Robin Tremayne Part 24

"I marvel," suggested Dr Thorpe, half sorrowfully, yet a little scornfully, "how he and the Queen Katherine shall get along the one with the other in Heaven?"

"I count, old friend," answered John, "that the Lutheran Queen and the Gospelling Duke will each be taken up too much with the mercy that hath forgiven his sins, to have any leisure for counting up those of the other."

"Well, they will lack something of the sort," replied the old man.

"How can there be disagreement where each seeth clear?" said Mr Rose, "or how any disliking in the presence of the Mediator?"

Dr Thorpe made no answer, but he shook Mr Rose's offered hand warmly; and when he was gone, he said, "That is a good man. I would I were a better."

"Amen!" responded Avery, "for us all."

About the middle of March came Annis Holland to pay her farewell visit to Isoult. She was a quiet, gentle-looking woman, rather short, and inclining to embonpoint, her hair black, and her eyes dark grey. She was to start for Spain on the 22nd of the same month, under the escort of Don Jeronymo, a Spanish gentleman in the household of the d.u.c.h.ess of Suffolk. The city to which she was bound was Tordesillas, and there (where the Queen resided) she was to await the orders of the Marquis of Denia, who was her Majesty's Comptroller. Annis promised to write to her friend twice every year, while she remained abroad.

A few days after Annis's departure, there was a dinner-party at the Lamb. The guests were Mr and Mrs Underhill, Mr and Mrs Rose, Thekla, and Mr Holland.

Mr Underhill brought bad news. The King had fallen ill of small-pox, and Parliament was likely to be prorogued, since he could no longer be present at the debates. The idea that the royal presence might overawe the members, and the consequent absence of the Sovereign from the House excepting for state ceremonies, are no older than the Restoration. The Plantagenet and Tudor Kings sat in their Parliaments as a matter of course.

After dinner, Mr Holland, who was fond of children, set Kate on his knee, and won her heart by permitting her to chatter as freely as she pleased. Robin and Thekla crept into a quiet corner by themselves; Mrs Underhill made Esther her especial companion; and the rest sat round the fire.

"What think you," said Dr Thorpe to Mr Underhill, "should now hap, if (which G.o.d of His mercy defend!) this sickness of the King were to prove mortal?"

"How mean you?" Mr Underhill answered, "that the King should or should not provide his successor?"

"Why," replied Dr Thorpe, "will he shut out his sisters?"

"There are that would right gladly have him to do so."

"Whom aim you at there?"

"My Lord of Northumberland and other," said he.

Dr Thorpe exploded, as was usual with him, at Northumberland's name.

"What, the Duke of Blunderhead?" cried he. "Ay, I reckon he would like well to be John the Second. Metrusteth the day that setteth the fair crown of England on that worthless head of his, shall see me safe in Heaven, or it should go hard with me but I would pluck it thence!"

"I never can make out," answered Mr Underhill, laughing, "how you can be a Lutheran, and yet such an enemy to my Lord of Northumberland, that is commonly counted head of the Lutheran party, at the least in the sense of public matters."

"Nay, my word on't!" exclaimed he, "but if I thought the Devil, by that his proxy, to be head of the Lutheran party, in any sense or signification whatsoever, I would turn Gospeller to-morrow!"

Mr Underhill roared with laughter. John said, aside to Mr Rose,--"He is not far from it now."

"Come, you are over hard on Jack Dudley," said Mr Underhill. "He is an old friend of mine."

"Then I wish you joy of your friends," replied Dr Thorpe, in a disgusted tone: adding after a minute, "I yet look for your answer to my question."

"I am no prophet," answered he, "neither a prophet's son; but it needeth not much power of prophecy to see that a civil war, or something very like it, should follow."

"In either case?" suggested Avery.

"In the case of the King making no appointment," he said, "very likely: in the case of his so doing, almost certain."

"Eh, my masters!" continued Dr Thorpe very sadly, "when I was born, seventy-one years gone, the Wars of the Roses were scantly over. I have heard my father tell what they were. Trust me, rather than go through such a time again, I would be on my knees to G.o.d to spare it unto us,-- ay, night and day."

"But in case no devise of the succession were made," said John, "the Lady Mary's Grace should follow without gainsaying, I take it."

"Not without gainsaying," answered Mr Rose. "My Lord of Northumberland knoweth full well that he could not reign under her as he hath done under King Edward. Remember, she is no child, but a woman; ay, and a woman taught by suffering also."

"And every Lutheran in the kingdom would gather round him," added Mr Underhill.

"Round John Dudley?" cried Dr Thorpe. "Hang me if I would!"

"Saving your masters.h.i.+p," said Mr Underhill, laughing, and making him a low bow.

"And every Papist would go with the Lady Mary," said John. "It were an hard choice for us. How think you? Which way should the Gospellers go?"

"Which way?" cried Mr Underhill, flaring up. "Why, the right way! With the right heir of England, and none other!"

"I asked not you, Ned Underhill," answered John, smiling. "I know your horse, and how hard you ride him. I wished to question Rose and Holland."

Mr Rose did not answer immediately. Mr Holland said, "It were an hard case; yet methinks Mr Underhill hath the right. Nothing can make right wrong, I take it, neither wrong to be right."

"Truth: yet that is scarce the question," responded Avery. "Rather is it, if the King made another devise of the crown, who should then be the right heir?"

"Ah! now you are out of my depth," answered Mr Holland. "This little maid and I understand each other better. Do we not so, Kate?"

"Well, Rose?" inquired John.

"Prithee, get Mr Underhill out of the house first," interposed Dr Thorpe, laughing.

"Or we shall have a pitched battle. I would like nothing better!" said Mr Underhill, rubbing his hands, and laughing in his turn.

"Brother," said Mr Rose, turning to him, "the wisdom that cometh from above is peaceable."

"But first, pure!" answered Mr Underhill, quickly.

"There were little of the one, if it should lack the other," responded he.

"Come, give us your thought!" cried Mr Underhill. "I will endeavour myself to keep mine hands off you, and allgates, if I grow very warlike, Avery and Holland can let me from blood-shedding."

"When I find myself in the difficulty, I will," replied Mr Rose, with his quiet smile.

And no more could Mr Underhill obtain from him: but he said that he would demand an answer if the occasion arose.

The King had no sooner recovered from the small-pox than he took the measles; and the Parliament, seeing no hope of his speedy amendment, broke up on the 15th of April.

Mr Rose stepped into the Lamb that evening.

"There is a point of our last week's matter, that I would like your thought upon," said Avery to him. "Granted that the Gospellers should make a self party, and not join them with Lutherans ne with Papists, touching public matters, where, think you, look we for a leader?"