He turned the papers over and over, as if he had been an idiot, incapable of comprehending their contents.

The Queen's impatience began to become visible.

"You are a scholar, sir," she said, "and of some note, as I have heard; yet you seem wondrous slow in reading text hand.

How say you, are these certificates true or no ?" "Madam," said Tressilian, with obvious embarrassment and hesitation, anxious to avoid admitting evidence which he might afterwards have reason to confute, yet equally desirous to keep his word to Amy, and to give her, as he had promised, space to plead her own cause in her own way--"Madam--Madam, your Grace calls on me to admit evidence which ought to be proved valid by those who found their defence upon them." "Why, Tressilian, thou art critical as well as poetical," said the Queen, bending on him a brow of displeasure; "methinks these writings, being produced in the presence of the noble Earl to whom this Castle pertains, and his honour being appealed to as the guarantee of their authenticity, might be evidence enough for thee.

But since thou listest to be so formal--Varney, or rather my Lord of Leicester, for the affair becomes yours" (these words, though spoken at random, thrilled through the Earl's marrow and bones), "what evidence have you as touching these certificates ?" Varney hastened to reply, preventing Leicester--"So please your Majesty, my young Lord of Oxford, who is here in presence, knows Master Anthony Foster's hand and his character." The Earl of Oxford, a young unthrift, whom Foster had more than once accommodated with loans on usurious interest, acknowledged, on this appeal, that he knew him as a wealthy and independent franklin, supposed to be worth much money, and verified the certificate produced to be his handwriting.
"And who speaks to the Doctor's certificate ?" said the Queen.