Arabella Stuart. G. P. R. James

man hesitated for a moment or two, and then replied, "At Oxford, sire."

      "And at what college, man?" demanded the King, turning a shrewd look towards Cecil.

      "At Corpus Christi College, your majesty," answered the personage to whom the question was addressed.

      "A very learned place," replied James, "though somewhat given, we have heard, to the doctrines of popery. But our memory, man, is very long and troublesome; and, as we take great delight in the progress of our subjects, especially in those studies which are vulgarly called the humanities, we have diligently perused the names of all the scholars at our two universities in the kingdom of England, and we cannot just readily recollect the name of Winter amongst those who matriculated at Oxford within the last five-and-twenty years. It is true that the memory of a king ought, by God's grace, to be better than that of a subject. However, we may fail, as all men; so just recollect yourself, and see if you have not studied also in Rome, France, or Brabant. It is not so easy to deceive us, man, as some folks think; and you have so much the look of what is profanely termed a seminary priest, that we would fain take further informations concerning you."

      Master Winter, as he called himself, turned as pale as ashes, and began in a hesitating manner to acknowledge that he had studied some time on the Continent.

      "Doubtless, doubtless," cried the King, "and have taken all the degrees and orders. Are you ready, sir, to receive the oath of supremacy, acknowledging that in this realm of England the supreme rule and governance of affairs ecclesiastical are in the king alone? What! you make no answer! Well, then, you see you are found out. My Lord Bishop,--having now opened the examination of this man, so that your lordship may clearly see and learn the course in which we would have it conducted, we give the case over to you for farther investigation; and should it turn out, as we believe, that a papistical priest has dared to intrude himself into our sacred presence, we will have him committed to be dealt with according to law. Let him be put in charge of a pursuivant, and perhaps to-morrow we may hold farther discourse with him, in the hope of opening his blinded eyes, and reclaiming him from his errors. Stand down, sir. Let the other fellow be brought forward--not so near, not so near. He is as ill-looking a body as ever I set eyes on. Where are the witnesses?"

      While the man Winter was removed to the other side of the room, Lakyn, Sir Robert Cecil's servant, and two other persons, who had been standing near in the crowd when the attempt to cut off the pouch was made, advanced, and were examined by the King touching the whole transaction. The facts were clearly proved beyond a doubt; and it was also shown that the man had not denied the attempt.

      "Well, sir, and what have you to say for yourself now?" demanded James. "Have you any evidence to rebut this charge?"

      "May it please your majesty," replied Slingsby, "I do not deny that I attempted to cut off the pouch; but----"

      "What! then you make confession, man?" said the King. "This is the eighth or ninth time since we left Berwick that robbery has been committed upon persons attending our court, and, now we have got you, we will make an example, depend upon it."

      "I wished but to see what the pouch contained, your majesty," exclaimed Slingsby, in a dolorous tone.

      "Just like all other robbers and plunderers," answered James; "they all want to see what the purses they take contain, and the more the better."

      "But, but," cried the man, "it was only curiosity."

      "Hout tout!" exclaimed James, "such curiosity as that must be stopped with a rope," (or, as the King expressed it, with a "wuudie,") "and being the sovereign judge, to whom all other judges in this realm are merely subservient, or assistant, having tried the case ourselves, and finding this man taken in the act, and not making denial of his guilt, we shall proceed to pass sentence upon him according to law, ordering him to be taken back to prison, and thence, to-morrow morning, at six of the clock, to the place of public execution, there to be hanged by the neck until he be dead. Let a warrant be prepared, directed to our Recorder of the town of Newark, for due execution of our sentence."

      Every person in the room looked almost as much aghast as the unhappy prisoner; for such a gross and unheard-of violation of the laws of England seemed to every one more dangerous than if a thousand cut-purses had escaped.

      "But, sire----" exclaimed Cecil, stepping forward.

      "Not a word, Sir Robert--not a word," cried the King. "We will have no pleading for him. He is taken in the fact, confesses his crime, and it is but right and befitting to make our English subjects know that we hold the sword of Justice with a firm hand, and will not fail to strike at all offenders against the law. Take the man away--let the warrant be made out and executed without fail. As we are a crowned king, we will not bate a tittle of our sentence."

      The courtiers looked in each other's faces, and the unhappy Slingsby was dragged away, endeavouring to stammer forth some appeal to the King's mercy and to the laws of the land. But no one attended to him; and so great was the popular excitement in favour of a new monarch, that, although such an act had not been committed since the darkest period of British history, no one ventured to oppose it, and the warrant was made out according to the King's command.

      James himself seemed not to entertain the slightest doubt or hesitation in regard to his own proceedings, nor indeed any sorrow or compunction for the fate of the unhappy man whom he had just doomed to death.

      "Well, now," he cried, addressing Lakyn, "the cut-purse being disposed of, let us see the pouch, man."

      Lakyn, who held it in his hand--for the strap by which it was suspended had been quite cut through--immediately presented it to the King upon his knee; and James, taking it from him, without further ceremony undid the loop and button, and put his hand into the inside. Feeling, however, that some degree of ridicule might attach to him for displaying the same curiosity which he had condemned so severely the minute before, he began a discourse in justification of his own proceeding, full of all those quaint niceties and hair's-breadth distinctions on which he prided himself. He explained, in the first place, in broad general terms, that conduct which might be criminal in a subject was perfectly justifiable in a king. He then went on to show more at large that the impropriety or propriety of a man's actions depended entirely upon the circumstances and the position of the man himself, exemplifying his truisms with various homely and strangely contrasted instances, from the rights of a schoolmaster in birch and cane to the rights of a monarch on the throne; and certainly in both cases he was inclined to stretch prerogative sometimes beyond its just limits. He ended, however, after a discourse of a quarter of an hour, during which time his fingers still remained in the bag, by declaring that evidently the man's pretext of curiosity was false and absurd. "For why," asked the King, "should he have a greater desire to see what was in one bag than in another?"

      "Why, may it please your majesty," replied Lakyn, "I do think the man said true in that, for knowing that I was bearing a letter to your Majesty's Court from the Lady Arabella Stuart,--that is, not to say that he did know it, but he might, for all I can say to the contrary.--However, he followed me all the way down from Cambridgeshire, and as there were more people with him, I can't help thinking it was a plot to get the letter and see the contents."

      "Ha!" cried the King, turning pale--"a plot already? Did we not tell you, Sir Robert, did we not tell you, Taylor, that it would not be long first?--Why, what's the matter there? The man seems to have tumbled down," and he pointed with his hand to the other side of the room, where there was a good deal of bustle about the spot where the personage who called himself Winter had been standing in custody of a pursuivant.

      "What's the matter there, I say?" cried the King. "Will nobody answer their Sovereign Lord and Master?"

      "It is the priest, your Majesty," said the pursuivant; "he has fallen down in a swoon, after complaining much of the heat."

      "Let him take care that he get not to a hotter place," answered James; "but take him out, man, take him out, and keep him in the ante-room till further orders.--Now, man, what is this you tell me?" he continued, turning to Lakyn; "a plot, did you say?"

      Lakyn, according to the King's command, and in answer to his manifold questions,