hou side by side with my mortal foe,
who, instead of repenting treason, dares but to complain of injury? Am
I fallen so low that my voice to pardon or disdain is counted but as a
sough of idle air! God of my fathers, hear me! Willingly from my heart
I tear the last thought and care for the pomps of earth. Hateful to me
a crown for which the wearer must cringe to enemy and rebel! Away, Earl
Warwick! Monstrous and unnatural seems it to the wife of captive Henry
to see thee by the side of Henry's son!"

Every eye turned in fear to the aspect of the earl, every ear listened
for the answer which might be expected from his well-known heat and
pride,--an answer to destroy forever the last hope of the Lancastrian
line. But whether it was the very consciousness of his power to raise
or to crush that fiery speaker, or those feelings natural to brave men,
half of chivalry, half contempt, which kept down the natural anger by
thoughts of the sex and sorrows of the Anjouite, or that the wonted
irascibility of his temper had melted into one steady and profound
passion of revenge against Edward of York, which absorbed all lesser and
more trivial causes of resentment,--the earl's face, though pale as the
dead, was unmoved and calm, and, with a grave and melancholy smile, he
answered,--

"More do I respect thee, O queen, for the hot words which show a truth
rarely heard from royal lips than hadst thou deigned to dissimulate the
forgiveness and kindly charity which sharp remembrance permits thee not
to feel! No, princely Margaret, not yet can there be frank amity between
thee and me! Nor do I boast the affection yon gallant gentlemen have
displayed. Frankly, as thou hast spoken, do I say, that the wrongs I
have suffered from another alone move me to allegiance to thyself! Let
others serve thee for love of Henry; reject not my service, given but
for revenge on Edward,--as much, henceforth, am I his foe as formerly
his friend and maker! [Sir H. Ellis: Original Letters, vol. i., second
series.] And if, hereafter, on the throne, thou shouldst remember and
resent the former wars, at least thou hast owed me no gratitude, and
thou canst not grieve my heart and seethe my brain, as the man whom I
once loved better than a son! Thus, from thy presence I depart, chafing
not at thy scornful wrath; mindful, young prince, but of thy just and
gentle heart, and sure, in the calm of my own soul (on which this much,
at least, of our destiny is reflected as