”I would know thee — tell me thy story. Thou hast a gallant way with thee, and a noble — art nobly born?”

“We are of the tail of the nobility, good your Majesty.

My father is a baronet — one of the smaller lords by knight service {2} — Sir Richard Hendon of Hendon Hall, by Monk’s Holm in Kent.”

“The name has escaped my memory. Go on — tell me thy story.”

“’Tis not much, your Majesty, yet perchance it may beguile a short half-hour for want of a better. My father, Sir Richard, is very rich, and of a most generous nature. My mother died whilst I was yet a boy. I have two brothers: Arthur, my elder, with a soul like to his father’s; and Hugh, younger than I, a mean spirit, covetous, treacherous, vicious, underhanded —