He chid the royal layman with more than priestly unction for his
offence; but Edward so humbly confessed his fault, that the prelate at
length relaxed his brow, and promised to convey his penitent
assurances to the earl.

"Not an hour should be lost," he said; the only one who can soothe his
wrath is your Highness's mother, our noble kinswoman. Permit me to
despatch to her grace a letter, praying her to seek the earl, while I
write by the same courier to himself."

"Be it all as you will," said Edward, doffing his surcoat, and dipping
his hands in a perfumed ewer; "I shall not know rest till I have knelt
to the Lady Anne, and won her pardon."

The prelate retired, and scarcely had he left the room when Sir John
Ratcliffe, [Afterwards Lord Fitzwalter. See Lingard (note, vol. iii.
p. 507, quarto edition), for the proper date to be assigned to this
royal visit to the More,--a date we have here adopted, not, as Sharon
Turner and others place (namely, upon the authority of Hearne's
Fragm., 302, which subsequent events disprove), after the open
rebellion of Warwick, but just before it; that is, not after Easter,
but before Lent.] one of the king's retinue, and in waiting on his
person, entered the chamber, pale and trembling.

"My liege," he said, in a whisper, "I fear some deadly treason awaits
you. I have seen, amongst the trees below this tower, the gleam of
steel; I have crept through the foliage, and counted no less than a
hundred armed men,--their leader is Sir Marmaduke Nevile, Earl
Warwick's kinsman!"