powerful an
ally--"if he land, and make open war on Edward--we must say the word
boldly--what intent can he proclaim? It is not enough to say King Edward
shall not reign; the earl must say also what king England should elect!"

"Prince," answered Montagu, "before I reply to that question, vouchsafe
to hear my own hearty desire and wish. Though the king has deeply
wronged my brother, though he has despoiled me of the lands, which were,
peradventure, not too large a reward for twenty victories in his cause,
and restored them to the House that ever ranked amongst the strongholds
of his Lancastrian foe, yet often when I am most resentful, the memory
of my royal seigneur's past love and kindness comes over me,--above all,
the thought of the solemn contract between his daughter and my son; and
I feel (now the first heat of natural anger at an insult offered to
my niece is somewhat cooled) that if Warwick did land, I could almost
forget my brother for my king."

"Almost!" repeated Richard, smiling.

"I am plain with your Highness, and say but what I feel. I would even
now fain trust that, by your mediation, the king may be persuaded to
make such concessions and excuses as in truth would not misbeseem him,
to the father of Lady Anne, and his own kinsman; and that yet, ere it
be too late, I may be spared the bitter choice between the ties of blood
and my allegiance to the king."

"But failing this hope (which I devoutly share),--and Edward, it must be
owned, could scarcely trust to a letter,--still less to a messenger, the
confession of a crime,--failing this, and your brother land, and I side
with him for love of Anne, pledged to me as a bride,--what king would he
ask England to elect?"

"The Duke of Clarence loves you dearly, Lord Richard," replied Montagu.
"Knowest thou not how often he hath said, 'By sweet Saint George, if
Gloucester would join me, I would make Edward know we were all one man's
sons, who should be more preferred and promoted than strangers of his
wife's blood?'" [Hall.]

Richard's countenance for a moment evinced disappointment; but he said
dryly: "Then Warwick would propose that Clarence should be king?--and
the great barons and the honest burghers and the sturdy yeomen would,
you think, not stand aghast at the manifesto which declares, not that
the dynasty of York is corrupt and faulty, but that the younger son
should depose the elder,--that younger son, mark me! not only unknown in
war and green in