Supper was served that evening at Whitehall with more than customary state and splendour—for King Philip was present.

The Queen was royally attired in robes of purple velvet, and men noted that, to-night, she wore her famous diamonds.

Beside her sat King Philip in magnificent apparel, and wearing the Collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece.

Few guests were present, conspicuous among them being the Queen's half-sister, the Lady Elizabeth, lately restored to Court favour; next to her sat De Noailles, the French Ambassador, with whom the Princess kept up a lively conversation.

Don Renard and the Lords Paget, Pembroke, Arundel, and Clinton were there, all in splendid attire.

The hall was hung with the beautiful arras collected by King Henry the Eighth, and a soft pleasant light diffused from silver lamps fed with perfumed oil. Foreign minstrels provided sweet music, to which the guests seemed to pay little heed, for to-night the Queen was in unusually good spirits, and the Court, taking its cue from her, jested and laughed freely.

Later on, supper being ended, the Court (now largely augmented in numbers) met in the gorgeous salon which was adorned by some famous pictures of Titian, brought hither, perhaps, by Philip, whose father, Charles V, was the great patron of the painter.

On the walls also hung portraits by Holbein and many works of the Flemish and Italian schools.

The furniture of the room was of costly nature, being chiefly of ebony, richly inlaid with mother-of-pearl.

Here the light was given by hundreds of wax candles, set in silver sconces, and it shone upon the fairest dames which England had to show to the proud Castilian nobles who grouped around the King.

Here, also, great Churchmen were present—among whom the Cardinal stood pre-eminent in his scarlet robes.

Presently the Cardinal found his way to the side of Queen Mary, who welcomed him with a smile, though it was a faint and weary one. For Mary was growing feeble in health and broken in spirits, though, to-night, she had shown herself more like the Mary Tudor of former days.

Alas, poor Queen!

Disappointed of her fondest hopes, childless and neglected by her husband, who would not pity her?

In the Court to-night she could but see how the young gallants gathered round the rising star—the Lady Elizabeth.

It was mainly by Philip's influence that she had recalled the hope of the Reformation Party to Court, and she saw, with bitter pain, that the Spanish King was strangely attentive to her young rival. Had Stephen Gardiner's advice been followed, Elizabeth would long ere now been swept from her path.

"Ah! had she erred?" thought the Queen in her inmost heart.

For this young and gay Princess was next in succession to the Throne, according to the will of their father, King Henry.

And so all her work might be undone, and the fondest, dearest hopes of her heart frustrated!

As these thoughts darkened her soul she saw Pole approaching her, and his very presence brought new life to her heart.

He knelt and kissed the Queen's hand, and when he rose Mary beckoned him to a seat beside her, and they fell into a close and confidential conversation.

The night was wearing on, the Queen was growing weary, yet she said in reply to a request from him—

"Yes, to-night, after Chapel, in my boudoir;" and so they separated.

The King had left the salon.

A Court courier had arrived from Brussels, and together with Don Renard he had withdrawn to his own rooms.

There they hastily examined the messenger's portfolio, and that business being transacted the Ambassador entered upon other matters.

King Philip was a hard master! Great statesmen and famous warriors knew that it behoved them to walk warily in their dealings with him. Eminent service and a long discharge of duty would not save them from the prison cell, and even the block, if they thwarted their imperious master.

Don Renard knew this full well.

At this moment he was the King's most trusted servant—none knew England and the English as he did, and Philip placed great reliance on his astute counsels. To-night he felt the extreme difficulty of the course he was pursuing.

He knew that the King was violently offended by Ralph's attack upon a Royal officer; that, moreover, he had a suspicion that this was a Protestant plot and that the offender himself was a kind of "Hot Gospeller!"

He must walk very warily to-night.

He had a communication from the Council of the City of London to lay before the King.

"The citizens have debated the conditions of the loan your Majesty did them the honour to ask of them," said Don Renard.

"Yes," said Philip, somewhat eagerly, "and I trust they raise no difficulty."

"These purse-proud burgesses are not like the money-lenders of Madrid or Amsterdam, they are not satisfied with the securities we offer," said the Ambassador.

The King frowned, as he replied—

"The money must be procured; our expedition hangs fire, and the English troops are badly equipped. You must see to it, and that quickly."

"The expedition is not popular in the City," said Renard, "we must do something to placate these stubborn islanders."

"Yes, I know," replied the King petulantly; "but what can we do?"

"Will your Majesty pardon me if I suggest something?" replied the Ambassador, and in obedience to Philip's nod of assent, he continued, "That young man, Ralph Jefferay, who was condemned to-day in the Court of the Star Chamber, is accounted a hero in London."

"And why?" asked Philip impatiently, the frown on his face deepening; "is it not because he is a heretic?"

"Nay, your Majesty, I know not whether he is of the 'New Learning' or not," replied Don Renard. "But the real reason goes far deeper than that: he is known to be a young man of splendid daring and of intrepid courage," he continued.

The King was not appeased.

"Go on," he said, "I see you have something further to tell me; I listen."

"Oh, sire," cried the Ambassador, "pardon me if I err through zeal in your service. There is a deed on record, just lately performed, which raised the admiration of the Londoners."

Then as briefly as possible Don Renard told the stirring tale of the rescue on the Thames, hiding for the moment his own connection with it. He told it well, bringing out vividly all the strong points.

