Westward Ho! Or, The Voyages and Adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh, Knight, of Burrough, in the County of Devon, in the Reign of Her Most Glorious Majesty Queen ElizabethKingsley, Charles
History
Westward Ho! Or, The Voyages and Adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh, Knight, of Burrough, in the County of Devon, in the Reign of Her Most Glorious Majesty Queen Elizabeth
Kingsley, Charles
Great Britain -- History -- Elizabeth, 1558-1603 -- Fiction
“The villain! why did not he wait for me to have the comfort of killing
him? Dog!” and he kicked the corpse with his foot.
“Quiet! quiet! Remember the poor girl,” said Amyas, as she shrieked at
the profanation, while Raleigh went on, half to himself:
“Yes, this is Saunders. Misguided fool, and this is the end! To this
thou hast come with thy plotting and thy conspiring, thy lying and thy
boasting, consecrated banners and Pope's bulls, Agnus Deis and holy
waters, the blessing of all saints and angels, and thy Lady of the
Immaculate Conception! Thou hast called on the heavens to judge between
thee and us, and here is their answer! What is that in his hand, Amyas?
Give it me. A pastoral epistle to the Earl of Ormond, and all nobles of
the realm of Ireland; 'To all who groan beneath the loathsome tyranny
of an illegitimate adulteress, etc., Nicholas Saunders, by the grace
of God, Legate, etc.' Bah! and this forsooth was thy last meditation!
Incorrigible pedant! Victrix causa Diis placuit, sed victa Catoni!”
He ran his eye through various other documents, written in the usual
strain: full of huge promises from the Pope and the king of Spain;
frantic and filthy slanders against Elizabeth, Burghley, Leicester,
Essex (the elder), Sidney, and every great and good man (never mind
of which party) who then upheld the commonweal; bombastic attempts to
terrify weak consciences, by denouncing endless fire against those who
opposed the true faith; fulsome ascriptions of martyrdom and sanctity to
every rebel and traitor who had been hanged for the last twenty
years; wearisome arguments about the bull In Caena Domini, Elizabeth's
excommunication, the nullity of English law, the sacred duty of
rebellion, the right to kill a prince impenitently heretical, and the
like insanities and villainies, which may be read at large in Camden,
the Phoenix Britannicus, Fox's Martyrs, or, surest of all, in the
writings of the worthies themselves.
With a gesture of disgust, Raleigh crammed the foul stuff back again
into the pouch. Taking it with them, they walked back to the company,
and then remounting, marched away once more towards the lands of the
Desmonds; and the girl was left alone with the dead.
An hour had passed, when another Englishman was standing by the wailing
girl, and round him a dozen shockheaded kernes, skene on thigh and
javelin in hand, were tossing about their tawny rags, and adding their
lamentations to those of the lonely watcher.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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