times threatened it
with wreck.

The queen's keeper of the robes, who had charge of Isabella, had a son
aged two-and-twenty, named Count Ernest, whom his great wealth, his high
blood, and his mother's great favour with the queen, made too arrogant
and overbearing. He fell most violently in love with Isabella, and,
during Richard's absence, he had made some overtures to her which she
had coldly disregarded. Although repugnance and disdain manifested at
the outset usually make the enamoured desist from their suit, yet
Isabella's notorious disdain had the contrary effect on Ernest, for it
fired his passion, and consumed his sense of honour. He was almost
distracted when he found that the queen had adjudged Isabella to
Richard, and that she was so soon to become his; but before he committed
himself to the infamous and dastardly course which he ultimately
adopted, he first besought his mother to use her influence with the
queen on his behalf, declaring that his death was at hand unless he
obtained Isabella for his wife.

The countess, well knowing her son's violent and arrogant disposition,
and the obstinacy with which he pursued his desires, had reason to fear
that his passion would lead to some unhappy result. With a mother's
natural anxiety to gratify her son's wishes, she promised to speak to
the queen, not with the hope of succeeding in the impossible attempt to
make her majesty break her word, but in order not to sit down in
despair, while any remedy remained to be tried. That morning Isabella
was dressed by the queen's orders with a magnificence which defies
description. With her own hands her majesty put on her neck a string of
the largest pearls found in the galleon, valued at twenty thousand
ducats, and a diamond ring on her finger worth six thousand crowns. But
whilst the ladies were in great glee anticipating the glad time so near
at hand, the keeper of the robes presented herself before the queen, and
implored her on her knees to postpone Isabella's wedding for two days
longer, declaring that if her majesty would only do so, it would more
than reward her for all her past services. The queen desired to know, in
the first instance, why she made that request, so directly at variance
with the royal promise given to Richard; but the countess would not
explain until the queen, urged by curiosity to discover the cause of
this strange request, promised that she would grant it. Having thus
succeeded in her immediate ob