“As you will, then, my lady,” said the dragon. “Do you doubt me now?” and, tearing off his pasteboard wrapping, he stood disclosed before them all as the grim Sir Robert Trywhitt, chief examiner of the Lord Protector’s council. “Move not at your peril,” he said, as a stir in the throng seemed to indicate the presence of some brave spirits who would have shielded their young princess. “Master Feodary, bid your varlets stand to their arms.” And at a word from Master Avery Mitchell, late Lord of Misrule, there flashed from beneath the cloaks of certain tall figures on the circle’s edge the halberds of the guard. The surprise was complete. The Lady Elizabeth was a prisoner in her own manor-house, and the Yule-tide revels had reached a sudden and sorry ending. And yet, once again, under this false accusation, did the hot spirit of the Tudors flame in the face and speech of the Princess Elizabeth. “Sir Robert Trywhitt,” cried the brave young girl, “these be but lying rumors that do go against my honor and my fealty. God knoweth they be shameful slanders, sir; for the which, besides the desire I have to see the King’s Majesty, I pray you let me also be brought straight before the court that I may disprove these perjured tongues.” But her appeal was not granted. For months she was kept close prisoner at Hatfield House, subject daily to most rigid cross-examination by Sir Robert Trywhitt for the purpose of implicating her if possible in the Lord Admiral’s plot. But all in vain; and at last even Sir Robert gave up the attempt, and wrote to the council that “the Lady Elizabeth hath a good wit, and nothing is gotten of her but by great policy.” Lord Seymour of Sudleye, was beheaded for treason on Tower Hill, and others, implicated in his plots, were variously punished; but even “great policy” cannot squeeze a lie out of the truth, and Elizabeth was finally declared free of the stain of treason. Experience, which is a hard teacher, often brings to light the best that is in us. It was so in this case. For, as one writer says: “The long and harassing ordeal disclosed the splendid courage, the reticence, the rare discretion, which were to carry the Princess through many an awful peril in the years to come. Probably no event of her early girlhood went so far toward making a woman of Elizabeth as did this miserable affair.”