to speak as long as she pleased and even affected to put her in some kind of impatience for an answer and when he thought that she had expected it long enough he gently replyed That not having foreseen the reproach she made to him it was not in his power to justifie himself on the sudden and that seeing his Crime was discovered she had no more to do but to punish him And then beholding her with so much the more calmness that she had spoken in passion but Madam continued he let mo be delivered into the hands of the executioner and let me dye you shall be Queen of France and it shall be to me a delightful comfort when I mount the scaffold to know that I am no more an hinderance to you to mount the Throne About a year ago you knew not what reason might make you become mine enemy now you have found it out I am desirous you should be a Queen Ah! Madam cryed he I cannot be guilty of a lovelier Crime With these words he would have departed but the Princess stopped him and being more out of countenance and more afflicted for the unjust reproach that she had cast upon him than for that she had drawn from him bursting forth in Tears at the door of the Closet she gave but too evident signs of her trouble and repentance Suffolk on the other hand being deeply smitten with that new expression of grief which compleated his own had no thoughts of insulting over it He stood with his eyes fixed on the floor directing thither his sighs as well as looks and very far from telling her that she should let him go to the death to which she had condemned him which another perhaps might have done in a profound silence he considered how he might mollifie the deplorable condition which he saw her in though he did not endeavour it for fear of reducing her to another as bad He well perceived that his love disguised it self under all kinds of shapes and that when it should glance forth under the colour of respect and pity that would but revive in her the flames which he desired to smother by making it appear But as he clearly saw into the heart of the Princess so she likewise penetrated into his So that retracting of a sudden the unjust reproach which vexation had made her charge him with Why do ye force me said she to speak what I do not think And why must I be constrained seeing I cannot bend you by a real tenderness which you know so well to be rooted in my heart to attempt to terrifie you by an imaginary hatred which I affect as well as I can What is become of us Suffolk continued she that your virtue makes me despair and my affection oppresses you At these words animated by throbs sighs and tears which love being reduced to the utmost extremity forced from the loveliest mouth and fairest eyes in the world it was not in the power of poor Suffolk any longer to resist his strength failed him and he fell down upon a Couch The Princess affrighted to see him look pale and faint began to be in the same fears for him that he was daily in for her And as he had omitted nothing that might perswade and overcome her so then it fell to her turn to spare no means that could satisfie and bring him again to himself She told him that she yielded promised to do whatsoever he would have her and what could she indeed deny him in that sad condition And what was she not obliged to do to relieve him However their conversation could last no longer the Duke of Suffolk must withdraw and having with much ado crawled out of the apartment of the Princess the Marquess of Dorset who met him was obliged to Conduct him home The disorder nevertheless that appeared in his countenance was neither so considerable nor dangerous as that which no body saw But the one suspended the other The oppression of the mind hindered the distemper of body and though he had had a Fever all night long yet the Earl of Shrewsbury who went next morning in the Kings name to visit him found him up He went himself likewise to Court the better to cloak all appearances and having discoursed on several things with the King Suffolk finding his virtue supported by secret advantages which his master promised himself from the marriage of his Sister with the King of France they agreed between themselves on the means to bring her to comply But it was now no more necessary to come to extremities She began of her self to resolve on it and the death or flight of the Duke of Suffolk which she found to be otherways unavoidable won by little and little from her fears a condescension to the negotiation of the Duke of Longueville to which her Love could never have consented So that that worthy Lover but the most unfortunate of all Lovers seeing he was too well beloved being come to her apartment after that the King and he had agreed what could not be in any other way concluded found her still in the same disquiet for his health that he had left her in the day before But she spake no more to him of any thing which she knew might put him in trouble She fell rather into a kind of Lethargy and whilst she used violence with her self to conceal it for fear of stirring up his compassion he fell softly to entertain her with those wild and chimerical hopes which the worst of fortunes cannot take from the unfortunate when they have a mind to imagine them She made a shew