Chapter 33 - Page 2

old-fashioned weapon called the Jeddart
staff was a species of battle-axe. Of a very great tempest, it is
said, in the south of Scotland, that it rains Jeddart staffs, as in
England the common people talk of its raining cats and dogs.] in our
very ante-chamber."

"What your Majesty says," replied Prince Charles, "is marked with your
usual wisdom--the precincts of palaces must be sacred as well as the
persons of kings, which are respected even in the most barbarous
nations, as being one step only beneath their divinities. But your
Majesty's will can control the severity of this and every other law,
and it is in your power, on consideration of his case, to grant the
rash young man a free pardon."

"_Rem acu tetigisti, Carole, mi puerule,_" answered the king; "and
know, my lords, that we have, by a shrewd device and gift of our own,
already sounded the very depth of this Lord Glenvarloch's disposition.
I trow there be among you some that remember my handling in the
curious case of my Lady Lake, and how I trimmed them about the story
of hearkening behind the arras. Now this put me to cogitation, and I
remembered me of having read that Dionysius, King of Syracuse, whom
historians call Tyrannos, which signifieth not in the
Greek tongue, as in ours, a truculent usurper, but a royal king who
governs, it may be, something more strictly than we and other lawful
monarchs, whom the ancients termed Basileis--Now this Dionysius of
Syracuse caused cunning workmen to build for himself a _lugg_--D'ye
ken what that is, my Lord Bishop?"

"A cathedral, I presume to guess," answered the Bishop.

"What the deil, man--I crave your lordship's pardon for swearing--but
it was no cathedral--only a lurking-place called the king's _lugg_, or
_ear_, where he could sit undescried, and hear the converse of his
prisoners. Now, sirs, in imitation of this Dionysius, whom I took for
my pattern, the rather that he was a great linguist and grammarian,
and taught a school with good applause after his abdication, (either
he or his successor of the same name, it matters not whilk)--I have
caused them to make a _lugg_ up at the state-prison of the Tower
yonder, more like a pulpit than a cathedral, my Lord Bishop--and
communicating with the arras behind the Lieutenant's chamber, where we
may sit and privily hear the discourse of such prisoners as are pent
up there for state-offences, and so creep into the very secrets of our
enemies."

The Prince cast a glance towards the Duke, expressive of great
vexation and disgust. Buckingham shrugged his shoulders, but the
motion was so slight as to be almost imperceptible.

"Weel, my lords, ye ken the fray at the