Just before so bloodthirsty and revengeful, they seemed now to have become the softest and gentlest of beings.
But could their looks have killed, their fire certainly would have consumed poor John Heywood, who now gazed at them with an insolent sneer, and advanced into the very midst of their lines.
"Now, my ladies, you strike him not ?" asked the king.
"No, your majesty, we despise him too much even to wish to chastise him," said the Duchess of Richmond.
"Shall your enemy who has injured you go thus unpunished ?" asked the king.

"No, no, my ladies; it shall not be said that there is a man in my kingdom whom I have let escape when so richly deserving punishment.

We will, therefore, impose some other punishment on him.

He calls himself a poet, and has often boasted that he could make his pen fly as fast as his tongue! Now, then, John, show us in this manner that you are no liar! I command you to write, for the great court festival which takes place in a few days, a new interlude; and one indeed, hear you, John, which is calculated to make the greatest growler merry, and over which these ladies will be forced to laugh so heartily, that they will forget all their ire!" "Oh," said John dolefully, "what an equivocal and lewd poem it must be to please these ladies and make them laugh! My king, we must, then, to please these dear ladies, forget a little our chastity, modesty, and maiden bashfulness, and speak in the spirit of the ladies--that is to say, as lasciviously as possible." "You are a wretch!" said Lady Jane; "a vulgar hypocritical fool." "Earl Douglas, your daughter is speaking to you," said John Heywood, calmly.

"She flatters you much, your tender daughter." "Now then, John, you have heard my orders, and will you obey them?
In four days will this festival begin; I give you two days more.