of being flattered therewith as well as he She began to spare him as he spared her and whilst with a hard curb she checked her more tender passions giving the reins to the most violent that she was capable of the Duke of Longueville became the object of them She did nothing but detest the day of his Captivity and with so much the more violence that he revenged himself so cruelly on him that had taken him In a word she could not look on him but as a mortal enemy whose sight she protested she could never endure and it may be said of that French Prince that desiring by indirect ways to gain all he lost all and that as there was never any Lover whose notions were more foolish so likewise was there never any who took falser measures However his negotiation succeeded according to the orders which he had received and the General of Normandy extraordinary Ambassadour of France came to London to conclude the marriage and peace in the treaty of which the young King of Scotland was comprehended with excommunication against the breakers because it was authorised by the Pope After this the King of England and Duke of Suffolk made it all their care to recover the cheerful humour of the Princess which seemed to be banished from her soul for the rest of her days The Marquess
that therefore he would not have him be troubled at the fopperies and idle talk of people That he should suffer his jealous Rivals to speak what their own jealousie would sufficiently hinder from being believed That it ought to suffice him that he knew the virtue of his Sister That he was willing he should love her and that he pretended that whatsoever was done with his approbation was above obloquy and censure In a word dear Brandon said he I will not that your virtue be the reason why you leave me My honour is concerned that I retain you and after all this what would be said of the King of England if it were known that a wise and discreet man could not live with him I shall not then comply with your desire your virtue has revenged you on my imprudence and my favours shall revenge me on your diffidence and though now you see some in my Court that create you trouble it is possible that shortly seeing none above you but my self you shall see nothing there but what may give you content At these words Brandon casting himself at his feet would have answered that he could never deserve the favours which he mentioned but the King embracing him no more of this said he we shall never make an end Delay your thanks for what I say until you have seen what I can do return to me with as sincere an heart as I desire you to do it and let nothing take up the cares of us both but my Sisters health I wish the time were come that I might give you her In this manner the illustrious Brandon escaped the shipwrack wherein most people thought him over-whelmed He grew greater after his disgrace than he had been before and the King to keep his word to him having repealed all the proceedings of the Mayor of London against him and given Woolsey a severe check for the violence he had used in that Rancounter condemned the Earl of Kildare in the charge of maintaining two Fregats in the Irish-Seas Of all the Rivals of Brandon there was none but the officious Gray exempted The generosity that he had shewed for an unfortunate enemy was of no small use to settle the good opinion which in the sequel he was held in But Bourchier Sommerset young Buckingham and the rest met with sharp Reprimands from the King and his Majesty having exprest himself with discontent against the scoffers and libellers which spared not so much as his own Palace men became more reserved and spake no more of the affairs of others In the mean while the Princess having been in great danger of her life gave shortly assured signs of a speedy cure Besides her young age and good constitution that which contributed much to it was the relation that Brandon gave her of the long discourse which he had had with the King the day that he was released Though he persisted in the design that the King had endeavoured to divert him from yet at that time he gave no signs of it On the contrary in the necessity of pleasing her he himself was willing to seem flattered with the things that he thought no more on but with grief and that complaisance working its effect the tranquillity of her mind recalled so effectually her bodily health that she recovered from her sickness more beautiful than before But as the King had only delayed his expedition to the War of France for her sake so he hastened his departure so soon as he knew her to be out of danger and used the more precipitancy because knowing better than any other the trouble that she and Brandon would have to bid adieu he would not have them have time to prepare for it nor to revive their passions Few arms have marched out with a more victorious air than that of England The King the Commanders Soldiers and every thing else seemed to go in triumph and there was no appearance as the affairs of Lowis the twelfth stood that he could be able to withstand them The League formed against him by the intrigues of Pope Julius the Second who had resolved at what rate soever to be revenged of him because that by his Ambassadours he had maintained