Gilbert Parker

“ It is not all, noble Queen. Love is more than that. It is the waking in the poorest minds, in the most barren souls, of something greater than themselves—as a chemist should find a substance that would give all other things by touching of them a new and higher value; as light and sun draw from the earth the tendrils of the seed that else had lain unproducing. 'Tis not alone soft words and touch of hand or lip. This caring wholly for one outside one's self kills that self which else would make the world blind and deaf and dumb. None hath loved greatly but hath helped to love in others. ”

“ Elizabeth gazed at the girl coldly and critically. To women she was not over-amiable; but as she looked at the young Huguenot maid, of this calm bearing, warm of colour, clear of eye, and purposeful of face, some thing kindled in her. Most like it was that love for a cause, which was more to be encouraged by her than any woman's love for a man, which as she grew older inspired her with aversion, as talk of marriage brought cynical allusions to her lips. ”

“ Wary, resourceful, sudden in device and powerful in onset, he bore all down, until the Queen cried: "There hath not been such skill in England since my father rode these lists. Three of my best gentlemen down, and it hath been but breathing to him. Now, Sir Harry Lee, it is thy turn," she laughed as she saw the champion ride forward; "and next 'tis thine, Leicester. Ah, Leicester would have at him now!" she added sharply, as she saw the favourite spur forward before the gallant Lee. "He is full of choler—it becomes him, but it shall not be; bravery is not all. ”

“ Loud-voiced gallants came floating by; men of a hundred guilds bearing devices pompously held on their way to the great pageant; country bumpkins up from Surrey roystered and swore that there was but one land that God had blessed, and challenged the grinning watermen from Gravesend and Hampton Court to deny it; and the sun with ardour drove from the sky every invading cloud, leaving Essex and Kent as far as eye could see perfect green gardens of opulence.
Before Elizabeth had left her bed, London had emptied itself into Greenwich Park. ”

“ My voice speaks for no country and for no prince. I have fought for mine own honour, and to prove to England's Queen that she hath a champion who smiteth with strong arm, as on me and my steed this hath been seen to-day."
"Gallantly thought and well said," answered Elizabeth; "but England's champion and his strong arm have no victory. If gifts were given they must needs be cut in twain. But answer me, what is your country? I will not have it that any man pick up the gauge of England for his own honour. What is your country? ”

“ Nor need the occasion of this revolution be a great one; the most trivial event may produce the great fire which burns up wisdom, prudence and habit.
The Earl of Leicester, so long counted astute, clearheaded, and well- governed, had been suddenly foisted out of balance, shaken from his imperious composure, tortured out of an assumed and persistent urbanity, by the presence in Greenwich Palace of a Huguenot exile of no seeming importance, save what the Medici grimly gave him by desiring his head. ”

“ One there is who knows him through and through, and hath little joy in the knowing."
The look in the eyes of the Duke's Daughter became like steel and her voice hardened, and Angele realised that Leicester had in this beautiful and delicate maid-of-honour as bitter an enemy as ever brought down the mighty from their seats; that a pride had been sometime wounded, suffered an unwarrantable affront, which only innocence could feel so acutely. ”

“ Angele's heart fluttered to her mouth, but the soft, simple music helped her, and she began with eyes bent upon the ground, her linked fingers clasping and unclasping slowly.
"I was born at Rouen, your high Majesty," she said. "My mother was a cousin of the Prince of Passy, the great Protestant—"
"Of Passy—ah!" said Elizabeth amazed. "Then you are Protestants indeed; and your face is no invention, but cometh honestly. No, no, 'tis no accident—God rest his soul, great Passy!" ”

“ Where were you born? Of what degree are you? And this Michel de la Foret, when came he to your feet—or you to his arms? I would know all. Begin where life began; end where you sit here at the feet of Elizabeth. This other cushion to your knees. There—now speak. We are alone."
Elizabeth pushed a velvet cushion towards Angele, where she half-knelt, half-sat on the rush-strewn floor of the great chamber. ”

