"Come, my masters!" he cried, filling the horn, "here is a cup of stout
Windsor ale in which to drink the health of our jolly monarch, bluff King
Hal; and there's no harm, I trust, in calling him so."

"Marry, is there not, mine host;" cried the foremost attendant. "I spoke
of him as such in his own hearing not long ago, and he laughed at me in
right merry sort. I love the royal bully, and will drink his health gladly,
and Mistress Anne Boleyn's to boot."

And he emptied the horn.

"They tell me Mistress Anne Boleyn is coming to Windsor with the king
and the knights-companions to-morrow--is it so?" asked the host, again
filling the horn, and handing it to another attendant.

The person addressed nodded, but he was too much engrossed by the
horn to speak.

"Then there will be rare doings in the castle," chuckled the host; "and
many a lusty pot will be drained at the Garter. Alack-a-day! how times
are changed since I, Bryan Bowntance, first stepped into my father's
shoes, and became host of the Garter. It was in 1501--twenty-eight
years ago--when King Henry the Seventh, of blessed memory, ruled the
land, and when his elder son, Prince Arthur, was alive likewise. In that
year the young prince espoused Catherine of Arragon, our present
queen, and soon afterwards died; whereupon the old king, not liking--for
he loved his treasure better than his own flesh--to part with her dowry,
gave her to his second son, Henry, our gracious sovereign, whom God
preserve! Folks said then the match wouldn't come to good; and now