e anything intelligible out of them is quite
impossible: I wished to be a queen, and wished I might not be one: I
would have my lord Percy happy without me; and yet I would not have the
power of my charms be so weak that he could bear the thought of life
after being disappointed in my love. But the result of all these
confused thoughts was a resolution to obey my father. I am afraid there
was not much duty in the case, though at that time I was glad to take
hold of that small shadow to save me from looking on my own actions
in the true light. When my lover came again I looked on him with
that coldness that he could not bear, on purpose to rid myself of all
importunity: for since I had resolved to use him ill I regarded him as
the monument of my shame, and his every look appeared to me to upbraid
me. My father soon carried me to court; there I had no very hard part
to act; for, with the experience I had had of mankind, I could find no
great difficulty in managing a man who liked me, and for whom I not only
did not care but had an utter aversion to: but this aversion he believed
to be virtue; for how credulous is a man who has an inclination to
believe! And I took care sometimes to drop words of cottages and love,
and how happy the woman was who fixed her affections on a man in such a
station of life that she might show her love without being suspected of
hypocrisy or mercenary views. All this was swallowed very easily by the
amorous king, who pushed on the divorce with the utmost impetuosity,
although the affair lasted a good while, and I remained most part of
the time behind the curtain. Whenever the king mentioned it to me I used
such arguments against it as I thought the most likely to make him
the more eager for it; begging that, unless his conscience was really
touched, he would not on my account give any grief to his virtuous
queen; for in being her handmaid I thought myself highly honored; and
that I would not only forego a crown, but even give up the pleasure of
ever seeing him more, rather than wrong my royal mistress. This way of
talking, joined to his eager desire to possess my person, convinced the
king so strongly of my exalted merit, that he thought it a meritorious
act to displace the woman (whom he could not have so good an opinion of,
because he was tired of her), and to put me in her place. After about a
year's stay at court, as the king's love to me began to be talked of, it
was thought proper to remove