s her hand.[481] Mary could not bring herself at first to
endure an interview. The Bishop of Winchester came to her on the
queen's behalf, to repeat the advice which had been given to her at
Woodstock, and to promise pardon if she would ask for it.

[Footnote 481: Joanna of Castille, the emperor's
mad mother, dying soon after, masses were said for
her with some solemnity at St. Paul's. "Aux
obseques que la royne commanda estre faictes a
Londres, l'admiral d'Angleterre demontra
ouvertement avoir quelque ressentment, de ce qu'il
disoit le roy ne luy faisoit si bonne chiere et
demonstration si favorable qu'il avoit accoustume,
disant qu'il scavoit bien pourquoy s'estoit,
inferant que ce fust pour ce qu'il avoit faict
baiser les mains de Elizabetz aux gentilhommes qui
l'avoient visitez."]

Elizabeth had been resolute when she was alone and friendless, she was
not more yielding now. She repeated that she had {p.216} committed
no offence, and therefore required no forgiveness; she had rather lie
in prison all her life than confess when there was nothing to be
confessed.

The answer was carried to Mary, and the day after the bishop came
again. "The queen marvelled," he said, "that she would so stoutly
stand to her innocence;" if she called herself innocent, she implied
that she had been "unjustly imprisoned;" if she expected her liberty
"she must tell another tale."

But the causes which had compelled the court to send for her, forbade
them equally to persist in an impotent persecution. They had desired
only to tempt her into admissions which they could plead in
justification for past or future severities. They had failed, and they
gave way.

A week later, on an evening in the beginning of July, Lady Clarence,
Mary's favourite attendant, brought a message, that the queen was
expecting her sister in her room. The princess was led across the
garden in the dusk, and introduced by a back staircase into the royal
apartments. Almost two years had elapsed since the sisters had last
met, when Mary hid the hatred which was in her heart behind a veil of
kindness. There was no improvement of feeling, but the necessity of
circumstances compelled the form of reconciliation.

Elizabeth dropped on her knees. "