British Ladies of former Days. claring, like a true knight errant, his adoration of her person and virtues, though he had never seen her! At length this important trial, expected with so much anxiety, came on. The court of justice was held at Oxford, and crowded to a degree never known before. Pale, and almost breathless with agitation, the fair prosecutrix made her appearance. Every eye beheld her with pity; and every voice thundered vengeance on the violated rites of hospitality. The priest, they murmured, among themselves, must for ever lose his sacerdotal dignity; as he, on every account, must be pronounced the most guilty. The estates of his culpable brother, would, no doubt, be forfeited to the crown. And thus, indeed, would their suppositions have been verified, had it not been proved on the trial, by concurring circumstances and credible British Ladies of former Days. witnesses, that the lady had been consenting to that excursion with the gentlemen, which bore so much the appearance of assault and violence, and that, when seated in the travelling vehicle, she tore from her neck the hitherto cherished talisman, and, throwing it from her, exclaimed, "Oh! welcome pleasure, in thy flowery mantle, and all thy soft attire, and hence for ever steel clad and cold preserver of female honour!" The mind of the public seemed no longer biassed in her favour. What were the motives for this assault must still remain a paradox. The priest must have been conscious that his vows already made prevented him from marrying; therefore no action brought against the lady, for the breach of her matrimonial engagements, in procuring her a divorce, could ensure to him the acquirement of that wealth she possessed. British Ladies of former Days. Had she been prompted alone by an illicit inclination, she might have indulged it, unknown to the world. We are rather inclined to look on those who urged her on to this rash step, and thus made her the public talk, as unprincipled libertines, whose chief aim was notoriety; while she appears to have been the victim of enthusiastic superstition, and labouring under a kind of partial insanity. Disappointed Ambition. CHAP. XVII. DISAPPOINTED AMBITION. What will become of me now, wretched lady! SHAKESPEARE. MARGARET, the better to disguise her plans, affected indisposition, and affirmed, that the change of climate was absolutely requisite to her recovery. She therefore had the good fortune, as she fondly imagined it, of obtaining a passport for France. Disappointed Ambition. She has been accused, but we believe unjustly, of experiencing for Somerset that tender regard she had formerly lavished on the Duke of Suffolk. To neither of these noblemen did the unfortunate queen, whose heart seemed a stranger to all the softer passions, evince any other partiality, than what she thought due to their political abilities, and undaunted valour in her cause. Somerset has also been accused of aiming at the throne of his master, and at the instigations of the queen; but Somerset fought for him he thought his only lawful master, and from his steady adherence to the house of Lancaster. Brave and blindly courageous, to an excess of rashness, Margaret, who was an Amazon, and detested the want of spirit both in male and female, certainly found Suffolk and Somerset more after VOL. I. U |