“Master Charles Brandon: 

“Sir and Dear Friend, Greeting—­I have but time to write that the king is so ill he cannot but die ere morning.  Thou knowest that which I last wrote to thee, and in addition thereto I would say that although I have, as thou likewise knowest, my brother’s permission to marry whom I wish, yet as I have his one consent it is safer that we act upon that rather than be so scrupulous as to ask for another.  So it were better that thou take me to wife upon the old one, rather than risk the necessity of having to do it without any.  I say no more, but come with all the speed thou knowest.

  “MARY.”

It is needless to say that Brandon started in haste for Paris.  He left court for the ostensible purpose of paying me a visit and came to Ipswich, whence we sailed.

The French king was dead before Mary’s message reached London, and when we arrived at Paris, Francis I reigned on the throne of his father-in-law.  I had guessed only too accurately.  As soon as the restraint of the old king’s presence, light as it had been, was removed, the young king opened his attack upon Mary in dreadful earnest.  He begged and pleaded and swore his love, which was surely manifest enough, and within three days after the old king’s death offered to divorce Claude and make Mary his queen.  When she refused this flattering offer his surprise was genuine.

“Do you know what you refuse?” he asked in a temper.  “I offer to make you my wife—­queen of fifteen millions of the greatest subjects on earth—­and are you such a fool as to refuse a gift like that, and a man like me for a husband?”

“That I am, your majesty, and with a good grace.  I am Queen of France without your help, and care not so much as one penny for the honor.  It is greater to be a princess of England.  As for this love you avow, I would make so bold as to suggest that you have a good, true wife to whom you would do well to give it all.  To me it is nothing, even were you a thousand times the king you are.  My heart is another’s, and I have my brother’s permission to marry him.”

“Another’s?  God’s soul!  Tell me who this fellow is that I may spit him on my sword.”

“No! no! you would not; even were you as valiant and grand as you think yourself, you would be but a child in his hands.”

Francis was furious, and had Mary’s apartments guarded to prevent her escape, swearing he would have his way.

As soon as Brandon and I arrived in Paris we took private lodgings, and well it was that we did.  I at once went out to reconnoiter, and found the widowed queen a prisoner in the old palace des Tournelles.  With the help of Queen Claude I secretly obtained an interview, and learned the true state of affairs.

Had Brandon been recognized and his mission known in Paris, he would certainly have been assassinated by order of Francis.

When I saw the whole situation, with Mary nothing less than a prisoner in the palace, I was ready to give up without a struggle, but not so Mary.  Her brain was worth having, so fertile was it in expedients, and while I was ready to despair, she was only getting herself in good fighting order.