The discomfited Breteuil bit his lip and was silent, but that night his best charger was sent to the royal stables; while the rest of the hunters, who were now fast pouring in from the chase, with the populace which at the first news of the Red King’s death had begun to shout “King Henry,” gathered around their young monarch and filled the air with their acclamations.
“Maud is right,” said the king to himself, as he beheld the enthusiasm displayed by his people, “to say nothing of the old sybil. Ah! what will my sweet one think when she hears this?”
Three months later and all the chivalry of the realm was gathered in the church at Westminster, while the populace without thronged every avenue to that princely cathedral. Never indeed had a prouder assemblage met at any royal ceremonial. The church blazed with jewels. Nobles in their robes of state; bishops and archbishops with mitre and crozier; countesses whose beauty out-dazzled their diamonds; knights and squires and pages of every rank; burghers with their chains of gold; men-at-arms encased in steel; halberdiers and archers; yeomen with quarter staffs, and foresters with arbalasts; men of every situation of life, and bright ladies, whose loveliness was beyond compare, were gathered in the gorgeously ornamented church, amid the waving of banners, the sound of music, the rustling of costly robes, and the smoke of ascending incense, to gaze on the marriage of their monarch to his fair and blushing bride. And there she stood before the altar in all her virgin beauty, her fair blue eyes suffused with tears of joy; while her manly lover stood at her side, the proudest cavalier in all that bright array. And when the archbishop ascended the pulpit, and demanded if any one there objected to the union, the whole audience shouted aloud “that the matter was rightly settled;” then again pealed forth the anthem, and again the incense rose in clouds to the fretted roof. The music ceased, the words were said, the crown was placed on the brow of the princess, and the hunter of the forest, amid the acclamations of his people, pressed to his heart the King’s Bride.
“Do you believe in presentiments now?” said the young queen, half laughing, to her royal husband when they reached the palace.
“I am a convert to your faith whatever it may be, sweet one. Nay! you shall preach no sermon over my retraction, for thus I forbid the homily,” and the king drew the blushing Maud towards him and fondly kissed her.
Many an iron monarch has, since then, sat on the English throne, and many a fair princess has been led by her lover to the altar, but never has a happier or more beautiful pair wore the regal crown in the realm of our ancestors.
MERRY ENGLAND.
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BY J. R. LOWELL.