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They called him liar and covered him with the same abuse that their successors hurled at Charles I.; but Henry stood firm, he refused what had been dragged from him by force, and Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, raised an army not from the people but from his own feudal adherents and his friends and took the field, striking into the valley of the Severn, where he seized Hereford, Gloucester, Worcester and Bridgnorth with their castles.
He is a responsible-looking gentleman dressed in black, portly enough, but strong and active. Has a perfectly natural and easy air and is not in the least embarrassed by the great presence into which he comes. "Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock, as I have already apologized for intruding on you, I cannot do better than be very brief. I thank you, Sir Leicester."
This act of abdication by Leicester, which had been received on the 22nd of January by the English envoy, Herbert, at the moment of his departure from the Netherlands, had been carried back by him to England, on the ground that its communication to the States at that moment would cause him inconveniently to postpone his journey.
Besides, Trinity Day would bring the end of it all, and that was not far off. She steeled her will to wait till then, no matter how dark the sky might be. As time went on, Leicester became impatient. He had not been able to induce M. Aubert to compel Angele to accept a quiet refuge at Kenilworth; he saw that this plan would not work, and he deployed his mind upon another.
Presently came galloping forward in hot haste those nobles and gentlemen, with their esquires, fifty men in all Sidney, Willoughby, and the rest whom Leicester had no longer been able to restrain from taking part in the adventure. A force of infantry, the amount of which cannot be satisfactorily ascertained, had been ordered by the Earl to cross the bridge at a later moment.
"Now the heavens forfend!" said the Queen; "we have already suffered from the misconstructions and broils which seem to follow this poor brain-sick lady wherever she comes. Think you not so, my lord?" she added, appealing to Leicester with something in her look that indicated regret, even tenderly expressed, for their disagreement of that morning. Leicester compelled himself to bow low.
Orders were issued for the raising of an army for service in the Low Countries, and Dudley, Earl of Leicester, was appointed by the queen to its command. The decision of the queen was received with enthusiasm in England as well as in Holland, and although the Earl of Leicester was not personally popular, volunteers flocked to his standard.
Edward mounted his horse, rode out with his guard, set them to race, and looked on as umpire, till, their steeds being duly tired, he galloped off, and the last they saw of him was far in advance meeting with a party of spears, beneath the pennon of Mortimer. And now the Earl of Leicester experienced that "success but signifies vicissitude." After his reign of one year, his fall was rapid.
Ortel had afterwards an interview with Leicester, in which the Earl assured him that her Majesty had not in the least changed in her sentiments towards the Provinces. "For myself," said he, "I am ready, if her Majesty choose to make use of me, to go over there in person, and to place life, property, and all the assistance I can gain from my friends, upon the issue.
Catharine de Medicis, jealous of them both, offered the hand of the Duke of Anjou, brother to her former husband, and Elizabeth, the artful queen of England, recommended Lord Robert Dudley, afterward Earl of Leicester. Mary shunned all their intrigues, and followed the bent of her own inclination in marrying Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, eldest son of the Earl of Lennox.
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