sweetness of Henry's manners and disposition, the saint-like dignity
which he had manifested throughout this painful interview, and the
touching grace and trustful generosity of his last words,--words which
consummated the earl's large projects of ambition and revenge,--had
that effect upon Warwick which the preaching of some holy man,
dwelling upon the patient sanctity of the Saviour, had of old on a
grim Crusader, all incapable himself of practising such meek
excellence, and yet all moved and penetrated by its loveliness in
another; and, like such Crusader, the representation of all mildest
and most forgiving singularly stirred up in the warrior's mind images
precisely the reverse,--images of armed valour and stern vindication,
as if where the Cross was planted sprang from the earth the standard
and the war-horse!

"Perish your foes! May war and storm scatter them as the chaff! My
liege, my royal master," continued the earl, in a deep, low, faltering
voice, "why knew I not thy holy and princely heart before? Why stood
so many between Warwick's devotion and a king so worthy to command it?
How poor, beside thy great-hearted fortitude and thy Christian
heroism, seems the savage valour of false Edward! Shame upon one who
can betray the trust thou hast placed in him! Never will I!--Never!
I swear it! No! though all England desert thee, I will stand alone
with my breast of mail before thy throne! Oh, would that my triumph
had been less peaceful and less bloodless! would that a hundred
battlefields were yet left to prove how deeply--deeply in his heart of
hearts--Warwick feels the forgiveness of his king!"

"Not so, not so, not so! not battlefields, Warwick!" said Henry. "Ask
not to serve the king by shedding one subject's blood."