he former rule of Henry, that his intellect, which,
however vigorous in his calmer moods, was liable to be obscured and
dulled by his passions, had half confounded the gentle king with his
ferocious wife and stern councillors, and he had thought he never could
have humbled himself to the man, even so far as knighthood's submission
to Margaret's sex had allowed him to the woman. But the sweetness of
Henry's manners and disposition, the saint-like dignity which he had
manifested throughout this painful interview, and the touching grace
and trustful generosity of his last words,--words which consummated the
earl's large projects of ambition and revenge,--had that effect upon
Warwick which the preaching of some holy man, dwelling upon the patient
sanctity of the Saviour, had of old on a grim Crusader, all incapable
himself of practising such meek excellence, and yet all moved and
penetrated by its loveliness in another; and, like such Crusader, the
representation of all mildest and most forgiving singularly stirred up
in the warrior's mind images precisely the reverse,--images of armed
valour and stern vindication, as if where the Cross was planted sprang
from the earth the standard and the war-horse!

"Perish your foes! May war and storm scatter them as the chaff! My
liege, my royal master," continued the earl, in a deep, low, faltering
voice, "why knew I not thy holy and princely heart before? Why stood so
many between Warwick's devotion and a king so worthy to command it?
How poor, beside thy great-hearted fortitude and thy Christian heroism,
seems the savage valour of false Edward! Shame upon one who can betray
the trust thou hast placed in him! Never will I!--Never! I swear it!
No! though all England desert thee, I will stand alone with my breast of
mail before thy throne! Oh, would that my triumph had been less peaceful
and less bloodless! would that a hundred battlefields were yet left
to prove how deeply--deeply in his heart of hearts--Warwick feels the
forgiveness of his king!"

"Not so, not so, not so! not battlefields, Warwick!" said Henry. "Ask
not to serve the king by shedding one subject's blood."

"Your pious will be obeyed!" replied Warwick. "We will see if mercy can
effect in others what thy pardon effects in me. And now, my liege, no
longer must these walls confine thee. The chambers of the palace await
their sovereign. What ho, there!" and going to the door he threw it
open, and agreeably to the orders