“ No note of praise could be pitched too high for Elizabeth, and if only policy did not intervene, if but no political advantage was lost by saving De la Foret, that safety seemed now secure.
"You tell a tale and adorn it with good grace," she said, and held out her hand. Angele kissed it. "And you have said to Elizabeth what none else dared to say since I was Queen here. He who hath never seen the lightning hath no dread of it. I had not thought there was in the world so much artlessness, with all the power of perfect art. But we live to be wiser. ”

“ Against mischance and dark discoveries my mind, with knowledge hidden from you, hath been firmly arrayed. If it be in your thought that I am set against a marriage which shall serve the nation, purge yourselves, friends, of that sort of heresy, for the belief is awry. Though I think that to be one and always one, neither mated nor mothering, be good for a private woman, for a prince it is not meet. Therefore, say to my Lords and Commons that I am more concerned for what shall chance to England when I am gone than to linger out my living thread. ”

“ David the ancient put a stone in a sling and Goliath laid him down like an egg in a nest—therefore, Nuncio, get thee to the quarry. Obligato, which is to say Leicester yonder, hath no tail—the devil cut it off and wears it himself. So let salt be damned, and go sling thy stone!"
Lempriere was good-humoured again. He fumbled in his purse and brought forth a gold-piece. "Fool, thou hast spoken like a man born sensible and infinite. I understand thee like a book. Thou hast not folly and thou shalt not be answered as if thou wast a fool. ”

“ Well for them that they did so, for though time had flown and royal suitors without number had become figures dim in the people's mind, Elizabeth, fed upon adulation, invoked, admired, besieged by young courtiers, flattered by maids who praised her beauty, had never seen the hands of the clock pass high noon, and still remained under the dearest and saddest illusion which can rest in a woman's mind. Long after the hands of life's clock had moved into afternoon, the ancient prayer was still gravely presented that she should marry and give an heir to England's crown ”

“ I have sworn to one who loves her, and for my dead chief's sake, that I will serve her and be near her until better days be come and she may return in quietness to France. In exile we few stricken folk must stand together, your august Majesty."
Elizabeth's eye flashed up. She was impatient of refusal of her favour. She was also a woman, and that De la Foret should flaunt his devotion to another woman was little to her liking. The woman in her, which had never been blessed with a noble love, was roused. ”

“ Leicester frowned, then smiled, and glanced up and down De la Foret's figure impertinently.
"See, Monsieur de la Foret," she added; "since you will not fight, you shall preach. A priest you came into my kingdom, and a priest you shall remain; but you shall preach good English doctrine and no Popish folly."
De la Foret started, then composed himself, and before he had time to reply, Elizabeth continued: "Partly for your own sake am I thus gracious; for as a preacher of the Word I have not need to give you up, according to agreement with our brother of France. ”

“ The vast crowd disposed itself around the great improvised yard where the Knights Tilters were to engage, and the Queen, followed by her retinue, descended to the dais which had been set up near the palace. Her white satin gown, roped with pearls only at the neck and breast, glistened in the bright sun, and her fair hair took on a burnished radiance. As Angele passed with her in the gorgeous procession, she could not but view the scene with admiring eye, albeit her own sweet sober attire, a pearly grey, seemed little in keeping ”

“ Ah, most sweet Majesty, for great souls like thine, souls born great, this medicine is not needful, for already hath the love of a nation inspired and enlarged it; but for souls like mine and of so many, none better and none worse than me, to love one other soul deeply and abidingly lifts us higher than ourselves. ”

“ Rage was in his heart, and it blinded him to the certainty of his defeat, for he was not expert in the lists. But by a sure instinct he had guessed the identity of the White Horseman, and every nerve quivered with desire to meet him in combat. Last night's good work seemed to have gone for naught. Elizabeth's humour had changed; and to-day she seemed set on humiliating him before the nobles who hated him, before the people who had found in him the cause why the Queen had not married, so giving no heir to the throne. ”

