“My lord,” said the King, (for Sir Arthur was one of the lords of the privy council), “how deem you by that?”--“Please your Majesty,” answered Sir Arthur, “those Puritans, as I rode to London, cut off mine horse’s tail, as they said the ribbons with which it was tied savoured too much of the pride of the beast on which the scarlet whore sits. Pray God their shears may never extend from the tails of horses to the heads of kings!” And as he spoke with affectionate and ominous solicitude, he happened to place his hand on the head of Prince Charles, (afterwards Charles I.), who was sitting next his brother Henry, Prince of Wales, and to whom Sir Arthur Mortimer had had the high honour to be sponsor, as proxy for a sovereign prince. “The awful and troubled times which Sir Arthur had predicted soon arrived, though he did not live to witness them. His son, Sir Roger Mortimer, a man lofty alike in pride and in principle, and immoveable in both,--an Arminian in creed, and an aristocrat in politics,--the zealous friend of the misguided Laud, and the bosom-companion of the unfortunate Strafford,--was among the first to urge King Charles to those high-handed and impolitic measures, the result of which was so fatal. “When the war broke out between the King and the Parliament, Sir Roger espoused the royal cause with heart and hand,--raised a large sum in vain, to prevent the sale of the crown-jewels in Holland,--and led five hundred of his tenants, armed at his own expence, to the battles of Edge-hill and Marston-moor. “His wife was dead, but his sister, Mrs Ann Mortimer, a woman of uncommon beauty, spirit, and dignity of character, and as firmly attached as her brother to the cause of the court, of which she had been once the most brilliant ornament, presided over his household, and by her talents, courage, and promptitude, had been of considerable service to the cause. “The time came, however, when valour and rank, and loyalty and beauty, found all their efforts ineffectual; and of the five hundred brave men that Sir Roger had led into the field to his sovereign’s aid, he brought back thirty maimed and mutilated veterans to Mortimer Castle, on the disastrous day that King Charles was persuaded to put himself into the hands of the disaffected and mercenary Scots, who sold him for their arrears of pay due by the Parliament.