the Council of Pisa where his life had been so severely examined raised him as many enemies as he had neighbours His allies had already felt the cruel effects of his misfortune And amongst others poor John D'albert lost the year before his Kingdom of Navar for Ferdinand of Arragon who desired nothing more than to joyn it to Spain failed not to lay hold on the specious pretext offered him by the Interdict of Rome and though that Pope a man of a froward and turbulent spirit upon his recovery from a great fit of sickness seemed to repent his bad designs yet he had engaged so many other potentates that he was now no more the Master of Peace All Italy was in arms The most part of the small Princes hoping to raise themselves to greatness in the disorder and running to the noise that had awakened them joyned themselves to the party of the League though they knew not why so that what secret attempts so ever Julius the Second made at that time to make an end of the War yet the loss of the Battel of Navar which drew after it all the Milanese that the French then sustained was nevertheless a chick of his hatching The sad news of this came to Paris at the same time that the English embarked for their passage and many cross accidents together befel the King of France during the joys that his Court could not refuse to the marriage of the Count of Guise with Anthonet of Bourbon Sister to the Count of Vendosme Not but that in the apprehension of the storm which he foresaw from England having already dealt with the King of Scotland to make a diversion and Pregent his Vice-admiral in the Mediterranean who had no more to do with the Genowese being ready to pass over the Channel with Primanget Commander of the British-Ships to ravage the Coasts of Ireland he had a great many good Troops on foot and Officers of extraordinary merit Lowis de Halewin Marquess of Pienne a man of consummated Valour who was their General had Rendezvouzed them at Hedin The Marquess de Potelin of a boyling hot Courage commanded the Cavalry and after him in several charges were the Count de la Plaisse a warlike man the Chevalier Bayard characterised without fear and without reproach The brave Aimard de prie Imbercourt Clairmont D'anjou Bussy D'amboise Bonnivet Bonne-val Fonterailles and a great many more all capable to command Armies not to reckon those who in respect of Birth were above them as the Counts of Guise and Vendosme and the Duke of Alencon whom the affairs of State obliged to remain with his Person But the loss of the Milanese put him in great Consternation and the King of England being Landed at Calais at the head
how he could after so powerful obligations suspect that he would take the Earl of Kildare's part against him and far less how he could believe him to be in love with his own Sister and the Rival of a friend of whose passion he himself had laid the foundation and at length concluded that he well perceived that love was always accompanied with infirmities and that lovers could not guard against them when their friends had the art to foresee them At these last words which he could not pronounce without a smile Brandon was so fully convinced of his sincerity that he lost all the remains of distrust and trouble which he could possibly retain And to confirm him in the just perswasion that he was of the King gave him his hand as an evidence of a perfect good correspondence then thinking it needless to intreat him to take care of the Princess recovery knowing it to be his greatest concern he thought it enough to tell him in the most taking way imaginable that they ought both to contribute their utmost endeavours for that effect and that he himself being guilty of much imprudence in that conjuncture would grant her for her comfort without exception whatever she pleased to desire But Brandon who understood but too well the meaning of that discourse was so much the more affected with it that by an excess of love and virtue he began of himself so to be disposed as not to be flattered with any thing The hopes that had dazled him in his younger days dazled him now no more in the age that he had attained to Time and reason made him daily discover new impediments His true birth seemed likewise to object secret hinderances which appeared invincible and whatsoever affection the Princess was preingaged in in his favour and what goodness soever the King might evidence to him yet he saw no appearance to promise himself that he would one day give her to him in marriage nor did he find it even reasonable that he himself should desire it He very well knew that the Daughters and Sisters of Kings are always married for reasons of State and that it was to much purpose indeed for him to ballance the ancient custom of England and the design that the King had to establish it with that universal maxim Neither that ancient custom nor the re-establishment that the King gave out he intended to make of it appeared to him any thing but a vain phantasm raised against the treaty of Calais or at most but a specious reason to temporise for some years in expectation of some better alliance against the house of Austria To that it may be added that though it had been true that the lovely Princess had not been intended