“Hoot, chiel!” cried the King at length, spluttering wrathfully in the broadest of his native Scotch, as was his habit when angered or surprised.  “Ye reckless fou, wha hae put ye to sic a jackanape trick?  Dinna ye ken that sic a boon is nae for a laddie like you to meddle wi’?  Wha hae put ye to’t, I say?”

But ere the young Prince could reply, the stately and solemn-faced ambassador of Spain, the Count of Gondemar, arose in the place of honour he filled as a guest of the King.

“My Lord King,” he said, “I beg your majesty to bear in memory your pledge to my gracious master King Philip of Spain, that naught save grave cause should lead you to liberate from just durance that arch enemy of Spain, the Lord Raleigh.”

“But you did promise me, my lord,” said Prince Charles, hastily, “and you have told me that the royal pledge is not to be lightly broken.”

“Ma certie, lad,” said King James, “ye maunay learn that there is nae rule wi’out its aicciptions.”  And then he added, “A pledge to a boy in play, like to ours of yester-eve, Baby Charles, is not to be kept when matters of state conflict.”  Then turning to the Spanish ambassador, he said:  “Rest content, my lord count.  This recreant Raleigh shall not yet be loosed.”

“But, my liege,” still persisted the boy prince, “my brother Hal did say—­”

The wrath of the King burst out afresh.

“Ay, said you so?  Brother Hal, indeed!” he cried.

“I thought the wind blew from that quarter,” and he angrily faced his eldest son.  “So, sirrah; ’twas you that did urge this foolish boy to work your traitorous purpose in such coward guise!”

“My liege,” said Prince Henry, rising in his place, “traitor and coward are words I may not calmly hear even from my father and my king.  You wrong me foully when you use them thus.  For though I do bethink me that the Tower is but a sorry cage in which to keep so grandly plumed a bird as my Lord of Raleigh, I did but seek—­”

“Ay, you did but seek to curry favour with the craven crowd,” burst out the now thoroughly angry King, always jealous of the popularity of this brave young Prince of Wales.  “And am I, sirrah, to be badgered and browbeaten in my own palace by such a thriftless ne’er-do-weel as you, ungrateful boy, who seekest to gain preference with the people in this realm before your liege lord the King?  Quit my presence, sirrah, and that instanter, ere that I do send you to spend your Christmas where your great-grandfather, King Henry, bade his astrologer spend his—­in the Tower, there to keep company with your fitting comrade, Raleigh, the traitor!”

Without a word in reply to this outburst, with a son’s submission, but with a royal dignity, Prince Henry bent his head before his father’s decree and withdrew from the table, followed by the gentlemen of his household.