John Copeland lifted both plump hands toward his lips.  “He could not choose,” John Copeland said; “madame, he could no more choose but love you than I could choose.”

Philippa sighed.  Afterward she bade John Copeland rinse his gums and then take his prisoner to Hastings.  He told her the Marquess was dead, slain by the Knight of Liddesdale.  “That is a pity,” the Queen said.  She reflected a while, reached her decision.  “There is left alive in England but one man to whom I dare entrust the keeping of the King of Scots.  My barons are sold to him; if I retain Messire David by me, one or another lord will engineer his escape within the week, and Sire Edward will be vexed.  Yet listen, John—­” She unfolded her plan.

“I have long known,” he said, when she had done, “that in all the world there was no lady more lovable.  Twenty years I have loved you, my Queen, and yet it is only to-day I perceive that in all the world there is no lady more wise than you.”

Philippa touched his cheek, maternally.  “Foolish boy!  You tell me the King of Scots has an arrow-wound in his nose?  I think a bread poultice would be best.”  She told him how to make this poultice, and gave other instructions.  Then John Copeland left the tent and presently rode away with his company.

Philippa saw that the Regent had his dinner, and afterward mounted her white palfrey and set out for the battle-field.  There the Earl of Neville, as second in command, received her with great courtesy.  God had shown to her Majesty’s servants most singular favor:  despite the calculations of reasonable men,—­to which, she might remember, he had that morning taken the liberty to assent,—­some fifteen thousand Scots were slain.  True, her gallant general was no longer extant, though this was scarcely astounding when one considered the fact that he had voluntarily entered the melee quite unarmed.  A touch of age, perhaps; Hastings was always an eccentric man:  in any event, as epilogue, this Neville congratulated the Queen that—­by blind luck, he was forced to concede,—­her worthy secretary had made a prisoner of the Scottish King.  Doubtless, Master Copeland was an estimable scribe, and yet—­Ah, yes, Lord Neville quite followed her Majesty—­beyond doubt, the wardage of a king was an honor not lightly to be conferred.  Oh, yes, he understood; her Majesty desired that the office should be given some person of rank.  And pardie! her Majesty was in the right.  Eh? said the Earl of Neville.

Intently gazing into the man’s shallow eyes, Philippa assented.  Master Copeland had acted unwarrantably in riding off with his captive.  Let him be sought at once.  She dictated to Neville’s secretary a letter, which informed John Copeland that he had done what was not agreeable in purloining her prisoner.  Let him without delay deliver the King to her good friend the Earl of Neville.

To Neville this was satisfactory, since he intended that once in his possession David Bruce should escape forthwith.  The letter, I repeat, suited this smirking gentleman in its tiniest syllable, and the single difficulty was to convey it to John Copeland, for as to his whereabouts neither Neville nor any one else had the least notion.