aglow from the exercise that had followed his endeavors to teach his fractious hobby, Roland, to leap the bars, while a reckless enjoyment of the March breezes made him careless alike of a possible throatdistemper and of his customary trim appearance. Roland had shown so determined a disposition to shirk his duty and refuse the leap, and had arched his shapely neck so repeatedly in protest before the bars, that Rauf had satisfied himself with two or three successes, and now, holding on his wrist the cleanly made little "lanard," or falcon, that his uncle had recently given him, was on his way to test its merits. Just as he dashed across the roadway a rider, booted and spurred, passed him at full speed, his black horse flecked with foam, while on breast and back shone out in crimson and gold the well-known badge of his Grace the Cardinal. A courier from Hampton Court, though no infrequent visitor at Verney Hall, was still ever an object of interest; and Rauf, weighing in his mind the opposing attractions of courier and falcon, decided for the courier and turned his steps toward the Hall. At the foot of the terrace stood Dick Ricroft, the groom of the stables, holding the courier's impatient steed.

this must be some special mission. What 's afoot, Dick?" questioned the boy.

"Ah, you must needs find that out for yourself," replied the cautious Dick. ""T is something touching the King's Grace and a journey to France."

"To France? Oh, glory!" and the impetuous youth, aflame with a new excitement, bounded up the terrace and dashed into the great wainscoted hall, where, at the middle table, sat the Cardinal's courserman -a barley loaf and a dish of "wardens," or baked pears, before him, his face halfburied in the great pot of ale with which he was washing down his hasty lunch.

"Well, how now, how now, young hot-head?" came the deep voice of the boy's uncle, and, checking his impatience, Rauf walked slowly up to where, near the dais, stood his uncle, Sir Rauf Verney, papers in hand and a perplexed expression on his face.

"What 's astir, sir?" asked young Rauf, with the privilege of a favorite, as he leaned against the dais and glanced into his uncle's face.

"You beauty!" he said, admiringly. "Let me try a turn with him, Dick?"

"The saints forbid !" interposed the horrified Dick. "Ride one of the lord legate's horses, Master Rauf! 'T would be as much as all our heads are worth, and I've no mind to lose mine yet. Besides," he added, "the courserman rides on to Sir John Hampden's on the hill, as soon as he has delivered his message to Sir Rauf." "What! Hampden Manor, too? Why,

66

"Fully, thanks to your worship," was the reply. "I must now hasten on to Hampden Manor." Say to your master, the Lord Cardinal," said Sir Rauf, 66 that the commands of the King's Highness shall have my proper obedience;" and, court

other. Though how these castles will serve for convenient and proper lodgings for the Kings' Highnesses passes my fathoming. I mind me that on my last return from Flanders, now nigh two years since, I went with my Lord Fitzwater over the castle of Guisnes, and found it wretched enough its moat dry and weedy, its battlements dismantled, its keep ruinous and crumbling. And as for the French castle, they made equal poor report the town long since in ruins, the castle desolate and impaired, its fosse choked and useless, its donjon untopped, its walls torn with breaches." "A sorry place for a royal interview," said Lady Anne; "but will not due care be taken to make them presentable? "

"Trust the Lord Cardinal for that," replied Sir Rauf. "Where so lavish a hand commands, small doubt is there as to great results. His Grace's courserman tells me that nigh twelve hundred workmen have been dispatched to Sir John Petchie, deputy of Calais, under orders to Lord Worcester, the commissioners, and the chief artificer."

