A murmur of assent rose from the Leicestrian faction, which the friends of Sussex dared not oppose.  They remained with their eyes fixed on the ground, dismayed as well as mortified by the public and absolute triumph of their opponents.  Leicester’s first use of the familiarity to which the Queen had so publicly restored him was to ask her commands concerning Varney’s offence, “although,” he said, “the fellow deserves nothing from me but displeasure, yet, might I presume to intercede—­”

“In truth, we had forgotten his matter,” said the Queen; “and it was ill done of us, who owe justice to our meanest as well as to our highest subject.  We are pleased, my lord, that you were the first to recall the matter to our memory.—­Where is Tressilian, the accuser?—­let him come before us.”

Tressilian appeared, and made a low and beseeming reference.  His person, as we have elsewhere observed, had an air of grace and even of nobleness, which did not escape Queen Elizabeth’s critical observation.  She looked at him with, attention as he stood before her unabashed, but with an air of the deepest dejection.

“I cannot but grieve for this gentleman,” she said to Leicester.  “I have inquired concerning him, and his presence confirms what I heard, that he is a scholar and a soldier, well accomplished both in arts and arms.  We women, my lord, are fanciful in our choice—­I had said now, to judge by the eye, there was no comparison to be held betwixt your follower and this gentleman.  But Varney is a well-spoken fellow, and, to say truth, that goes far with us of the weaker sex.—­look you, Master Tressilian, a bolt lost is not a bow broken.  Your true affection, as I will hold it to be, hath been, it seems, but ill requited; but you have scholarship, and you know there have been false Cressidas to be found, from the Trojan war downwards.  Forget, good sir, this Lady Light o’ Love—­teach your affection to see with a wiser eye.  This we say to you, more from the writings of learned men than our own knowledge, being, as we are, far removed by station and will from the enlargement of experience in such idle toys of humorous passion.  For this dame’s father, we can make his grief the less by advancing his son-in-law to such station as may enable him to give an honourable support to his bride.  Thou shalt not be forgotten thyself, Tressilian—­follow our court, and thou shalt see that a true Troilus hath some claim on our grace.  Think of what that arch-knave Shakespeare says—­a plague on him, his toys come into my head when I should think of other matters.  Stay, how goes it?

     ’Cressid was yours, tied with the bonds of heaven;
     These bonds of heaven are slipt, dissolved, and loosed,
     And with another knot five fingers tied,
     The fragments of her faith are bound to Diomed.’

You smile, my Lord of Southampton—­perchance I make your player’s verse halt through my bad memory.  But let it suffice let there be no more of this mad matter.”