The Tangled Skein

The great Hall at Westminster was already thronged with people at an early hour of the morning, and the servants of the Knight Marshal and the Lord Warden of the Fleet had much...

"Whereas it is said that on the fourteenth day of October thou didst unlawfully kill Don Miguel, Marquis de Suarez, grandee of Spain and envoy extraordinary of His Most Catholic...

Thus day followed day, whilst in the great world without, England was preparing to see her premier lord arraigned before his peers on a charge of murder. And in one of the small...

Directly after supper Her Majesty retired to her own apartments, accompanied by her ladies, leaving behind her that desultory atmosphere of dull and purposeless conversation, wh...

The wintry sun was bestowing its last cold kiss on the terraces and bosquets of the park. Beyond, the landscape--wrapped in a delicate haze of purple--was gently swooning in the...

Outside the witch's tent all was silent and deserted. Darkness had gradually crept in, and with it--as far as the rest of the Fair was concerned--additional noise and exuberant...

She was a mere girl, only just out of her teens; she had been hideously disappointed and had given way to a paroxysm of tears, just like a child that has been cheated of its toys.

A surging, seething crowd! heads upon heads in a dense, compact mass--a double row of men, women, boys, and girls, held back with difficulty by the Serjeant-at-Arms and his men,...

How long they stood thus, heart to heart, they themselves could never have said. The sound of many voices in the near distance roused them from their dream. Ursula started in al...

Lord Everingham felt not a little perplexed. The Cardinal seemed bent on pressing his point, and on obtaining a definite promise of friendship, whilst the young man would have p...

Wessex after a while was ready enough to dismiss the unpleasant subject. Perhaps he had no right to be censorious or to resent the Spaniard's somewhat unusual attitude. In Engla...

As the Duke of Wessex was crossing one of the large rooms of the wing which divides the old Fountain Court from the Cloister Green, he suddenly heard himself called by name.

The first half-hour after Wessex' departure she gave way to weakness and to a flood of tears, she turned to her prie-Dieu and prayed fervently for resignation to the heavenly wi...

She saw in a moment how much older he looked, and quaintly wondered whether the black doublet and cloak caused him to seem so. Harry Plantagenet--happiest of dogs now that his m...

Mirrab, during that very brief drama in which she herself had played the chief rôle, had vainly tried to collect her scattered wits. For the last few hours two noble gentlemen,...

"Sh--sh--sh!" she whispered, as she dragged her unwilling companion after her, "do you see them? . . . right over there . . . they are running fast . . . Oh! ho! ho! ho!" she la...

The Duchess was frowning for all she was worth. Alicia and Barbara tried to look serious, but were obviously only too ready to join in any frolic which happened to be passing in...

Her very coif, usually a pattern of propriety, looked awry and scarcely sober on her dear old head, whilst her round, chubby face, a beautiful forest of tangled wrinkles, expres...

So intent was His Eminence in these complicated musings that he scarcely noticed how fast the shadows gathered round him. He had gradually wandered down towards the low wall whi...

Whilst Don Miguel was preparing for the fight, a slight sound suddenly caused him to turn towards that side of the room, from whence a tall oaken door led to his own and the Car...

With an impatient frown, Wessex deliberately turned his back on the gorgeous pile: it represented boredom to him, politics and dullness, and he loved gaiety, sunshine, and laugh...

Escorted throughout the journey home by His Eminence, Ursula had not uttered one word. She sat in the barge, gazing out along the river, her veil closely drawn over her head, le...

Everingham could not leave the Palace without bidding farewell to Wessex. For the first time in his life he wished to avoid his friend, yet feared to arouse suspicion, mistrust-...

When Ursula finally succeeded in escaping from her room, where she had been forcibly confined--almost a prisoner--in the charge of two waiting-women, she returned to the hall, v...