"But what is it all for, Uncle-this interview between our King's Highness and the King of France?" asked young Rauf, who with ready ears had drunk in all his uncle's words. Ignoring Sir Rauf Verney's long explanation, half-politics, halfrumor, and all glorification of his liege and King such as he, born courtier, gallant soldier, and true Englishman, could not help giving, we may condense Rauf's acquired information into a few words. Three young men, Henry Tudor, of England, aged twenty-eight, Francis d'Angoulême, of France, aged twenty-five, and Charles von Hapsburg, of Spain, aged nineteen, at that day swayed the destinies of the Christian world as monarchs of their respective countries. The imperial throne of Germany, then known as "the holy Roman Empire," becoming vacant in 1519, by the death of the Emperor Maximilian, these three young kings, each with distinct but varying claims, asserted their right of election to the vacant throne. On the 18th of June, 1519, the electors of Germany rendered their final decision, and the younger of the three competitors, himself scarcely more than a boy in years, ascended the imperial throne as the Emperor Charles the Fifth-the mightiest monarch in Christendom. Henry of England, aware of the hopelessness of his claim, had already withdrawn from the contest; but his neighbor, Francis of France, brilliant, chivalric, handsome, and brave, but royally self-willed and impetuous, chafed under his defeat, and sought to weaken the power of his successful rival by an alliance between those two inveterate enemies, France and England. Thomas Wolsey, the son of the honest butcher of Ipswich, was now Cardinal Archbishop of York,

legate of the Pope and Lord Chancellor of England, mighty in influence with his master the King, feared and flattered by all the courts of Europe. He received with approval the propositions of Francis looking to an interview between the kings of France and England, and, gaining the consent of Henry, sought to make this interview such an occasion of splendor and ceremonial as should delight their majesties and gratify his own love of display. By it, too, he hoped to increase his power over both courts and thus advance himself toward the prize he coveted- -the throne of the Pope, then the highest attainable dignity in the Church and the world.

To make this royal interview, then, imposing in its ceremonial and splendid in the magnificence of its display, all England and all France labored and lavished, struggled and spent, managed and mortgaged until, as one of the old chroniclers expresses it, "many lords bore to the meeting their mills, their forests, and their meadows on their backs."

So much for the political history. To young Rauf Bulney, however, as he watched the preparations that for two months kept the household at Verney Hall in continued bustle and action, the desires of kings and the ambition of cardinals went for but little. For him two realms were excited, two nations disturbed, in order that a fresh and healthy young English boy of fifteen years, Rauf Bulney by name, might go to France in grand style and feast his eyes on glorious sights and royal profusion.

At last the eventful time arrived, and in the early morning hours of Wednesday, the 16th of May, 1520, Sir Rauf Verney, with Master Rauf Bulney, his squire, Master Bolton, his chaplain, with color-man, archers, and bill-men, all picked from the very flower of the Verney tenantry, resplendent in new liveries and displaying the Verney arms, bade good-bye to Lady Anne and the Hall, and, while roadways and forest were sweet with the breath of an English spring, the Verney following passed over the Chiltern Hills and through pleasant English meadows, to London first, and thence on to Dover. Not the least happy in that train was our friend Rauf, with a pardonable pride in the possession of three rich suits, and a happy consciousness that he looked quite as nicely as he felt.

At Dover, the straggling, stuffy little town of three hundred years ago, they found a great crowd of nobles and gentlemen, with their attendant trains; while the valley of the Dour and the slopes of the chalk hills were white with tents and gay with streamers. Here, by the orders of the Lord Chief Marshal, the Earl of Essex, Sir Rauf Verney's following was joined to that of the Earl

of Dorset. Sir Rauf himself was ordered to attend the Cardinal at the immediate reception of "the elect King of the Romans," otherwise the Emperor Charles the Fifth. For that enterprising young monarch, knowing full well the excessive courtesy and winning manners of the French King, sought to gain an advantage over his rival by a prior meeting with Henry of England. And so, hurrying from Barcelona with "only sixty ship and the Queen of Arragon," he met the English King at Dover before he had crossed to France.

"Is our King's Grace, then, so wondrous great that this mighty Emperor fain must sue to him?" Rauf asked his uncle when he heard the summons; even his boyish enthusiasm for his King being unable to grasp this wonder of the "Monarch of Christendom" doffing his bonnet to an island prince.

