The queen's heart is with Burgundy, the city's hate is with France; and when once thou art gone, I fear that the king will be teased into mating my sister with the Count of Charolois." "Ho!" exclaimed Warwick, with an oath so loud that it rung through the chamber, and startled every ear that heard it.

Then, perceiving his indiscretion, he lowered his tone into a deep and hollow whisper, and griped the prince's arm almost fiercely as he spoke.
"Could Edward so dishonour my embassy, so palter and juggle with my faith, so flout me in the eyes of Christendom, I would--I would--" he paused, and relaxed his hold of the duke, and added, with an altered voice--"I would leave his wife and his lemans, and yon things of silk, whom he makes peers (that is easy) but cannot make men, to guard his throne from the grandson of Henry V.But thy fears, thy zeal, thy love for me, dearest prince and cousin, make thee misthink Edward's kingly honour and knightly faith.

I go with the sure knowledge that by alliance with France I shut the House of Lancaster from all hope of this roiaulme." "Hadst thou not better, at least, see my sister Margaret?
She has a high spirit, and she thinks thou mightest, at least, woo her assent, and tell her of the good gifts of her lord to be!" "Are the daughters of York spoiled to this by the manners and guise of a court, in which beshrew me if I well know which the woman and whom the man?
Is it not enough to give peace to broad England, root to her brother's stem?
Is it not enough to wed the son of a king, the descendant of Charlemagne and Saint Louis?
Must I go bonnet in hand and simper forth the sleek personals of the choice of her kith and House; swear the bridegroom's side-locks are as long as King Edward's, and that he bows with the grace of Master Anthony Woodville?
Tell her this thyself, gentle Clarence, if thou wilt: all Warwick could say would but anger her ear, if she be the maid thou bespeakest her." The Duke of Clarence hesitated a moment, and then, colouring slightly, said, "If, then, the daughter's hand be the gift of her kith alone, shall I have thy favour when the Lady Isabel--" "George," interrupted Warwick, with a fond and paternal smile, "when we have made England safe, there is nothing the son of Richard of York can ask of Warwick in vain.

Alas!" he added mournfully, "thy father and mine were united in the same murtherous death, and I think they will smile down on us from their seats in heaven when a happier generation cements that bloody union with a marriage bond!" Without waiting for further parlance, the earl turned suddenly away, threw his cap on his towering head, and strode right through the centre of the whispering courtiers, who shrunk, louting low, from his haughty path, to break into a hubbub of angry exclamations or sarcastic jests at his unmannerly bearing, as his black plume disappeared in the arch of the vaulted door.
While such the scene in the interior chambers of the palace, Marmaduke, with the frank simpleness which belonged to his youth and training, had already won much favour and popularity, and he was laughing loud with a knot of young men by the shovel-board when Warwick re-entered.

The earl, though so disliked by the courtiers more immediately about the person of the king, was still the favourite of the less elevated knights and gentry who formed the subordinate household and retainers; and with these, indeed, his manner, so proud and arrogant to his foes and rivals, relapsed at once into the ease of the manly and idolized chief.