And therewith they fell out.' 'But she said she more feared Weston; for on Whitsun Tuesday last, Weston told her that Norris came more unto her chamber for her than for Mage.'[1] Afterwards, 'The Queen spake of Weston, that she had spoken to him, because he did love her kinswoman, Mrs Skelton, and that she said he loved not his wife; and he made answer to her again, that he loved one in her house better than them both. She asked him who is that? to which he answered, that it is yourself. 'And then,' she said, 'she defied him.''[2]
So passed Wednesday at the Tower. Let us feel our very utmost commiseration for this unhappy woman; if she was guilty, it is the more reason that we should pity her; but I am obliged to say, that conversations of this kind, admitted by herself, disentitle her to plead her character in answer to the charges against her.
- ↑ The lady, perhaps, to whom Norris was to have been married. Sir Edward Baynton makes an allusion to a Mistress Margery. The passage is so injured as to be almost unintelligible:—'I have mused much et … of Mistress Margery, which hath used her … strangely towards me of late, being her friend as I have been. But no doubt it cannot be but she must be of councell therewith. There hath been great friendship between the Queen and her of late.'—Sir E. Baynton to the Lord Treasurer: Singer, p. 458.
- ↑ Kingston to Cromwell: Singer, pp. 452–3. Of Smeton she said—'He was never in my chamber but at Winchester;' she had sent for him 'to play on the virginals,' for there her lodging was above the King's.… 'I never spoke with him since,' she added, 'but upon Saturday before May day, and then I found him standing in the round window in my chamber of presence, and I asked why he was so sad, and he answered and said it was no matter; and then she said, 'You may not look to have me speak to you as I should to a nobleman, because you be an inferior person.' 'No, no, madam; a look sumceth me [he said], and thus fare you well.''—Ibid. p. 455.