"Ah, my lad," replied his thoughtful uncle, "the King of the Romans sees far and shrewdly. An alliance between our King's Highness and him of France would threaten a mighty breach in King Charles's great dominions. Besides, our noble King of England, so my Lord Bishop of Worcester writes from Rome, 'is in great reputation in Christendom,' and none know this better than the King Catholic. See now, my boy, what kingship does for a man. This young King Charles is scarce four years your elder; but, ah! it's an old, old head on green shoulders."

So reasoned the cautious courtier, and so young Rauf accepted it; and, next morning, stood for hours at the door of his lodging to see this boy Emperor ride by with the English King on the way to the shrine of Thomas à Becket at Canterbury "the more to solempne the feast of Pentecost," says the old chronicle. What Rauf really saw was a spare young man of medium height, with pale face and heavy under-jaw, with hooked nose and small, irregular teeth, plainly dressed, as compared to the magnificence of England's kingly King, by whose side he rode. But what Rauf could not see in that quiet face was the deeper purpose that, even then, told of great possibilities, as fitted the man who, for forty years thereafter, held an imperial scepter in an imperious grasp.

Four days passed, and then, the Emperor's visit over, on the 31st of May the King of England, with his Queen and court,—above five thousand persons and nearly three thousand horses,-crossed from Dover to Calais. Standing in the bow of the stanch little "Maglory," one of Miles Gerard's stoutest hoys,—a small sloop-rigged vessel used for coasting work,- Rauf watched with interest the embarkation. The white chalk cliffs of Dover shone in the morning sun, the foam-capped waters of the Straits glistened and sparkled, while a host

of small craft, bright with pennons and colors, scudded before the wind out from the shadow of Dover Castle, dipping and bobbing over the choppy waves toward the opposite port of Calais. In the midst of the fleet, gay with the fluttering decorations of St. George's cross, the Tudor dragon, and the Tudor rose, sailed the royal transport, the "Katherine Pleasance.” Just as the " Maglory" rounded in behind the "Katherine," a sudden puff of wind and a choppy sea drove her hard against the stern of the royal vessel. There was a bump and a loud crash, and Rauf saw a young girl, whom he had already noticed as one of a merry group of ladies, topple over with the shock, and fall from the deck of the "Katherine" into the waters beneath. A shriek from the ladies on the King's vessel, a sudden wearing off on the part of the "Maglory," and then, impetuous as ever, as heedless of the consequences as of his satin doublet and his crimson cloak, his gold-embroidered hose, and his boots of Spanish leather, off from the bow of the "Maglory” jumped Master Rauf in aid of the drowning girl. A strong stroke and a ready eye, which much practice in his home streams had given him, stood him well in need; stout ropes and sturdy arms trailed over the lee of the "Katherine," and the girl and her rescuer were soon on deck, the one limp and faint from her peril, the other well enough in body but sorely damaged as to his gala dress.

"A trim young gallant and a brave! Whom have we here as the savior of our fair but unsteady maiden?" asked a deep, rich voice, and looking up, Rauf found himself in the midst of a gayly dressed group of lords and ladies, the foremost of whom was a man of tall and commanding appearance, well built, and stout almost to heaviness, with pleasant face, a fresh and ruddy countenance, and a short, golden beard and kindly smile, the very picture of health, imperiousness, and royal grace -Henry the Eighth, King of England.

The courtier blood of the Verneys lent grace and homage to the obeisance with which Rauf accompanied his answer to the King's question.

“I am Rauf Bulney, may it please your Grace; nephew and squire of the body to Sir Rauf Verney, Knight, in my Lord of Dorset's train."

"Ha! of our old friend Verney's stock," said the King. And do you thus incontinently dive with equal speed to rescue the perishing, even be they not so fair to see as is our sweet maiden, Mistress Margery-eh, young sir?”

Again bending low, Rauf replied to the royal banter :

"My sponsors have taught me, my liege, that the true knight showeth due courtesy to all alike.”

"A right knightly answer, is it not, my lords?"