in marriage to any Forraign Prince there were yet many other great Lords in England Scotland and Ireland who might be chosen for that purpose and all those who pretended to her as he did be excluded So that finding himself at that time filled with these great and hard thoughts which sometimes had made him resolve to forsake the Kingdom and sometimes to withdraw out of it for a time he thought he could never find a more favourable occasion to open himself to the King And therefore he broke his mind to him as he had been desirous to do and reflecting on the zeal for the Princess which that Prince endeavoured to inspire in him he told him That as to that he had more need of a curb than a spur and that the sentiments of his heart were but too publickly known That he saw on all hands but too many who were envious of a blessing which he owed only to his Approbation and not to the goodness of her who was reproached therewith That after so much rumour it was very fit to raise no more That rather than his respects should cost the greatest Princess of the world so dear he would renounce the honour of her Presence and that seeing he was unable to do her any service he ought at least to be careful of her Glory And that to succeed in that design there was no other expedient but flight That though he made no difference betwixt dying and leaving of London yet he was fully resolved to do it if his Majesty would give him leave That in begging it of him he could assure his Majesty that he had never flattered himself with any foolish hope in reference to the Princess That what goodness soever she might have for him yet he never framed any disadvantageous notions of her and that if he durst ever make a wish when he saw her it was only that he might be able to serve her so long as he lived But that he was so far from that that it behoved him for the future to renounce the honour of seeing her and that the innocence of his intentions sufficed not to preserve him in the enjoyment of so precious a blessing That to conclude he beg'd his pardon for the disorders which he might have occasioned in his Court that he acknowledged himself altogether unworthy of the favours that he had conferred upon him but that nevertheless he did not think he deserved the character of ungrateful and that if he found him in the least guilty of that he prayed him to take from him that odious name by taking away his life This was the substance of what the passionate Brandon expressed in no less passionate terms and the King the more touched with his virtue that he was sensible enough that he had not used him kindly since the death of Cecile had no way to defend himself His heart was wholly again inflamed for a man of so sublime a soul and in a nice emulation which Kings seldom condescend to with their subjects he answered Brandon that he perceived he was well informed of what he had written to his Sister and that he made great matters of it though it deserved no such construction for the truth was that he being willing to try the effects of love in a case of adversity had made use of the first word that appeared proper for his design That there was no more in that note and that in fine as to himself it was but a trifle as well as the rest but not so on his part seeing his memory was so good and he so touchy that he could not pardon some small inequalities which appeared in his humour since the death of Cecile That he had had some doubts that Woolsey might give him some Umbrage but that he never thought the impression could have been so deep and that the same appearances that had deceived him before deceived him still That notwithstanding he could not but excuse two errors into which he let himself only be led by an excess of affection That to undeceive him he would endeavour to proceed to an equal excess and that there was nothing in his Kingdom so great to which his heart and eyes might not aspire And
of his But that was a day that produced strange adventures for the fury of the Earl of Kildare ceased of a sudden and that fiery man was so affected with Suffolks action that throwing his sword into the same place of the Wood as he had done he came running towards him with open arms crying with tears That he would never be any more his enemy After which there was no kind of friendship which they showed not to one another and this days adventure having interrupted the design which Suffolk had to wander over the world he yielded to go to Calais with the Earl of Kildare saying sometimes within himself by a tenderness of heart which makes true Lovers know the force of their love that he went only to London to endeavour the re-establishment of his defender And in effect the procedure of that generous enemy was the first thing he told the King his Master and that Prince who loved rare and singular adventures the more admired that action of the Irish Earl that he thought him not capable of such generosity So that he gave him a very favourable reception and restoring him again into favour by that means united these two Rivals into so strict a bond of friendship that nothing could afterward dissolve it In the mean while as the return of the Duke of Suffolk was in agitation and that upon the complaints which the