At present, however, we had no choice hut to treat him as an ambassador from friends.
And I?
What was I to do?
Should I follow my father's wishes, and draw my maiden sword on behalf of the insurgents, or should I stand aside and see how events shaped themselves?
It was more fitting that I should go than he.

But, on the other hand, I was no keen religious zealot.
Papistry, Church, Dissent, I believed that there was good in all of them, but that not one was worth the spilling of human blood.

James might be a perjurer and a villain, but he was, as far as I could see, the rightful king of England, and no tales of secret marriages or black boxes could alter the fact that his rival was apparently an illegitimate son, and as such ineligible to the throne.

Who could say what evil act upon the part of a monarch justified his people in setting him aside?
Who was the judge in such a case?
Yet, on the other hand, the man had notoriously broken his own pledges, and that surely should absolve his subjects from their allegiance.

It was a weighty question for a country-bred lad to have to settle, and yet settled it must be, and that speedily.