ed our royal master's son?"

"Even so."

Once more the wild man bowed low. Then the queen bade him arise, told
him how she and the young prince had come into the plight, and ended by
asking if he could give them food and shelter for a short time.

"All I have is your majesty's," said the man, "even my life. I will at
once conduct you to my humble dwelling." And he lifted the weary boy
tenderly in his arms, and led the queen to his cottage in the wood,
where they got both food and shelter, and every care and attention from
the robber's good wife.

"Mother," said the young prince that night, "thou saidst right, that
Heaven would protect us."

"Ay, my boy, and will still protect us!"

For some days they rested at the cottage, tended with endless care by
the loyal robber and his wife, until the pursuit from the battle of
Hexham was over. Then, with the aid of her protector, the queen made
her way to the coast, where a vessel waited to convey her and the prince
to Flanders. Thus, for a time they escaped from all their dangers. Had
the young prince lived to become King of England, we may be sure that
the kind act of the robber would not have been suffered to die
unrewarded. But, alas! Edward of Lancaster was never King of England.

The Wars of the Roses, as we all know, resulted in the utter defeat of
the young prince's party. He was thirteen years old when the rival
Houses of York and Lancaster fought their twelfth battle in the meadow
at Tewkesbury. On that occasion Edward fought bravely in his own cause,
but he and his followers were completely routed by the troops of King
Edward the Fourth. Flying from the field of battle, he was arrested and
brought before the young king.

"How dared you come here?" wrathfully inquired the usurper.

"To recover my father's crown and my own inheritance," boldly replied
the prince.

Whereat, the history says, Edward struck at him with his iron gauntlet,
and his attendants fell upon him and slew him with their swords.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.

EDWARD THE SIXTH, THE GOOD KING OF ENGLAND.

It was a strange moment in the history of England when the great King
Henry the Eighth. ("Bluff King Hal," as his subjects called him)
breathed his last. However popular he may have been on account of his
courage and energy, he possessed vices which must always withhold from
him the name of a _good_ king, and which, in fact, rendered his reign a
continuous scene of cruelty and