to tarry to depeche this
gentleman. And for that my lettres addressyed to the King and the Duke
of that I dare not aventure me to wryte on to them so at lengthe of thys
bisyness I fear me to be evile kept, I me determine to wrythe to you at
lengthe that you may the better advertise them of myne intent."

She then explains that her intent is to put a stop to the whole matter.
Fear of endangering the prospects of her idolized nephew, Charles,
should she make a mesalliance, was probably Marguerite's main reason for
disobeying the dictates of her heart. Marguerite was a politician,
clear-headed, keen, cool, calculating; but she was also a very human
woman. She wished Sir Richard to think well of her she desired the king
to know that she did not blame him in the matter. Above all, she wished
Suffolk to understand that while she rejected him she still remained
true to him. She told Wingfield how "at severall occaysions" the king
pleaded for his friend and favorite courtier:

"He sayde that I was yet too young for to abide thus, and that the
ladyes of hys contree dyd remarye at fifty and three score yeeres." But
Marguerite was firm. She says: "Whereupon I answered hym that I hadde
never hadde wylle so to do and that I was too muche unhappy in
hosbondes, but he wolde nott beleve me."

Throughout the letters, Suffolk (Brandon) is referred to by Marguerite
as the "Personnage." Again the king told her that his friend was most
unhappy, fearing she would marry someone else.

"Wyche I promised to hym," says Marguerite, "I schulde not do." But the
"Personnage," who appears to have been present at this interview, was
not satisfied. Marguerite says: "He mayde me promyse in his hands that
how soever I shulde be pressed by my father, or otherwyse, I should not
make alyance of maryage with Prynce off the worlde."

The king was sometimes discreetly absent when the two met.

"At the head of a koppboorde," a few days later, Suffolk made Marguerite
renew her promise to him. Marguerite refers also to certain "gracyewse
letters" that passed between herself and her English suitor. The report
had got abroad in the court that Suffolk had in his possession a diamond
ring known to belong to the archduchess. She confesses the truth of the
rumor:

"One night at Tournaye, being at the bankett, after the bankett, he put
hymself upon hys knees before me, and hym playing, he drew from my
finger the rynge, and put it on hys finger, and sythe shewed i