Page:Waverley Novels, vol. 23 (1831).djvu/302

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Tower.



CHAPTER XXXVI.


    I have said
    This is an adulteress--I have said with whom:
    More, she's a traitor, and Camillo is
    A federary with her, and one that knows
    What she should shame to know herself.   --WINTER'S TALE.

They were no sooner in the Earl's cabinet than, taking his tablets from his pocket, he began to write, speaking partly to Varney, and partly to himself--"There are many of them close bounden to me, and especially those in good estate and high office--many who, if they look back towards my benefits, or forward towards the perils which may befall themselves, will not, I think, be disposed to see me stagger unsupported. Let me see--Knollis is sure, and through his means Guernsey and Jersey. Horsey commands in the Isle of Wight. My brother-in-law, Huntingdon, and Pembroke, have authority in Wales. Through Bedford I lead the Puritans, with their interest, so powerful in all the boroughs. My brother of Warwick is equal, well-nigh, to myself, in wealth, followers, and dependencies. Sir Owen Hopton is at my devotion; he commands the Tower of London, and the national treasure deposited there. My father and grand-father needed never to have stooped their heads to the block had they thus forecast