cited by seeing- Norris wipe bis face with j a handkerchief the Queen had accidentally dropped from her balcony ; but, however this may be, Anne immediately retired in alarm, the sports terminated, and Noms, lloehford, and Weston, were taken into custody. Henry, without seeing; the Queen, rode back to Whitehall with only six persons in his train, one of whom was his prisoner Norris, an acknowledged favourite, and the only person whom he allowed to follow him in his bed-chamber. On the way, Henry rode with Norris apart, and earnestly solicited him to deserve pardon by the confession of his guilt. He refused, stoutly maintaining the innocence of himself and of the Queen, and on reaching Westminster, was conveyed to the Tower. For some hours after the arrest of Weston and Norris, the Queen remained in ignorance of their common calamity. When she sat down to dinner, her ladies were unusually silent and serious, for none of them chose to he the harbinger of misfortune. This excited her suspicions, which were confirmed immediately after thesurnap was removed, by the arrival of the Duke of Norfolk, with other lords of the council, accompanied by Kingston, the governor of the Tower. Terror-struck at the sight of Kingston, she started up, and with faltering accents asked the reason of their coming. "It is His Majesty's pleasure," re plied her uncle, " that you should in stantly depart to the Tower." "I f it be His Majesty's pleasure," answered Anne, regaining her self-pos session, " I am ready to obey;" and without waiting to change her dress, she went with them to the barge. Im mediately she was seated, Norfolk in formed her that she was charged with infidelity to the King's bed, and that her paramours had already confessed their guilt. She protested her innocence, and vehemently demanded to see the King, that she might offer her personal vin dication to him. To all her asseverations of innocence, Norfolk replied by shaking his head, with an expression of incre dulous contempt ; the other peers fol lowed his unmanly example ; and Sir Thomas Audley alone, was kind and compassionate. Before quitting the barge, she fell on her knees, and in solemn prayer, attested her innocence before God. Then again, besought the Duke to take her to the King. But her unfeeling kinsman left her to the not very tender care of Kingston, without even vouchsafing an answer to her entreaty. On ascending those stairs she had lately passed in triumph, when the King himself stood ready to receive her with all the ardour of impassioned love, the woful Queen asked Kingston, whether he meant to lodge her in a dungeon? "No, Madam," said he, "you go to the apartments you occupied at your coronation." She immediately felt the gulf into which she was precipitated, and giving herself up for lost, burst into tears, and exclaimed " It is too good for me." Then kneeling down, she continued, "Jesus, have mercy on me!" and went off in a violent fit of hysterical laughter. Shortly after she bad recovered, she inquired of Kingston, when he had seen her father, then eagerly exclaimed. *• Oh, where is my sweet brother?" Not willing to confess that he was already a prisoner in the same fortress, the lieutenant evaded the question. " I hear," she resumed, " I shall ho accused by three men, yet though you should open my body," and she emphatically threw open her robe—" I should say but nay, nay, for I am as clear from the company of men, as for sin, as I am clear from you." Soon afterwards she ex claimed with anguish, " Oh Norris ! hast thou accused me ? Thou art in the Tower, and thou and I shall die to gether. And thou, Mark Smeaton, thou art here too !" On reflecting on the blow her fall would be to her step-mother the proud Countess of Wiltshire, she burst forth, " Oh, my mother, thou wilt die with sorrow !" Then interrupting herself, she bitterly bewailed the illness of Lady Worcester, whom she had left at the palace, overwhelmed with grief at her fall, and turning to the lieutenant, she clasped her hands, and said, "Alas, Mr. Kingston, I shall die without justice!" "Madam," replied the weary gaoler, " if you were the poor