boat awaits ye at the stairs; a guard shall attend ye to your house.
Think what has passed within these walls has been a dream,--a dream
that, if told, is deathful, if concealed and forgotten hath no portent!"

Without waiting a reply, the king called from the anteroom one of his
gentlemen, and gave him special directions as to the departure and
conduct of the worthy scholar and his gentle daughter. Edward next
summoned before him the warder of the gate, learned that he alone was
privy to the mode of his guest's flight, and deeming it best to leave
at large no commentator on the tale he had invented, sentenced the
astonished warder to three months' solitary imprisonment,--for appearing
before him with soiled hosen! An hour afterwards, the king, with a small
though gorgeous retinue, was on his way to the More.

The archbishop had, according to his engagement, assembled in his palace
the more powerful of the discontented seigneurs; and his eloquence had
so worked upon them, that Edward beheld, on entering the hall, only
countenances of cheerful loyalty and respectful welcome. After the first
greetings, the prelate, according to the custom of the day, conducted
Edward into a chamber, that he might refresh himself with a brief rest
and the bath, previous to the banquet.

Edward seized the occasion, and told his tale; but however softened,
enough was left to create the liveliest dismay in his listener. The
lofty scaffolding of hope upon which the ambitious prelate was to mount
to the papal throne seemed to crumble into the dust. The king and the
earl were equally necessary to the schemes of George Nevile. He chid the
royal layman with more than priestly unction for his offence; but Edward
so humbly confessed his fault, that the prelate at length relaxed his
brow, and promised to convey his penitent assurances to the earl.

"Not an hour should be lost," he said; "the only one who can soothe
his wrath is your Highness's mother, our noble kinswoman. Permit me to
despatch to her grace a letter, praying her to seek the earl, while I
write by the same courier to himself."

"Be it all as you will," said Edward, doffing his surcoat, and dipping
his hands in a perfumed ewer; "I shall not know rest till I have knelt
to the Lady Anne, and won her pardon."

The prelate retired, and scarcely had he left the room when Sir John
Ratcliffe, [Afterwards Lord Fitzwalter. See Lingard (note, vol. iii. p.
507, quarto edition), for the proper