The king, charmed with this act of gallantry, so congenial to his own
mind, inquired the name and family of the stranger; and not only
repossessed him of his patrimonial estates, but took him under his
immediate protection.

It was this same Charles Brandon who afterwards privately married
Henry's sister, Margaret, queen-dowager of France; which marriage the
king not only forgave, but created him Duke of Suffolk, and continued
his favour towards him to the last hour of the duke's life.

He died before Henry; and the latter showed, in his attachment to this
nobleman, that notwithstanding his fits of capriciousness and cruelty,
he was capable of a cordial and steady friendship. He was sitting in
council when the news of Suffolk's death reached him; and he publicly
took that occasion, both to express his own sorrow, and to celebrate the
merits of the deceased. He declared, that during the whole course of
their acquaintance, his brother-in-law had not made a single attempt to
injure an adversary, and had never whispered a word to the disadvantage
of any one; "and are there _any of you_, my lords, who can say as much?"
When the king subjoined these words, (says the historian,) he looked
round in all their faces, and saw that confusion which the consciousness
of secret guilt naturally threw upon them.

Otway took his plot from the fact related in this pamphlet; but to
avoid, perhaps, interfering in a circumstance which might affect many
noble families at that time living, he laid the scene of his tragedy in
Bohemia.

There is a large painting of the above incident now at Woburn, the seat