her; how she equally outwitted Northumberland and his army,
and made her triumphant entry into London as Queen; and how her
vengeance fell on those who had sought to snatch the crown from her.

From the Duke and Lady Jane to Robert Dudley, all the traitors who had
conspired to do this dastardly deed were sent to cool their misguided
ardour in the Tower, from which Northumberland, Jane and her husband
were led to the headsman's block; while Robert Dudley was among those
who were left to languish in durance, and to while away the tedious
hours of captivity by carving their emblems and names on the walls of
their cells, where they may be seen to this day, or to stroll
disconsolately on the Tower leads by way of melancholy exercise.

Robert, it is said, found many of these hours of duress far from
unpleasant; for among the prisoners in the Tower was none other than the
Princess Elizabeth, sister to the Queen (and her successor on the
throne); and we are told, on what authority does not appear, that there
were many sweet and stolen meetings between the fair young Princess and
the captive knight, when bribed warders turned a blind eye on their
dallying. And rumour even goes so far as to speak of secret nuptials,
the fruits of which were, in late years, to bear such high names as my
Lord of Essex and Francis Bacon.

"Fairy tales," no doubt; but, stripped of such ornamental embellishment,
there can be little doubt that it was within the Tower's grim walls that
Dudley first learnt to love the lady who was to be his Queen, and in
whose life he was destined to play such a romantic part, when she should
wear her crown, and he should be her avowed lover and aspirant to her
hand.

A year of such pleasantly-qualified captivity, and Robert Dudley was a
free man again, sent to purge his treason, by a Queen, indulgent to his
youth and it may be to his good looks, by wielding a sword in the war
then raging between Spain and France; and here he acquitted himself so
valiantly for Mary's Spanish allies that, on his return in 1558, covered
with glory, the ban on the Dudleys was removed; and Robert and his
brothers and sisters were restored to all the rank and rights their
father's treason had forfeited.

A few months later Queen Mary died; and when Elizabeth ascended the
throne, Dudley's sun burst into splendour. The romance which had been
cradled amidst the fearful joys of prison-meetings, was now to flourish
under vastly-changed condit