Queen made by her Letters the King of England intended to stand on his points with the Court of France hardly had he projected the measures he was to take in that conjuncture when the Marquess of Dorset wrote an account of the Death of LOWIS the Twelfth It would be hard to give an exact relation of what the Duke of Suffolk conceived upon this great news It wrought a new change in him not to be expressed only after he had done all that could be done for Mary of England after that he had sacrificed her to her self by an excess of Virtue by sacrificing himself for her in an excess of Love nothing else can be said but that the reward which so high and extraordinary an action deserved began to shine in his eyes There was nothing able to moderate his joy but a false report that was spread abroad of the Queens being with Child For besides that this would have left him no hopes it being unlikely that the Mother of a Dolphin of France could leave her Sons Kingdom or enter into a second marriage with a person such as he was taken to be he dreaded likewise that the Duke of Valois whom she would thereby disappoint of a Crown might not revolt against her He likewise feared the Calumnies which the Favourites of that Prince would not fail to publish after that they had already slandered her and that fatal conception at length seemed to rob him of all that he thought was left him by the Death of LOWIS the Twelfth But it happened to be a mistake And the Queen having her self declared the contrary that the Proclamation of the Duke of Valois might not be held in suspense it was quickly perceived that she was the first who acknowledg'd him King of France by the name of FRANCIS the First and the Marquess de Sanferre who in the name of that Prince arrived shortly at London to renew the Treaty of Peace which the King his Father-in-law had concluded the year before put an end to the troubles of the Duke of Suffolk So that his heart being filled with joy HENRY the Eighth whose care it was also to render him happy would no longer delay his bliss He condescended to all that was proposed to him for the continuation of the Treaty and because with the interests of the two Crowns it behoved him likewise to regulate the concerns of the Queen his Sister in Quality of Dowager he took that pretext to send Suffolk into France with the title of Ambassadour Plenipotentiary which he discharged with so great splendour that Prince Henry Count of Nassaw who came to Paris at the same time in name of the Arch-Duke about the affairs of the Low-Countries was somewhat troubled to see a subject of England so highly out-do him But as there was nothing in France that could equal the Magnificence of the English and all the Court of FRANCIS the First were envious at it as well as the Flemings so there was nothing in the same Kingdom at that time comparable to the Beauty of the Queen The air wherewith she received the Duke of Suffolk at the Palace des Tournelles made the wits at Court say That she needed not too much virtue to comfort her for the death of a husband and it must be acknowledged that under her mourning Veil and Peak which by the light of a vast number of Torches set more advantageously off the delicate whiteness of her skin nothing was to be seen in her that day which might occasion melancholy or grief That raillery was carried as far as possibly it could be whilst the necessity of the affairs which they had to regulate with the King of France and his Ministers obliged them often to speak together and to be by themselves But whatever hath been said of them and whatsoever reports have been raised of their mutual complaisances or the joy that they had to meet again yet it is still true that they never gave any ground for Calumny and Reproach If they were so near to make a slip as men imagined yet they were cautious and in dangerous occasions when they might have done otherways they virtuously resisted temptation The new King of France was not of that temper for that Prince naturally very free with women would have made no Ceremony to have perswaded the Queen had she been in the least inclined to hear him He had many times much ado to leave her when the affairs of his Kingdom required it and for all the Grandure and Magnanimity which hath appeared in the course of his life yet being at that time too weak for his passion he appeared sometimes so peevish and out of humour that the same detracting tongues which have endeavoured to sully the reputation of Mary of England have given it out that his amorous fever made him so light-headed as to detest his marriage with the Daughter of LOWIS the Twelfth and to protest more than once that he had rather have enjoyed his Widow than his Kingdom Whether it was an effect of the Queens sweet disposition or that she was pleased to revenge her self for the troubles that he caused her before he was King she appeared not altogether inexorable Yet she was still the same at the heart and never what he took her to be So that one day when her beauty so surprised him that he forgot some of his measures thinking to take her on the right side he told her That since he himself could not expect to be happy it behoved him at least to endeavour to make her so that therefore he