“This alters the matter,” said the Queen, taking the certificates in her hand, and glancing at their contents.—­“Let Tressilian come forward.—­Master Tressilian, we have much sympathy for your situation, the rather that you seem to have set your heart deeply on this Amy Robsart, or Varney.  Our power, thanks to God, and the willing obedience of a loving people, is worth much, but there are some things which it cannot compass.  We cannot, for example, command the affections of a giddy young girl, or make her love sense and learning better than a courtier’s fine doublet; and we cannot control sickness, with which it seems this lady is afflicted, who may not, by reason of such infirmity, attend our court here, as we had required her to do.  Here are the testimonials of the physician who hath her under his charge, and the gentleman in whose house she resides, so setting forth.”

“Under your Majesty’s favour,” said Tressilian hastily, and in his alarm for the consequence of the imposition practised on the Queen forgetting in part at least his own promise to Amy, “these certificates speak not the truth.”

“How, sir!” said the Queen—­“impeach my Lord of Leicester’s veracity!  But you shall have a fair hearing.  In our presence the meanest of our subjects shall be heard against the proudest, and the least known against the most favoured; therefore you shall be heard fairly, but beware you speak not without a warrant!  Take these certificates in your own hand, look at them carefully, and say manfully if you impugn the truth of them, and upon what evidence.”

As the Queen spoke, his promise and all its consequences rushed on the mind of the unfortunate Tressilian, and while it controlled his natural inclination to pronounce that a falsehood which he knew from the evidence of his senses to be untrue, gave an indecision and irresolution to his appearance and utterance which made strongly against him in the mind of Elizabeth, as well as of all who beheld him.  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?”