which his heart by some secret emotions told him was or sooner would be his Conqueror did awhile make him continue moveless I cannot tell but as soon as he had seen the danger her Protector was in for his Cloaths were all bloody or rather to participate in the Duty and Honour of her deliverance his Generosity or growing Flame made him immediately draw his Sword and by a menacing Cry compell'd the Stag to turn towards him and then to run so fiercely at him that by his too intent gazing on his new Mistriss he had like to have received from the irritated Beast more fatal wounds than had been yet given him by the Beauty he was serving How many glorious Successes had our Nation been rob'd of and how many stupendious Vicissitudes had the World avoided if the fury of the Stag had not been diverted by the destiny of the King but though the mournfullest effects of it were hinder'd by his Agility yet he could not avoid the shock but was by the impetuosity of it cast upon the ground with such violence that it depriv'd him for a moment of the use of his senses The Stag had so overshot himself by missing what he meant should only have stopped his career that before he could turn about to finish what he had in part failed of our Monarch had recover'd spirits enough to see his danger but not to revenge or prevent it and just as the Stag was running at him the second time at which the Nymph made a great shreek Brandon generously bestrid the Kings body and with undaunted courage and great dexterity defended it long eenough for our Prince to get up and with his Sword in his hand to contribute to the death of that Enemy which had been so near acting his The Stag was no sooner fallen but our Monarch and Brandon forgetting to acknowledge to one another the mutual obligations they had so recently given and received went hastily as it had been by Concert to offer their Services to the Beauty to whom they had paid such signal ones who received them both with the Retributions which their good Meens and their Actions so abundantly merited Her fear being vanished which had too much conquer'd the vermillion of her Face the lovely red re-assumed the Throne again with so much lustre as never two hearts at once were vanquish'd with so much celerity and so little resistance as our Henry's and Brandon's were But when together with her exterior Charms those of her Discourses had united themselves neither of our Gallants could tell by which of the Senses Love made the shortest approach to their Hearts She saluted them both with a grace peculiar to herself and with words as inchanting as her eyes so that they both began to believe that what Poets fancied was to them a reality and that this was the Goddess of the Forest. But as soon as she perceiv'd Brandon's cloaths all wet with his blood and that some still trickled from a wound he had in the Neck his could not run faster from the Hurt than hers did from her Face so that taking hastily an Incarnation Skarf which was cast about her shoulder she went with it trembling and blushing to her new Adorer and desired his permission with her hand to stop that blood which had been so obligingly shed in her service Brandon received the charming favor on his knees and told her trembling and blushing more than she I thought Madam the delight of being wounded in the honour of your service was incapable of any accession but this unmeritable condescention of yours has convinced me of that error and nothing could diminish my joy but that 't is rais'd by your trouble But Madam he continued how could the person whom you blest with such evidences of your favor before your danger abandon you in it Ah! how unworthy was he of those felicities I saw you confer on him These last words he accompanied with a sigh and she heard them with a smile which our young Lover knew not how to interpret But our Monarch more sensibly wounded by this kindness of his new Conqueress to his Rival than he had been by the Stag leaning against a Tree and folding his arms one within another by some sighs which reached the Ladies ear made her turn hastily towards him and then to ask him Whether he had also received any wound which needed her assistance Our Henry reply'd with a look which told her his passion Yes Madam I have received a wound and a more dangerous one than his 〈◊〉 that if he of us two which most needs the happiness of your concernment has the best title to it your charity has hitherto been misemployed The fair Nymph was cover'd with blushes at this unexpected Declaration and Brandon was so peek'd at it that 〈◊〉 she immediately interpos'd both her Prayers and Commands and added her Promises that she would forgive their disrespect to her if they forgave each other as in a moment the calm was as great as the storm else would have been And finding by the temper of these two Gallants that the fire she had supprest by her authority and presence might revive in her absence she conjur'd them for her sake to promise solemnly they would eternally become friends and that they would evidence they had granted her earnest request by an immediate embracing of one another it was impossible to tell which of them was most expeditions in paying his obedience for though by accident they were engaged â—n a difference yet by inclination they had contracted so good an opinion of each other that nothing less than being Rivals could have hinder'd them at first sight from being friends The fair Mediatress of this Peace was doubly pleas'd with it for she not only