Her voice was soft and full, and, except when angry, which, alas, was not infrequent, had a low and coaxing little note that made it irresistible; she was a most adroit coaxer, and knew her power full well, although she did not always plead, having the Tudor temper and preferring to command—­when she could.  As before hinted, she had coaxed her royal brother out of several proposed marriages for her, which would have been greatly to his advantage; and if you had only known Henry Tudor, with his vain, boisterous, stubborn violence, you could form some idea of Mary’s powers by that achievement alone.

Will Sommers, the fool, one day spread through court an announcement that there would be a public exhibition in the main hall of the palace that evening, when the Princess Mary would perform the somewhat alarming, but, in fact, harmless, operation of wheedling the king out of his ears.  This was just after she had coaxed him to annul a marriage contract which her father had made for her with Charles of Germany, then heir to the greatest inheritance that ever fell to the lot of one man—­Spain, the Netherlands, Austria, and heaven only knows what else.

She had been made love to by so many men, who had lost their senses in the dazzling rays of her thousand perfections—­of whom, I am ashamed to say, that I, for a time, had been insane enough to be one—­that love had grown to be a sort of joke with her, and man, a poor, contemptible creature, made to grovel at her feet.  Not that she liked or encouraged it; for, never having been moved herself, she held love and its sufferings in utter scorn.  Man’s love was so cheap and plentiful that it had no value in her eyes, and it looked as if she would lose the best thing in life by having too much of it.

Such was the royal maid to whose tender mercies, I now tell you frankly, my friend Brandon was soon to be turned over.  He, however, was a blade of very different temper from any she had known; and when I first saw signs of a growing intimacy between them I felt, from what little I had seen of Brandon, that the tables were very likely to be turned upon her ladyship.  Then thought I, “God help her,” for in a nature like hers, charged with latent force, strong and hot and fiery as the sun’s stored rays, it needed but a flash to make it patent, when damage was sure to follow for somebody—­probably Brandon.

Mary did not come home with us from Westminster the morning after the joustings, as we had expected, but followed some four or five days later, and Brandon had fairly settled himself at court before her arrival.  As neither his duties nor mine were onerous, we had a great deal of time on our hands, which we employed walking and riding, or sitting in our common room reading and talking.  Of course, as with most young men, that very attractive branch of natural history, woman, was a favorite topic, and we accordingly discussed it a great deal; that is, to tell the exact truth,