nd white leather could make betwixt
them.) Her eyes glowed, and flashed, and danced, all at once: and she
sat her down in a chair of state, and received the Seal in her own
hands, and saith she--

"Bear with you my duty to the King my lord, and tell him that I will
keep his great charge in safety."

So her words ran. But her eyes said--and eyes be apt to speak truer
than voices--"This day am I proudest of all the women in England, and I
let not go this Seal so long as I can keep it!"

Then she called Dame Elizabeth, which received the Seal upon the knee,
and the Queen bade her commit it to the great cypress coffer wherein her
royal robes were kept.

Not long after that, the Queen took her chamber at the Tower afore the
Lady Joan was born; and the Great Seal was then returned to the King's
Wardrobe. Master Thomas de Cherleton was then Comptroller of the
Wardrobe: but he was not over careful of his office, and left much in
the hands of his clerks; and as at that time Jack was clerk in charge,
he was truly Keeper of the Great Seal so long as the Queen abode in the
Tower. He told me he would be rare thankful when the charge was over,
for he might not sleep o' nights for thinking on the same. I do think
folks in high place, that be set in great charge, should do their own
work, and not leave it to them beneath, so that Master Comptroller hath
all the credit when things go well, and poor John Clerk payeth all the
wyte if things go wrong. But, dear heart! if man set forth to amend all
the crooked ways of this world, when shall he ever have done? Maybe if
I set a-work to amend me, Cicely, it shall be my best deed, and more
than I am like to have done in any hurry.

Now come I to the Queen's journey to France in 1324, and my tale shall
thereupon grow more particular. The King sent her over to remonstrate
with the King of France her brother for his theft of Guienne--for it was
no less; and to conclude a treaty with him to restore the same. It was
in May she left England and just before that something had happened
wherein I have always thought she had an hand. In the August of the
year before, Sir Roger de Mortimer brake prison from the Tower, and made
good his escape to Normandy; where, after tarrying a small season with
his mother's kinsmen, the Seigneurs de Fienles, he shifted his refuge to
Paris, where he was out of the King's jurisdiction. Now in regard of
that matter it did seem to me that King Edward was ful