The Queen: “I will send you down one. Come, you love figures. Let me persuade you two-thirds. Go down and think of this. There are people who want to get you out of Court; they will be the first to drop you.”
Lady Suffolk: “Madam, I consult nobody in this; there is no occasion.”
The Queen: “You cannot judge for yourself. Let me prevail. Put yourself in somebody’s hands and let them act for you. Indeed you are so warm you are not fit to act for yourself.” (Repeated the same as I said before.) “Nor indeed very respectful. But you will repent it. I cannot give you leave to go.”
Lady Suffolk: “If anybody could feel as I feel, and could be so entirely innocent as to let me be the only sufferer for the advice they give, I might follow the method your Majesty proposes, but as that is impossible, I must beg leave to act for myself. I wish I might know what I am accused of. In my absence I have been ruined in his Majesty’s favour. At the Bath I have a thousand witnesses of my behaviour. I know my own innocence. Nobody dare tell me that to my knowledge I have ever failed in my duty in any manner.”
The Queen: “You are very G. L. (sic). Not dare to tell you you have been guilty!”
Lady Suffolk: “No, madam, for the Princess and the duke could justify my behaviour, Lord —— and many more; what I meant was as regards to myself. But I cannot think that any wretch is so abandoned to all shame as to stand having the —— (pardon the word) before such a number as was there.”
The Queen: “Pray how did you live at the Bath?”
(Here I told all. Who B. denied, and what happened to Lord B. No parties distinguishable to me.)
The Queen: “Lady Suffolk, pray consider, be calm.”
Lady Suffolk: “Madam, I beg your Majesty will give me permission to retire. Indeed I have not slept since I came back to your house, and believe I never shall under this suspicion of guilt. Madam, will you give me leave to speak?”