aid my plans that it should be otherwise;
but ladies are ill to guide.'

'And wherefore should it not have been at fair Windsor? If I can love it
as a prison, sure your son may well love it as a cradle.'

'No dishonour to Windsor,' said Henry; 'but, sleeping or waking, this
whole night hath this adage rung in my ears--

"Harry, born at Monmouth, shall short time live and all get;
Harry, born at Windsor, shall long time live and lose all."'

'A most choice piece of royal poesy and prophecy,' laughed James.

'Nay, do not charge me with it, thou dainty minstrel. It was sung to me
by mime old Herefordshire nurse, when Windsor seemed as little within my
reach as Meaux, and I never thought of it again till I looked to have a
son.'

'Then balk the prophecy,' said James; 'Edward born at Windsor got enough,
and lived long enough to boot!'

'Too late!' was the answer. 'The Archbishop christened the poor child
Harry in the very hour of his birth.'

'Poor child!' echoed James, rather sarcastically.

'Nay, 'tis not solely the rhyme,' said Henry; 'but this has been a
wakeful night, and not without misgivings whether I am one who ought to
look for joy in his children.'

'What is past was not such that you alone should cry _mea culpa_,' said
James.

'I never thought so till now,' said Henry. 'Yet who knows? My father
was a winsome young man ere his exile, full of tenderness to us all, at
the rare times he was with us. Who knows what cares may make of me ere
my boy learns to knew me?'

'You will not hold him aloof, and give him no chance of loving you?'

'I trow not! I'll have him with me in the camp, and he and my brave men
shall be one another's pride. Which Roman emperor is it that hears the
nickname his father's soldiers gave him as a child? Nay--Caligula was
it? Omens are against me this morning.'

'Then laughs them to scorn, and be yourself,' said James. 'Bless God for
the goodly child, who is born to two kingdoms, won by his father's and
his grandsire's swords.'

'Ah!' said Henry, depressed by failing health, a sleepless night, and
hungry morning, 'maybe it were better for him, soul and body both, did I
stand here Duke of Lancaster, and good Edmund of March yonder were head
of realm and army.'

'Never would he be head of this army,' said James. 'He would be snoring
at Shene; that is, if he could sleep for the trouble the Duke of
Lancaster would be giving him.'

Henry laughed at last. 'Good