lad no better blessing.

"Wilt draw the curtain, Bess? I feel as though I might sleep. Bless
thee, dear heart, for all thy tender ministering. And if I wake not
again, but go to God in sleep,--farewell, and Christ be with thee!"

So she slept--and woke not again.

Three months after the death of Philippa Basset, came another death--
like hers, of an old woman full of years. The last of the Tudors passed
away from earth. Sir Robert Basset was free. To Stuart, or Seymour, or
Clifford, he "owed no subscription." King of England he would be _de
facto_, as _de jure_ he believed himself in his heart.

And but for two obstacles in his way, it might have been Robert Basset
who seated himself on the seat of England's Elizabeth. For England was
much exercised as to who had really the right to her vacant throne.

It was no longer a question of Salic law--a dispute whether a woman
could reign. That point, long undetermined, had been finally settled
fifty years before.

Nor was it any longer a doubtful matter concerning the old law of
non-representation,--to which through centuries the English clung
tenaciously,--the law which asserted that if a son of the sovereign
predeceased his father, leaving issue, that issue was barred from the
succession, because the link which bound them to the throne was lost.
This had been "the custom of England" for at least three hundred years.
But, originally altered by the mere will of Edward the Third, the change
had now been confirmed by inevitable necessity, for when the Wars of the
Roses closed, links were lost in _all_ directions, and the custom of
England could no longer be upheld.

The two obstacles in Robert Basset's way were the apathy of the
majority, and the strong contrary determination of the few who took an
interest in the question.

The long reign of Elizabeth, and her personal popularity, had combined
to produce that apathy. Those who even dimly remembered the Wars of the
Roses, and whose sympathies were fervid for White or Red, had been long
dead when Elizabeth was gathered to her fathers. And to the new
generation, White and Red were alike; the popular interest in the
question was dead and buried also.

But there was a little knot of men and women whose interest was alive,
and whose energies were awake. And all these sided with one candidate.
Sir Robert Cecil, the clever, wily son of the sagacious Burleigh,--Lord
Rich and his wife Penelope sister of the beheade