Wherefore I humbly beseech
your honor, let him be removed from hence to a more secure place, for I
protest to the Almightie God, before I will take the charge to kepe him
here, I will desire to be put in prison myself, and to have a keeper of
me. For what care soever be had of him here, he shall want no
furtherance whatsoever wit of man can devise, if he himself list to make
an escape. So I pray your Lordship, even for God's sake and for the love
of a brother, to relieve me from this danger." But there was no attempt
at a rescue of Buccleuch. He did not desire it. Not as a criminal, but
as a state prisoner he gave himself up to the English governor, and,
having given his parole, he kept it, like the gentleman of stainless
honour that he was.
Two years after his imprisonment at Berwick-on-Tweed, Buccleuch, on his
way with two hundred followers to serve with Prince Maurice of Nassau in
the Low Countries--a raid from which many a Borderer never returned--was
sufficiently received into favour to be permitted to go to London and
kiss the hand of her most gracious Majesty, Queen Elizabeth. The
remembrance of Kinmont Willie still rankled in that most unforgiving of
royal breasts.
"How dared you," she imperiously demanded, "undertake an enterprise so
desperate and presumptuous?"
"Dared?" answered Buccleuch; "what is it that a man _dares_ not do?"
Elizabeth turned impetuously to a lord-in-waiting.
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