permission to the admiral to visit her
after he became a widower, on account of the general report that she was
likely to become his wife; and not the slightest trace was at this time
found of any correspondence between them, though Harrington afterwards
underwent an imprisonment for having delivered to her a letter from the
admiral. Yet it is stated that the partiality of the young princess
betrayed itself by many involuntary tokens to those around her, who were
thus encouraged to entertain her with accounts of the admiral's
attachment, and to inquire whether, if the consent of the council could
be obtained, she would consent to admit his addresses. The admiral is
represented to have proceeded with caution equal to her own. Anxious to
ascertain her sentiments, earnestly desirous to accomplish so splendid
an union, but fully sensible of the inutility as well as danger of a
clandestine connexion, he may be thought rather to have regarded her
hand as the recompense which awaited the success of all his other plans
of ambition, than as the means of obtaining that success; and it seemed
to have been only by distant hints through the agents whom he trusted,
that he had ventured as yet to intimate to her his views and wishes; but
it is probable that much of the truth was by these agents suppressed.

The protector, rather, as it seems, with the desire of criminating his
brother than of clearing the princess, sent sir Robert Tyrwhitt to her
residence at Hatfield, empowered to examine her on the whole matter; and
his letters to his employer inform us of many particulars. When, by the
base expedient of a counterfeit letter, he had brought her to believe
that both Mrs. Ashley and Parry were committed to the Tower, "her grace
was," as he expresses it, "marvellously abashed, and did weep very
tenderly a long time, demanding whether they had confessed any thing or
not." Soon after, sending for him, she related several circumstances
which she said she had forgotten to mention when the master of the
household and master Denny came from the protector to examine her.
"After all this," adds he, "I did require her to consider her honor, and
the peril that might ensue, for she was but a subject; and I further
declared what a woman Mrs. Ashley was, with a long circumstance, saying
that if she would open all things herself, that all the evil and shame
should be ascribed to them, and her youth considered both with the
king's majesty, your grace