A merry company was gathered on the terrace, which, fronting the ill-fated Cardinal Wolsey's rooms, descended in elegantly sloping grades down to the old Pond Garden, giving an...

"And now, what is the next move in this game of chess?" he mused, as he took the key of the closet door from his pocket and thoughtfully contemplated this tiny engine of his far...

His Eminence the Cardinal de Moreno knew well how to gauge the moods and tempers of the English people of his time. He had rightly guessed that the Duke of Wessex, whom but a fe...

But in the somewhat stiff portraiture of that epoch it is perhaps a little difficult to trace the real image, the inner individuality of one of the most interesting personalitie...

Throughout the audience with the papal Nuncio, His Eminence had already seen the storm-clouds gathering thick and fast on the Queen's brow. His Grace of Wessex, gone to fetch a...

Renard, who was more of a diplomatist and kept his opinions on the fogs and wenches of Old England very much to himself, declared enthusiastically in his letter to the Emperor C...

There are many accounts still extant of the various doings at East Molesey Fair on this 2nd of October in the year of our Lord 1553, and several chroniclers--Renard is conspicuo...

For some time already there had been a certain amount of commotion in the Palace. Mirrab's shouts when first she saw the combat, then her high-voiced altercation with Don Miguel...

The dark hood of her cloak had fallen back at the impertinent gesture of the young Spaniard; her fair hair, slightly touched with warm gold, escaped in a few unruly curls from b...

To Wessex it seemed as if years had elapsed since he had closed the door of the small inner room behind him, shutting out from his sight the beautiful vision which had filled hi...

At some little distance from the mysterious booth a trestle table had been erected, at which some three or four wenches in hooped paniers and short, striped kirtles, were dispen...

The two men strolled up to a neighbouring wine-vendor and ordered some wine. They had thrown their cloaks aside and removed their masks, for the air was close. The rich, slashed...

One fatal autumn afternoon, and what a change in the destinies of his life! Yesterday he was the first gentleman in England, loved by many, feared by a few, reverenced by all as...

When Wessex, accompanied by his friend, reached the room which so lately was echoing with merry girlish laughter, he was met by a page, deputed by the Duchess of Lincoln to pres...

A smile was on His Eminence's lips, suave, slightly sarcastic, and at the same time triumphant, yet at this very instant when he seemed so pleased with himself, or with events i...

The Great Hall had quickly filled with ladies and gentlemen. Mary Tudor had rapidly approached the dais, holding out one gracious hand to Wessex and vouchsafing but a cold, call...

The last call of a belated robin broke the silence of the gathering dusk, then it too was silenced, and only the "hush--sh--sh--sh" of fallen leaves on the gravelled path murmur...

XXX. THOUGHTS 225 XXXI. MARYE, THE QUEENE 229 XXXII. A BARGAIN 243 XXXIII. IN THE LORD CHANCELLOR'S COURT 252 XXXIV. WESTMINSTER HALL 269 XXXV. THE TRIAL 279 XXXVI. AFTERWARDS 2...

XIX. THE PAWNS 139 XX. DEPARTURE 153 XXI. THE BLACK KNIGHT 159 XXII. THE WHITE QUEEN 168 XXIII. CHECK TO THE QUEEN 177 XXIV. CHECK TO THE KING 187 XXV. THE CARDINAL'S MOVE 192 X...

X. A BEVY OF FAIR MAIDENS 73 XI. THE FAIREST OF THEM ALL 80 XII. INTRIGUES 88 XIII. HIS EMINENCE 93 XIV. THE DESTINIES OF EUROPE 99 XV. THE HAND OF FATE 103 XVI. THE ULTIMATUM 1...

CHAP. PAGE I. EAST MOLESEY FAIR 11 II. THE WITCH'S TENT 17 III. MISCHIEF BREWING 23 IV. FRIENDS AND ENEMIES 28 V. LADIES AND GALLANTS 33 VI. THE LADY URSULA 41 VII. HIS GRACE OF...