“Her Grace is very favourable to your cause, as I have already stated, Sir Henry,” observed Peckham, “and wishes it all possible success.”
“She has need to do,” said Sir Anthony Kingston. “If we succeed, we shall place the crown upon her head.”
“There is yet another gentleman whom you have not made known to me, Sir Henry,” said Osbert, indicating a dark, sinister-looking personage, in a philemot-coloured mantle and doublet, who stood aloof from the others.
“Ha! this is a very useful person,” replied Dudley. “This is M. de Freitville, a secret agent of the King of France, who promises to aid our enterprise with men and money.”
“I hope he will fulfil his promises better than those made by him to Wyat,” remarked Osbert, regarding Freitville distrustfully.
“Had Wyat held out a few days longer, he would not have lacked support,” rejoined Freitville. “My royal master afforded an asylum and gave pensions to all those implicated in the rebellion who fled to France. His Excellency M. de Noailles will tell you that his Majesty has ever been hostile to this Spanish alliance, and that, failing in preventing it, he is now determined to drive the Queen and her husband from the throne, and set up the Princess Elizabeth in their stead.”
“Has he no other views?” said Osbert.
“None averse to this country,” said De Noailles, “that I can declare emphatically. It would be idle to assert that my royal master is influenced by the same motives that you are; but the end is the same. You both seek the dissolution of this marriage and the overthrow of Philip—he as the avowed enemy of Spain, you as suffering from the tyranny of Philip, and anxious to restore the Reformed religion. Our interests, therefore, are identical, and we make common cause together against the foe. For my own part, I have a personal antipathy to Philip. He has done me a grievous injury, and I will never rest till I requite him. Some day or other his life will be in my hands and then he shall feel my vengeance.”
“My wrongs are greater than yours,” cried Osbert. “I have thrown off all allegiance to him, and am henceforth his deadly foe. He has stepped between me and her whom I love dearer than life, and has sought to sacrifice her to his unhallowed desires. He is unworthy to be the Queen’s consort—unworthy to govern Englishmen. I will shed my heart’s blood in the attempt to drive him from the throne.”
“Why not plunge a dagger in his breast,” said Freitville, “and so rid the country of a tyrant?”