hath
been from the beginning, and will be to the end." Elizabeth.

[Footnote 291: As soon as Noailles learnt that his
enclosure formed part of the case against
Elizabeth, he came forward to acquit her of having
furnished him with it; "jurant et blasphemant tous
les sermens du monde pour la justification de la
dicte Dame Elizabeth."--Renard to Charles V., April
3: _Rolls House MSS._]

"I humbly crave but one word of answer from yourself."

{p.126} Had Elizabeth known the history of those words of the queen
to her, to which she appealed, she would have spared herself the
trouble of writing this letter. Sussex fulfilled his promise, and
during the delay the tide turned, and the barge could not pass London
Bridge till the following day. The queen could not venture to send the
princess through the streets; and in dread lest, at the last moment,
her prey should be snatched from her, she answered the appeal only by
storming at the bearer, and at his friends in the council. "They were
going no good way," she said, "for their lives they durst not have
acted so in her father's time; she wished that he was alive and among
them but for a single month."[292]

[Footnote 292: Renard.]

At nine o'clock the next morning--it was Palm Sunday (March 18)--the
two lords returned to Elizabeth to tell her that her letter had
failed. As she crossed the garden to the water she threw up her eyes
to the queen's window, but there was no sign of recognition. What do
the lords mean, she said, that they suffer me thus to be led into
captivity? The barge was too deep to approach sufficiently near to the
landing-place at the Tower to enable her to step upon the causeway
without wetting her feet; it was raining too, and the petty
inconveniences, fretting against the dreadful associations of the
Traitors' Gate, shook her self-command. She refused to land; then
sharply rejecting an offer of assistance, she sprang out upon the mud.
"Are all those harnessed men there for me?" she said to Sir John Gage,
who was waiting with the Tower guard. "No, madam," Gage answered.
"Yes," she said, "I know it is so; it needed not for me, being but a
weak woman. I never thought to have come in here a prisoner," she went
on, turning to the soldiers; "I pray you all good fellows and friends,
bear me witness that I come i