"Tut, tut," replied the queen, "what sovereign, whether Christian, Saracen, or Jew, ever kept degrading conditions of peace longer than he was enforced to do so; but mark me, Henry, it is not in the power of thee, or any one, to stay the overflow of pent up waters. Thy friends are more jealous for the honour of Lancaster than thou art thyself; and while thou talkest of peace and forbearance, non-resistance of evil, and the like priestly stuff, the very menials of thy kitchen are arming themselves to redress thy wrongs, and are, I see, setting upon the traitor Warwick, whose insolent intrusions into our royal palace thou may'st tolerate, but thy grooms will not."

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"Ha, ha, ha!" cried the prince, who was peeping through the rails of the balcony, "and it is excellent fun, on my faith, to see the cooks and scullions joining the Duke of Exeter's men, and basting the bear of Neville with spits and ladles, and all sorts of kitchen weapons of offence. Ha, ha! the ragged staff flees."

"What is the meaning of the unhallowed evil which the Nevilles and Hollands have raised under our royal windows?" demanded the king of the Duke of Exeter, who then entered with a heightened colour, and flashing eyes, and exchanged looks of gratulation with the queen.

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May it like your grace," he replied, "it is a fray between Warwick's bully-boys and my retainers, who came to help your faithful servants at their need, for the Nevilles had used such despiteful language of our lady the queen, which no loyal liegemen could hear without contradiction, and where words are hot high blows follow as things of course. The proud earl, who had borne himself in the council-chamber as if we all owed our allegiance to him and Richard of York-nay, marry, as if Somerset and I wore our heads by his sufferance alone-came out in a mighty fume to take barge just in convenient time to catch a volley of uncourteous missives which, though aimed at his grooms, found nobler mark by the grace of our holidome, so that he was fain to flee post haste to his barge, which, as evil luck would have it, was in readiness for him at the palace stairs,

or he might have carried off a broken head with him."

"Or found his way to Barnard Castle headless," cried the "Ah, queen. Exeter! Exeter! it was a sore blunder to chafe the hornet's ireful mood, and then allow him to flee away to his nest to recover his venom."

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Nay, madam," returned the duke, my will was good to have slain him in the council chamber, but the Bishop of London withheld mine arm.”

"Fair doings, in sooth," observed the King. "Is this the way, cousin Exeter, that you keep the pacification to which you and this very earl swore, with linked hands, before the high altar of St. Paul's cathedral ?"

"I went through that vain ceremony, not for mine own good liking, but to pleasure your grace and the bishops, who were minded to oblige the citizens of London with a holiday and a pageant withal," rejoined the Duke of Exeter.

"Fie, fie, my lord, you are to blame, in sooth, to hold your oath so lightly," said the king; "besides, cousin Exeter, you have, I fear, struck the first spark of a fire that will, mayhap, pass your power to quench. How think you, that the stout Earl of Warwick and his friends will ever venture to sit with you at the same council table again?"

"It is an honour of which I do not happen to be particularly ambitious," replied the duke, casting a look of sarcastic import upon his sovereign; "for know, my liege, that the presence of the sworn foes of Lancaster is no very pleasant assistance to the deliberations of your faithful servants."

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"No, by the mass," observed the queen ; “ and much I marvel how it was endured so long."

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May it please your grace to remember, that we have availed ourselves of the first opportunity of expelling the intruders, which perhaps we might not easily have done, had not the Duke of York thought proper, in a lucky season for us, to visit Ireland, thereby leaving his party here in a minority," said the Duke of Exeter;" and now we must strain every nerve to crush the rebel faction root and branch, for having struck the first blow we must not be content with acting on the defensive. We must take the field

to-morrow, but the worst of it is the London apprentices and petty crafts are all for the white rose faction." "We'll teach them better manners," said the queen, 66 or make them pay for their folly a set of low-bred traitors!" Nay, nay, revile them not, good Margaret," said the king. "It is the infirmity of poor blind mortals to be discontented with those who rule over them. It is not hatred to us, but the fickleness of their natures, that inclineth them to affect our foes: they hope to fare the better for a change of masters. I hope they may not be deceived, if it please the King of kings to let another take my office."

