his son there instead? I don't know
whether the Queen really pitied him at this pass, but she began to cry;
so, the Bishop said, Well, my Lords and Gentlemen, what do you think,
upon the whole, of sending down to Kenilworth, and seeing if His Majesty
(God bless him, and forbid we should depose him!) won't resign?

My Lords and Gentlemen thought it a good notion, so a deputation of them
went down to Kenilworth; and there the King came into the great hall of
the Castle, commonly dressed in a poor black gown; and when he saw a
certain bishop among them, fell down, poor feeble-headed man, and made a
wretched spectacle of himself. Somebody lifted him up, and then SIR
WILLIAM TRUSSEL, the Speaker of the House of Commons, almost frightened
him to death by making him a tremendous speech to the effect that he was
no longer a King, and that everybody renounced allegiance to him. After
which, SIR THOMAS BLOUNT, the Steward of the Household, nearly finished
him, by coming forward and breaking his white wand--which was a ceremony
only performed at a King's death. Being asked in this pressing manner
what he thought of resigning, the King said he thought it was the best
thing he could do. So, he did it, and they proclaimed his son next day.

I wish I could close his history by saying that he lived a harmless life
in the Castle and the Castle gardens at Kenilworth, many years--that he
had a favourite, and plenty to eat and drink--and, having that, wanted
nothing. But he was shamefully humiliated. He was outraged, and
slighted, and had dirty water from ditches given him to shave with, and
wept and said he would have clean warm water, and was altogether very
miserable. He was moved from this castle to that castle, and from that
castle to the other castle, because this lord or that lord, or the other
lord, was too kind to him: until at last he came to Berkeley Castle, near
the River Severn, where (the Lord Berkeley being then ill and absent) he
fell into the hands of two black ruffians, called THOMAS GOURNAY and
WILLIAM OGLE.

One night--it was the night of September the twenty-first, one thousand
three hundred and twenty-seven--dreadful screams were heard, by the
startled people in the neighbouring town, ringing through the thick walls
of the Castle, and the dark, deep night; and they said, as they were thus
horribly awakened from their sleep, 'May Heaven be merciful to the King;
for those cries forbode that no good is being don