e lady from Highgate had become known, and
had aroused almost as much alarm as if some frightful calamity had
overtaken the State. Confusion and alarm pervaded the court. The
Gunpowder Plot itself hardly shook up the gray heads of King James's
cabinet more than did the flight of this pair of parted doves. The wind
seemed to waft peril. The minutes seemed fraught with threats. Couriers
were despatched in all haste to the neighboring seaports, and hurry
everywhere prevailed.

A messenger was sent to the Tower, bidding the lieutenant to guard
Seymour with double vigilance. To the surprise of the worthy lieutenant,
he discovered that Seymour was not there to be guarded. The bird had
flown. Word of this threw King James into a ludicrous state of terror.
He wished to issue a vindictive proclamation, full of hot fulminations,
and could scarcely be persuaded by his minister to tone down his foolish
utterances. The revised edict was sent off with as much speed as if an
enemy's fleet were in the offing, the courier being urged to his utmost
despatch, the postmasters aroused to activity by the stirring
superscription, "Haste, haste, post-haste! Haste for your life, your
life!" One might have thought that a new Norman invasion was threatening
the coast, instead of a pair of new-married lovers flying to finish
their honey-moon in peace and freedom abroad.

[Illustration: ROTTEN ROW. LONDON.]

When news of what had happened reached the family of the Seymours, it
threw them into a state of alarm not less than that of the king. They
knew what it meant to offend the crown. The progenitor of the family,
the Duke of Somerset, had lost his head through some offence to a king,
and his descendants had no ambition to be similarly curtailed of their
natural proportions. Francis Seymour wrote to his uncle, the Earl of
Hertford, then distant from London, telling the story of the flight of
his brother and the lady. This letter still exists, and its appearance
indicates the terror into which it threw the earl. It reached him at
midnight. With it came a summons to attend the privy council. He read it
apparently by the light of a taper, and with such agitation that the
sheet caught fire. The scorched letter still exists, and is burnt
through at the most critical part of its story. The poor old earl
learned enough to double his terror, and lost the section that would
have alleviated it. He hastened up to London in a state of doubt and
fear, not kn