“ My Lord knew it might be easier for a stranger like De la Foret, who came with no encumbrance, to mount to place in the struggles of the Court, than for an Englishman, whose increasing and ever-bolder enemies were undermining on every hand, to hold his own.
He began to think upon ways and means to meet this sudden preference of the Queen, made sharply manifest as he waited in the ante-chamber, by a summons to the refugee to enter the Queen's apartments. When the refugee came forth again he wore a sword the Queen had sent him, and a packet of Latimer's sermons were under his arm. ”

“ He had seen more in it than mere approval of courage and the self-reliant bearing of a refugee of her own religion.
These were days when the soldier of fortune mounted to high places. He needed but to carry the banner of bravery, and a busy sword, and his way to power was not hindered by poor estate. To be gently born was the one thing needful, and Michel de la Foret was gently born; and he had still his sword, though he chose not to use it in Elizabeth's service. ”

“ Cumbered with their armour, and all dust-covered and blood-stained, though not seriously hurt, they were helped to their horses, and rode to the dais where the Queen sat.
"Ye have fought like men of old," she said, "and neither had advantage at the last. England's champion still may cry his challenge and not be forsworn, and he who challenged goeth in honour again from the lists. You, sir, who have challenged, shall we not see your face or hear your voice? For what country, for what prince lifted you the gauge and challenged England's honour?" ”

“ The Court is a city by itself, walled and moated, and hath a life all its own. 'If there be found ten honest men within the city yet will I save it,' saith the Lord. By my father's head, I would not risk a finger on the hazard if this city, this Court of Elizabeth were set 'twixt the fire from Heaven and eternal peace. ”

“ Here he erred, for Leicester found the chance for which he had manoeuvred—to use the feint and thrust got out of Italy. He brought his enemy low, but only after a duel the like of which had never been seen at the Court of England. The toreador had slain his bull at last, but had done no justice to his reputation. Never did man more gallantly sustain his honour with heaviest odds against him than did the Seigneur of Rozel that day. ”

“ He, Lempriere of Rozel, with three dovecotes, the perquage, and the office of butler to the Queen, to be called a "farmer," to be sneered at—it was not in the blood of man, not in the towering vanity of a Lempriere, to endure it at any price computable to mortal mind. ”

“ To seize De la Foret, and send him to the Medici, and then rely on Elizabeth's favour for his pardon, as he had done in the past? That might do, but the risk to England was too great. It would be like the Queen, if her temper was up, to demand from the Medici the return of De la Foret, and war might ensue. Two women, with two nations behind them, were not to be played lightly against each other, trusting to their common sense and humour. ”

“ At first the people cried aloud their encouragement; but as onset and attack after onset and attack showed that two masters of their craft, two desperate men, had met, and that the great sport had become a vital combat between their own champion and the champion of another land—Spain, France, Denmark, Russia, Italy?—a hush spread over the great space, and every eye was strained; men gazed with bated breath. ”

“ Leicester could not live if England's honour should be toppled down like our dear Chris Hatton and his gallants yonder."
The Duke's Daughter curtsied. "Methinks England's honour is in little peril—your Majesty knows well how to 'fend it. No subject keeps it."
"If I must 'fend it, dove, then Leicester there must not fight to-day. It shall surely be Sir Harry Lee. My Lord Leicester must have the place of honour at the last," she called aloud. Leicester swung his horse round and galloped to the Queen. ”

“ I hope, my lords and gentlemen, to die with a good Nunc Dimittis, which could not be if I did not give surety for the nation after my graved bones. Ye shall hear soon—ye shall hear and be satisfied, and so I give you to the care of Almighty God. ”

“ I thank you for your services as butler this day, Monsieur of Rozel. You do your office rarely."
As the Seigneur left Elizabeth's apartments, he met the Earl of Leicester hurrying thither, preceded by the Queen's messenger. Leicester stopped and said, with a slow malicious smile: "Farming is good, then—you have fine crops this year on your holding?" ”