"Did'st ever hear the like?" muttered the queen to Exeter. The heir presumptive of Lancaster elevated his brows, and shrugged his shoulders slightly, but significantly, in return, as he observed,

"The love and tender consideration which it hath pleased his grace at all times to manifest towards his enemies, is such as to make him forgetful of the charity which proverbs say should begin at home. Howbeit the day is passed when such feelings can with safety be indulged. Blood hath been shed by the lawless followers of this ruffian earl within the verge of the palace."

"Blood!" repeated the king.

"The blood of two faithful wellappointed cooks, and half a dozen scullions at the least, who have been barbarously slain by Warwick's men," said the duke.

"Alack but this is heavy news," replied Henry. "I will order a dozen masses to be said for the benefit of their souls."

"You had better sign a warrant for the arrest of the traitor earl, whose violence hath caused this cruel onslaught," said the queen.

"Nay," objected the king, "but it seemeth that he began not the fray."

"He gave the first provocation," said the Duke of Exeter ; " and well it was for your grace that no worse came of it than the loss of cooks and scullions."

"Their souls are of equal value, in the sight of their Creator, with those of kings and dukes, cousin Exeter," said the king, reprovingly.

"Therefore doth it the more seriously

behove your grace to take vengeance for their murder, so barbarously committed in your very sight," returned the duke.

"At all events," observed the queen, "the manner and circumstances of their deaths should be inquired into, if it be only for the satisfaction of the rest of your subjects; or it will be presently set down among the grievances of the commons, that earls and the like are free to kill and slay any one who looketh them full in the face, and that without even the ceremony of an inquiry from the offended law."

Thus urged, the king was prevailed upon to sign an order for the arrest of the great political agitator of his reign; but Warwick evaded its execution by a hasty flight, and seeking the powerful Earl of Salisbury, his father, they repaired to the Duke of York, to concert measures with him for avenging the affront he had received.

The Duke of York, who was no less weary of the hollow peace than the queen and the partisans of Lancaster, eagerly availed himself of this occasion to resume his former hostile position; and the word throughout the kingdom was once more, "To your tents, O Israel."

CHAPTER III.

"He who fights and runs away,

May live to fight another day." EIGHTEEN months after the scene we have just described, the Earl of Warwick obtained signal vengeance for the affront which had been thus rashly put upon him through the contrivance of the queen and her imprudent counsellors. He obtained it on the red field of Northampton, where he and the fierce heir of York, Edward Earl of March, commanded the army of the white rose, when king Henry was made prisoner; and queen Margaret, with her young son, fled, with only seven followers, from the slaughter of that disastrous day. We leave the details of the public events that followed, to the grave pen of the historian, while we pursue the fortunes of one of the few noble fugitives who escaped the vengeful swords of March and Warwick; this was the Duke of Exeter. Long after the treacherous de

sertion of the Lord Grey de Ruthin had decided the victory in favour of the Yorkists, he had, with desperate valour, maintained his ground, till a severe wound compelled him to retire behind the lines to receive surgical aid. The rout then became general, from the moment his lofty crest was no longer discerned as a general rallying point for the faithful adherents of Lancaster.

"For the love of all the saints in heaven, use presto time in sewing up that gash, master Luke," cried the impatient duke, stamping furiously upon the bloody ground.

"I cut the arrow head out, right skilfully," observed master Luke, " and your lordship did not wince in the least; then 'tis pity that you get so tetchy about the flesh basting, that I cannot set a stitch right for your starts and shivers."

"Can't you take one great stitch, blockhead, and bind all up, that so I may mount again, and give another charge for Lancaster," exclaimed the duke, clenching his teeth!

"Impossible, my lord duke! Flesh basting, ergo, closing a wound, is a delicate operation, and must be performed with due care and caution. There are veins and arteries to take up withal; and your impatience mars its own ends, my lord, and will bring on fever, he morrhage, and many other fatal symptoms," pursued master Luke.

Here, James Audley, the duke of Exeter's favourite squire, galloped up with consternation painted in his coun

tenance.

"What now, James Audley," cried the duke, "how goeth the battle?"

"Worse and worse, my lord, if worse can be of that which was lost ere it began," responded the squire; "but ask no questions till master Luke hath finished dressing that ghastly wound with which he is busied."

