at insults were to be
practised on me?'

'My gracious prince,' said Redgauntlet, 'I am so far to blame in this,
that I did not think so slight an impediment as that of a woman's
society could have really interrupted an undertaking of this magnitude.
I am a plain man, sire, and speak but bluntly; I could not have dreamt
but what, within the first five minutes of this interview, either Sir
Richard and his friends would have ceased to insist upon a condition so
ungrateful to your Majesty, or that your Majesty would have sacrificed
this unhappy attachment to the sound advice, or even to the over-anxious
suspicions, of so many faithful subjects. I saw no entanglement in such
a difficulty which on either side might not have been broken through
like a cobweb.'

'You were mistaken, sir,' said Charles Edward, 'entirely mistaken--as
much so as you are at this moment, when you think in your heart my
refusal to comply with this insolent proposition is dictated by a
childish and romantic passion for an individual, I tell you, sir, I
could part with that person to-morrow, without an instant's regret--that
I have had thoughts of dismissing her from my court, for reasons known
to myself; but that I will never betray my rights as a sovereign and a
man, by taking this step to secure the favour of any one, or to purchase
that allegiance which, if you owe it to me at all, is due to me as my
birthright.'

'I am sorry for this,' said Redgauntlet; 'I hope both your Majesty
and Sir Richard will reconsider your resolutions, or forbear this
discussion, in a conjuncture so pressing. I trust your Majesty will
recollect that you are on hostile ground; that our preparations cannot
have so far escaped notice as to permit us now with safety to retreat
from our purpose; insomuch, that it is with the deepest anxiety of
heart I foresee even danger to your own royal person, unless you can
generously give your subjects the satisfaction, which Sir Richard seems
to think they are obstinate in demanding.'

'And deep indeed your anxiety ought to be,' said the prince. 'Is it in
these circumstances of personal danger in which you expect to overcome a
resolution, which is founded on a sense of what is due to me as a man
or a prince? If the axe and scaffold were ready before the windows of
Whitehall, I would rather tread the same path with my great-grandfather,
than concede the slightest point in which my honour is concerned.'

He spoke these words with a de