since peace was made with France, I thought there would be leisure for England to complete the good work within herself; but now this dallying with Spain and the woman of Scotland of which I hear may mar all, and we perhaps shall have to fight the fight again. Heaven send these piracies—of which Mr. Drake writes to us, and of which Lord Robert speaks—may by God's help prosper, till they make a breach between His people and the spawn of antichrist, such as no Queen or King or embassy can heal.'
It surprised me to hear so godly a man as Mr. Cartwright speak of Heaven prospering piracy, but I was wont to believe all he said was right, and held my peace. He went on then to tell me how earnest her Majesty was that Lord Robert should marry the Queen of Scots, and how well she had received the new Spanish ambassador at Richmond, and many other evil signs.
'But surely, sir,' said I, 'in this she deserves the praise of our party, seeing that if the Queen of Scots had so godly a husband as our High Steward, all practices against the cause in Scotland would end, and a true succession be assured.'
'Speak not of it, lad,' Mr. Cartwright replied. 'It is but cozening of the Lord to dally thus with antichrist. England must have no part with the accursed thing. Rome and Reformation, there are these two, and no other; and we must choose between them. Pray, lad, and watch and toil by night and day, by thought and deed, that the choice may be the right. Above all, pray, as I have ever bid you, that we may see the Queen speedily matched to some godly Protestant lord, so that, being blessed with issue, she may keep the succession clear from all fear of Romish taint. Wrestle, lad, with the Lord for that. It is the only hope and safeguard of Reformation in England.'
He uttered no more than we all thought then from the wisest and most wide-seeing to the most ignorant and bigoted. He, I think, saw it more plainly than many, and during the rest of the Queen's visit we spoke of little but these things, till I fully shared his thought that the tide of Rome, which, had begun to flow again, and had already covered so many fair Protestant provinces, was setting hard towards England; and each morn and night my prayers went up with those of all our party, and many a one beside, that the Queen might soon be wed.
So moved was I by all this talk that I could take but little note of the disputations, plays, and pageants with which my university entertained the Queen, the more so as Mr. Cartwright took no more part in them. Still, I saw her every day, and dreamed of her every night, feeling I loved her more and more for the dangers that surrounded her, and that I would spare not even my life to ward her from her enemies.
On the 10th of August, after a morning shower of degrees upon all the Court, the Queen left Cambridge, and I not long afterwards, being troubled with an ague, went home to Longdene.
CHAPTER VI
'Hail! man of learning,' cried Harry to me, as the day after my coming home I rode up to Ashtead. He was standing at the gate about to mount his horse as though for a journey. He had grown a man since I saw him, and looked handsomer and happier than I had ever seen him.