hinder'd a quarrel between persons to whom she was much obliged but the manner of their obeying her gave her a welcome evidence of the Ascendant she had over them Every one of the three being ignorant who the other two were and all being desirous noâ— longer to continue in that unhappiness she entreated her two Deliverers to acquaint her who they were Our Monarch immediately acquainted her his name was Tudar that he had the happiness to belong to the King and the great honour to be his Kinsman and that he was that morning come from the melancholy of the Court to divert himself a Hunting Brandon immediately paid him those respects which his being of the Royal Blood were justly due unto him and with all the civility imaginable beg'd his pardon for what his ignorance of his quality had made him guilty of and could only apologize for protesting he so highly reverenced every one of the sacred blood of his Prince that his own to the last drop of it should be joyfully shed in the duty of their service Our Prince repaid his Civility with fresh Embraces and there began that friendship which our most celebrated Historians have Recorded and with Justice
too since it never ended but with their Lives The fair Lady who had asked the question was so pleas'd that she owed her safety to one of the Royal Blood and with the celerity and chearfulness he had paid to her commands that she could not but express her joy and gratitude at both but in words and actions so taking that if any part of our Kings heart did remain unconquer'd until then it continued so no longer And therefore begging to know her name she told him it was Izabella yâ—t that she was Daughter to my Lord that she was come from London the usual place of her Fathers residence to visit some Companions of hers at a Palace near the Forest that to divert the Ladies and Gentry of the Neighborhood they were engaged to Act a Play called Endimion in which she was to represent Diana and therefore to try her Habit was drest in it that morning when walking to enjoy the freshness of it they had been more than Witnesses of her disaster for they generously freed her from it Brandon then in obedience to her commands told her his Name and that he was a younger Son of a Noble Family that one of the pleasingst and fatalst accident that the invention or malice of Destiny could possibly contrive had necessitated him to Travel into Foreign Countries to subdue or at least mitigate his melancholy And then to divert the fair Izabella's more particular inquiry and to satisfie his own impatience beg'd her with a visible concernment to let him know who the happy Gentleman was who had possest the honour of attending her before her danger and was guilty of forsaking her in it The King who knew nothing of this before and was not a little alarm'd at Brandon's sighing when he asked the question continued in a deep silence expecting her answer which she made smilingly and by desiring him to consider if he were not too curious to press for that a second time which she had denied the first Brandon beg'd her Pardon which she assured him of if he would as they returned to Charleton for that was the name of the Palace to which she intended to go acquaint her with that Story by Retail which what he had said of it in Epitomy made her desirous to hear Brandon conjur'd her more than once to dispense with his obedience therein since it would renew his grief and he fear'd infect her with it But this Reply adding to her Curiosity he was at last vanquished by her and the Kings intreaties having put herself in the midst and walking softly towards Charleton Brandon having cast up his eyes to Heaven and fetch'd a groan from the very bottom of his heart began the ensuing Relation THE HISTORY OF Brandon THat many Men run into high Crimes designedly cannot be a greater Truth than it is that others fall into them both against their inclination and intention This latter is what I can experimentally aver but whether it proceeds from the influence of the Stars at our Nativity or from a Fatality to which all Men are subjected or from some other occult cause I dare not determine but this I know that the crime I fell into was not so much my sin as it is my punishment But before I proceed to acquaint you with the particulars which I more than hope will incline you to be of my belief I must beg you that what I am to tell you purely to obey you may be kept as great a secret as otherwise I resolved it should eternally have been and as you will easily perceive the nature of it requires Izabella and our Monarch having promis'd what he asked he thus continued My Father having spent much of his time and blood in our late sad and intestine Wars abhorring the necessary cruelties in them and loathing the vicissitudes of a Court-life retired for ever to a Castle of his own in Glocestershire where he determined to bury himself alive But one day being drawn to a Kinsmans Wedding by the importunity of a bosome friend he saw at it a Gentlewoman so handsom that what all the beauties of England which doubtless is their highest Sphere could not perform on him in twenty years she did in a moment for Madam 't is the fate of some Families to fall in Love at first sight My Father passionately inquired of his Friend if he knew her and being assured he did and that if she were not his neaâ— Kinswoman he would not scruple to affirm he knew no person in the World whose virtue and softness of humor exceeded hers but withall told him the calamities of the Civil