He halted, and turned with a laugh to the king. "Sire, since you have condemned me to die by the hands of these nymphs, I claim the right of every condemned criminal--a last favor.""The which we grant you, John.""I demand that I may put on these fair women one condition--one condition on which they may whip me. Does your majesty grant me this?""I grant it!""And you solemnly pledge me the word of a king that this condition shall be faithfully kept and fulfilled?""My solemn, kingly word for it!""Now, then," said John Heywood, as he entered the passage, "now, then, my ladies, my condition is this: that one of you who has had the most lovers, and has oftenest decked her husband's head with horns, let her lay the first stroke on my back." [Footnote: Flogel's "Geschichte der Hofnarren," p.899]
A deep silence followed. The raised arms of the fair women sank. The roses fell from their hands and dropped to the ground. Just before so bloodthirsty and revengeful, they seemed now to have become the softest and gentlest of beings.
But could their looks have killed, their fire certainly would have consumed poor John Heywood, who now gazed at them with an insolent sneer, and advanced into the very midst of their lines.
"Now, my ladies, you strike him not?" asked the king.
"No, your majesty, we despise him too much even to wish to chastise him," said the Duchess of Richmond.
"Shall your enemy who has injured you go thus unpunished?" asked the king. "No, no, my ladies; it shall not be said that there is a man in my kingdom whom I have let escape when so richly deserving punishment. We will, therefore, impose some other punishment on him.
He calls himself a poet, and has often boasted that he could make his pen fly as fast as his tongue! Now, then, John, show us in this manner that you are no liar! I command you to write, for the great court festival which takes place in a few days, a new interlude; and one indeed, hear you, John, which is calculated to make the greatest growler merry, and over which these ladies will be forced to laugh so heartily, that they will forget all their ire!""Oh," said John dolefully, "what an equivocal and lewd poem it must be to please these ladies and make them laugh! My king, we must, then, to please these dear ladies, forget a little our chastity, modesty, and maiden bashfulness, and speak in the spirit of the ladies--that is to say, as lasciviously as possible.""You are a wretch!" said Lady Jane; "a vulgar hypocritical fool.""Earl Douglas, your daughter is speaking to you," said John Heywood, calmly. "She flatters you much, your tender daughter.""Now then, John, you have heard my orders, and will you obey them?
In four days will this festival begin; I give you two days more. In six days, then, you have to write a new interlude. And if he fails to do it, my ladies, you shall whip him until you bring the blood;and that without any condition." Just then was heard without a flourish of trumpets and the clatter of horse-hoofs.
"The queen has returned," said John Heywood, with a countenance beaming with joy, as he fixed his smiling gaze full of mischievous satisfaction on Lady Jane.
"Nothing further now remains for you to do, but dutifully to meet your mistress upon the great staircase, for, as you so wisely said before, the queen still lives."Without waiting for an answer, John Heywood ran out and rushed through the anteroom and down the steps to meet the queen. Lady Jane watched him with a dark, angry look; and as she turned slowly to the door to go and meet the queen, she muttered low between her closely-pressed lips: "The fool must die, for he is the queen's friend!"
