When Knighthood Was in Flower Read online

  WHEN KNIGHTHOOD WAS IN FLOWER

  or, the Love Story ofCharles Brandon and Mary Tudorthe King's Sister, and Happeningin the Reign ofHis August MajestyKing Henry theEighth

  Rewritten and Rendered into Modern English fromSir Edwin Caskoden's Memoir

  by

  EDWIN CASKODEN[Charles Major]

  Julia Marlowe EditionWith Scenes from the Play

  Indianapolis, U.S.A.The Bowen-Merrill CompanyPublishersCopyright, Eighteen Hundred NinetyEight, and Nineteen Hundred Oneby The Bowen-Merrill CompanyPress ofBraunworth & Co.Bookbinders and PrintersBrooklyn, N.Y.

  _"There lived a Knight, when Knighthood was in flow'r, Who charmed alike the tilt-yard and the bow'r_."

  To My Wife

  CONTENTS

  The Caskodens 1

  I The Duel 6

  II How Brandon Came to Court 13

  III The Princess Mary 23

  IV A Lesson in Dancing 45

  V An Honor and an Enemy 74

  VI A Rare Ride to Windsor 89

  VII Love's Fierce Sweetness 102

  VIII The Trouble in Billingsgate Ward 128

  IX Put Not Your Trust in Princesses 146

  X Justice, O King! 169

  XI Louis XII a Suitor 182

  XII Atonement 202

  XIII A Girl's Consent 213

  XIV In the Siren Country 226

  XV To Make a Man of Her 244

  XVI A Hawking Party 256

  XVII The Elopement 268

  XVIII To the Tower 289

  XIX Proserpina 302

  XX Down into France 320

  XXI Letters from a Queen 337

  _"Cloth of gold do not despise, Though thou be match'd with cloth of frize; Cloth of frize, be not too bold, Though thou be match'd with cloth of gold_."

  Inscription on a label affixed to Brandon's lance under a picture of Mary Tudor and Charles Brandon, at Strawberry Hill.