"And hath been torturing with his pedantic fashion of stitching and lapping, and binding, and wrapping for the last precious hour;" said the duke, angrily snatching his arm from the hold of the astonished leech, who with a low reverence replied, "Three minutes and two seconds by Northampton clock."

"Is all right now?" asked the squire anxiously. "Yea," replied master Luke sulkily, "and I am defrauded alike of thanks and guerdon, I suppose. Discourteous words and bitter frowns being all the payment I am likely to receive for having stood under a shower of arrows, while I performed mine office like a man."

Pay him, James Audley, an it be with my last noble," cried the duke, flinging his purse to his squire, "and then follow me, like a man, to one last charge for Lancaster."

"To what purpose is it, my lord, that you would expose your life, when there is not even the vestige of a forlorn hope remaining to gild the path to death," said the squire, looking imploringly in his lord's face.

"Oh, if those mute cannon would but open one roaring salute upon the rear of Warwick's troops," cried the duke impatiently.

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"Those cannon, my lord, are, as you said at the first, unskilfully planted; and the incessant down-pouring of the angry heavens has rendered them useless." Yea, by my George and Garter, I told the queen how it would be; but she trusted that matter to her dainty minion, Somerset, and he (pests and famine seize him therefore!) would needs show his consequence by controlling my counsels, and placing them where the waters from the hill above poured down full upon them, fighting thereby the battle of our foes."

"My lord, it is useless to refer these matters to secondary causes, see you not that the thing was determined long before, that the sun of Lancaster should set on this field."

"It hath not, and it shall not set thus," cried the duke vehemently.

was the warning cry of the retreating followers of the queen and Somerset.

"A thousand crowns of gold for the heads of the dukes of Somerset and Exeter," was next vociferated by the heralds of the Earl of March.

"Exeter for Lancaster, and death to the traitors of March and Warwick!" shouted the proscribed partisan of the red rose, vaulting once more on his pawing charger, and waving his sword above his head.

"It is all in vain, my lord; your single valour cannot change the fortunes of the day," said the squire. "The king is captive, the queen and the young prince are fled away no one knoweth whither, and all the chivalry of the red rose slain or dispersed."

"What remaineth then for us but to follow the example of those loyal gentlemen, who have sold their lives dearly for the sake of their rightful sovereign?" exclaimed the duke.

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Nay rather to follow the lead of the queen, and of all who wish to keep alive the spirit of the cause," said the squire. "Aye, marry, but thine is the true counsel, young Audley," cried master Luke, whom the shining contents of his noble patient's purse had restored to good humour; "any bully may fight and fall, but the best craft of the general is shown in successful retreat. My lord duke, I'll venture to exchange my furred bonnet of black paduazoy, for that perilous basinet of yours I may as well have the spoil of its gold and jewellery, as a foe to the cause; and as for that bright armour of Milan steel, your lordship will do well to cast it from you; peaceful clothing, be it ne'er so plain, will be a more profitable defence," continued he, as he hastily assisted his squire in stripping the defeated general of his

glittering trappings, and was proceeding to divest himself of his own threadbare doublet of rusty black serge, in order to array the duke in the same; but Audley cried, "Hold, hold, good master Luke, my lord will never pass muster as a leech, seeing he knoweth nought of dressing, bleeding, drenching, pilling, powdering, and the like quackifications."

Qualifications, thou untaught varlet!" interposed master Luke, indignantly. "Why, aye," continued he, "I had forgotten when I offered my lord duke the benefit of my gaberdine, that it required more knowledge and nurture than were likely to fall to a peer's lot, to sustain the character of a learned chirurgeon. I doubt me much, whether his lordship, if questioned never so mildly, could pass himself off for any thing so worshipful as a pestle-pounding potecary."

While master Luke was thus indulging his professional pride, Audley was busily employed in providing his lord with a more hopeful disguise in the tabard and accoutrements of a tall Yorkist noble, who lay stiff and stark in his blood near the spot, with which the faithful squire presently transformed the luckless leader of the vanguard of Lancaster, into the semblance of a champion of the winning party.

The trio then separated, master Luke with intent to offer his professional services for lucre, to the wounded nobles and officers of the victorious army; James Audley, to convey exact tidings of the hopeless position of the cause of Lancaster to the fugitive queen, wherever she might be found; and the Duke of Exeter, to seek a temporary shelter in the darksome shades of an adjacent forest.