But--Varney, step forward--this gentleman will inform your Grace of the cause why the lady" (he could not force his rebellious tongue to utter the words--HIS WIFE) "cannot attend on your royal presence." Varney advanced, and pleaded with readiness, what indeed he firmly believed, the absolute incapacity of the party (for neither did he dare, in Leicester's presence, term her his wife) to wait on her Grace.
"Here," said he, "are attestations from a most learned physician, whose skill and honour are well known to my good Lord of Leicester, and from an honest and devout Protestant, a man of credit and substance, one Anthony Foster, the gentleman in whose house she is at present bestowed, that she now labours under an illness which altogether unfits her for such a journey as betwixt this Castle and the neighbourhood of Oxford." "This alters the matter," said the Queen, taking the certificates in her hand, and glancing at their contents.--"Let Tressilian come forward .-- Master Tressilian, we have much sympathy for your situation, the rather that you seem to have set your heart deeply on this Amy Robsart, or Varney.

Our power, thanks to God, and the willing obedience of a loving people, is worth much, but there are some things which it cannot compass.

We cannot, for example, command the affections of a giddy young girl, or make her love sense and learning better than a courtier's fine doublet; and we cannot control sickness, with which it seems this lady is afflicted, who may not, by reason of such infirmity, attend our court here, as we had required her to do.

Here are the testimonials of the physician who hath her under his charge, and the gentleman in whose house she resides, so setting forth." "Under your Majesty's favour," said Tressilian hastily, and in his alarm for the consequence of the imposition practised on the Queen forgetting in part at least his own promise to Amy, "these certificates speak not the truth." "How, sir!" said the Queen--"impeach my Lord of Leicester's veracity! But you shall have a fair hearing.

In our presence the meanest of our subjects shall be heard against the proudest, and the least known against the most favoured; therefore you shall be heard fairly, but beware you speak not without a warrant! Take these certificates in your own hand, look at them carefully, and say manfully if you impugn the truth of them, and upon what evidence." As the Queen spoke, his promise and all its consequences rushed on the mind of the unfortunate Tressilian, and while it controlled his natural inclination to pronounce that a falsehood which he knew from the evidence of his senses to be untrue, gave an indecision and irresolution to his appearance and utterance which made strongly against him in the mind of Elizabeth, as well as of all who beheld him.