Wars had so ruin'd her Parents fortune as they were unable to give her a Portion in the least answerable to her birth and merit My Father who knew that happiness has its solid Throne only in the mind and that wealth is an excess which may often be more dangerous than useful courted this Lady and having found the character his Friend had given him of her exactly true at last married her from that Union my elder Brother and I descended whose Educations were such that if we were no great Proficients in our Studies and Exercises it was our own faults possibly never any Friendship was greater than that between my Brother and I we seem'd to have but one Soul which actuated both our Bodies and we were dearer to each other by the tyes of Friendship than by those of Blood We were never admitted to see a Court or an Army and my Father who had taken a Surfet of both gave our earlier years such ill impressions of â—hem that we joyfully dedicated the hours of our vacancy to no other pleasures but those of Hunting and Hawking and such harmless divertisements of a Countrey life In these innocent employments my Brother attain'd to his twentieth and I to my nineteenth year but as if Fortune had envied us this little tranquility a near Friend of my Mothers dyed and left to her care her onely Daughter which Legacy she sent her at the last gasp with the little she had saved out of the general shipwrack occasion'd by the bloody contentions of the two Roses My Mother manifested the esteem she had of the dead by her care of the living nor could that generosity be nobliâ—r employ'd than on this young Gentlewoman whose name was Victoria for she was so charming and lovely that the very first hour she came to live with my Mother my Brother and I began to feel a passion in our hearts which till that moment we had never been acquainted with Could I draw you Madam her Picture to the Life you would excuse our being so soon vanquish'd for I thought then nothing could be so perfect and should have still continued in that belief had not my sight this day convinc'd me of my Error My Brother never told me of his passion neither did I acquaint him with mine which was the first and onely Secret we kept in reserve
Safety so highly depended He therefore followed Horatio to learn it which when he had done his Amazement Grief and Anger equal'd those of all the rest The King in the mean while having his heart pierced with Izabella's last words and actions and trembling with apprehension lest she might be then performing what she had menaced him with started out of all his thoughts and ran to her Cabinet door where he heard her sigh with such excess as set on 〈◊〉 again his breast and with fiercer flames than ever yet had invaded it He both knocked at the door and called but she neither would open it or answer him This made him unite all his strength to force it She knew well enough by the voice and by the attempt who it was but having begun so fortunately to extricate herself out of that ruine into which her mistaken Love had so far precipitated her she resolved to perfect what was so far advanced and therefore just as our Monarch had torn open the door she got into the Window which was over the Thames and made as if she would have cast herself out of it But the King as she designed catched her in his Arms and then by all the humiliations of a penitent Lover so movingly beg'd her Pardon for his guilty suspicions which had been seemingly but too well grounded and so passionately conjured her to cast off a despair which at once had so frightned and pleased him since it was the sublimest evidence of her Love and Grief as by degrees she gave him some hopes she might not be for ever inexorable Who will not admire at the extravagancy of Love and at the vicissitude of Humane things when the greatest Monarch of the World is reduced to beg Pardon of his Subject for her own fault while she is more troubled she could not Act it than she would have been had she committed it And yet her sighs and tears that an imagined Page is found to be a Woman which aggravated her fault she makes pass even in the judgment of her King as the proofs of her Innocence Thus the World delights to abuse us and yet we delight to pursue those pleasures by which we are abused and to Court them neglect our solid Happiness every one flattering himself with a belief that he is the happy person who shall fix the wheels of Love and Fortune both which will yet be as perpetual in their motions as the Sun in his But while the King and Izabella are peecing up all misunderstandings while Leticia is contriving how to recover the favor of her Lady or failing of it to raise her Fortunes by making the lovely Talboise the Monarch of our Monarchs heart while our young Norfolk is contriving by a second design to repair the unsuccessfulness of the first and while even Horatio is upbraiding his destiny with frowardness and unconstancy for having blasted a design which he thought was so admirably well contrived let us return to Brandon who seems justly to complain we have too long neglected him since his Actions are to furnish the greatest and most surprizing Events in our following Adventures The End of the First Tome of English Adventures ERRATA PAge 4. line 3. read in for by p. 12. l. 4. r. so for for ib. l. 10â— 11. leave out had not ib. l. 15. r. so aâ— p. 1â— l. 15. r. no for not p. 16. l. 14. r. which for wheâ— p. 41 l. 1 r. Francis the first p. â—7 l. 21. r. started for â—â—â—iled p. 96. l. 27. r. soon for â—ooner