The King was a cold-blooded man, yet he was something of a soldier, and a deed of arms like this moved him.

"And the man they rescued, who was he, you have not told me his name?" said he.

"It was my stepson, Don Diego, sire," was the reply.

"Ah! I see, I see," said the King.

Then after a moments thought he continued—

"I will see the Queen on his behalf, and I will ask that the pillory and the mutilation be not undergone by the condemned man. Yet, Renard, he is a seditious man, and, I doubt not, a heretic. The sentence as to the fine and the imprisonment must stand."

"That will not render the Queen nor your Majesty popular in the City; it will not expedite our loan nor induce young Englishmen to come forward to fight our battles," replied Renard. "Pardon me once more, sire, if I make a suggestion to you. We are calling for an English contingent of eight thousand men: Lord Clinton tells me that men are coming forward very slowly.

"These twin brothers, William and Ralph Jefferay, are of gentle birth and they are born soldiers. They have an intended brother-in-law, a young nobleman named Geoffrey de Fynes. All the three are willing to take arms in your Majesty's cause and to fight under your banner.

"This is my proposition, sire, that you ask the Queen to extend her gracious pardon to Ralph Jefferay, on the condition that the three young men I have named take service in Lord Clinton's contingent."

The frown cleared from the King's brow, he even smiled as he said—

"You plead well, Don Renard, you would have made a great lawyer; well, be it as you wish, I will ask her to do us this service."

"To-night, sire?" said the Ambassador.

"Nay, to-morrow," replied the King; "I must not urge State matters on the Queen at this late hour."

"But, sire, to-morrow will be too late, the Star Chamber acts promptly, and to-morrow at ten o'clock Ralph Jefferay will stand in pillory at Tyburn!" replied Renard.

The King flushed and looked somewhat angered; he was not accustomed to be thus urged.

It was at this moment that an usher craved admission into the chamber, he brought a message from the Queen.

"Would the King grant her a few minutes interview forthwith in her boudoir?"

"Tell her Majesty that I will wait upon her immediately," he said to the usher.

Then to the Ambassador he said—

"There is your answer, Don Renard—Heaven fights for you!"

"Yes, sire, thank God!" replied Renard fervently.

Meanwhile the cause the Ambassador had at heart had progressed elsewhere.

Mary was always strictly attentive to her religious duties, and, at the accustomed hour, she had gone to Vespers in the Chapel Royal, many of the courtiers accompanying her thither.

At the conclusion of the short service she retired to her boudoir, dismissing her Court for the night.

The Cardinal still knelt in the Chapel, until an usher came to summon him to the Queen's presence. He rose and followed him.

The Queen had laid aside some of her heavy State robes, and her diamonds no longer glistened on her head and neck. She was clad in a rich suit of black velvet, her favourite attire.

As the Cardinal entered she knelt before him.

"Your blessing, father," she said.

Then she rose, and in his turn the Prelate knelt and kissed her hand.

She motioned him to a seat.

Behind her stood two ladies-in-waiting. Pointing to them the Queen said—

"Shall my ladies leave us? It shall be as you wish."

Pole hesitated for a moment.

He had a difficult and delicate cause to plead, he felt that he might be pitting the Queen against her husband if the Ambassador, on his part, failed to influence Philip.

"It may be advisable, your Majesty," he said, and thereupon the Queen motioned to the ladies to withdraw.

They were alone, and Reginald lifted up his heart to God for Divine guidance.

"Madam," he said, "the hour grows late and you are weary, I will be very brief in what I have to say."

"Nay," said the Queen, "nay, my Lord Cardinal and good cousin, the hour matters not and your voice brings comfort to my soul! Speak all that your heart bids you say, I listen."

Then the Cardinal addressed himself to his task.

"I come, madam, on a matter of life and death, on behalf of one who was tried and condemned in the Court of the Star Chamber to-day—by name Ralph Jefferay. The youth was found guilty of 'conspiracy,' yet am I sure that, though he may be guilty on this charge in a strictly legal sense, yet is he absolutely innocent morally; so loyal to your royal person is he at heart, that when the cruel sentence was pronounced, he cried out in loud tones—'God save the Queen!' The poor youth's offence is one of assault and nothing more, let me tell you briefly the circumstances of the case."

Then the Cardinal rapidly recounted the episode of the Chiddingly woods.

"Mark, Madam, I beseech you, that no blood was shed, though the Pursuivant threatened him with dire punishment, being at the moment absolutely at his mercy."

The Queen listened attentively, but she made no observation.

Pole's heart sank within him, he felt that he had not yet convinced his noble auditor's judgment, nor had he deeply moved her feelings.

Was it possible that the King had forestalled him, representing the matter as a heretical plot and Ralph as a wild incendiary—a "Hot Gospeller," in fact?

Once more the Cardinal's soul appealed to Heaven for help, nor did he appeal in vain!

In warm and earnest language he set forth the brothers' exploit on the Thames and their narrow escape from a violent death.

"Oh, Madam," he cried, "as I looked upon his pale, scarred, but noble face this day in the Star Chamber, a deep sense of pity took possession of me. He had atoned for his offence! It could not be that one so young, so brave, so nobly daring should suffer a felon's doom, and I besought Heaven to have............