I wore, the which I gave him. And then he
gave me the said ring; the which one other
time at Lille, being set nigh to my Lady of
Hornes, and he before, upon his knees, it took
again from my finger. I spake to the King to
have it again; but it was not possible, for he
said unto me that he would give me others better,
and that I should leave him that. I said unto
him that it was not for the value, but for that it
was too much known. He would not understand
it, and departed from me. The morrow after,
he brought me one fair point of diamond, and
one table of ruby, and showed me that it was
for the other ring. Wherefore I durst no more
speak of it, if not to beseech him that it should
not be showed to any person; the which hath
not all been to me done."

But certainly the most extraordinary fact
relating to this Duke of Suffolk is, that he had a
wife living at the very time he was thus flirting
with Margaret of Savoy, and even when he
married Henry the Eighth's sister! If this fact
had been known to the enraged King and nobles,
it would certainly have justified their indignation.
How he managed to escape detection and
punishment on this ground is not easily
explained; but the fact seems to be proved beyond
dispute, as he afterwards obtained a bull from
the Pope to legitimise his issue by Mary, and
in this document the circumstances of the case
are stated.

It seems that he had been first betrothed to
a lady named Ann Brown, but before the
marriage was complete he obtained a
dispensation to marry his aunt, Margaret Mortymer,
whom he accordingly did make his wife. Some
time afterwards, however, being dissatisfied
with the step he had taken, he found out one
objection to the marriage in the fact that he
and his wife were within the second and third
degrees of affinity, and another in the fact that
his wife was some way related to his first
betrothed. These circumstances, as it was
afterwards stated in the bull, weighed upon his
conscience and he got the marriage pronounced
null by an official; on which he married his first
love, Ann Brown, by whom he had a daughter.
So much of Browns, Mortimers, Brandons,
Louises, Jameses, Archibalds, and Henrys, who
illustrate in the lives of Henry the Eighth's two
sisters, Margaret and Mary, the free and easy
way of wearing the matrimonial tie as a slip-
knot, Tudor-fashion.

THE PHANTOM OF REGATTA
ISLAND.

"EASY all! ship!" cried the coxswain,
and as we laid in our oars, well pleased at
the prospect of a rest, our boat ran alongside
the landing-place on the island at the
end of Henley Reach.

We were rowing down from Oxford by
easy stages in a four-oared gig. We had
come out for pleasure, and not to perform
aquatic feats. We rested whenever we felt
disposed, and hailed the sight of a lock
with invariable satisfaction. Our boat
presented, as I looked down upon her from
the bank, an appearance of comfortable
untidiness. Carpet bags were stowed away
under the seats, a hamper was lashed aft
within easy reach of the coxswain, and
upon the coxswain's seat reclined a
suspicious tankard. Two or three unbusiness-
like pipes were on the floor, the usual
miserable little sheepskin sitting mats were
replaced by thick, comfortable cushions,
and our boat herself, a roomy inrigged gig,
evidently meant pleasure.

We landed our hamper, unpacked the
good things we had that morning brought
from Wargrave, and devoted ourselves to
our lunch, or rather dinner, with as good
an appetite as if we really had been working
hard. It was not long before this
business was satisfactorily despatched, and
we were all reclining on the grass lazily
smoking, or feeding to dangerous repletion
a brood of yellow ducklings which
had gathered about us.

All of us, that is to say, except Will
Darton, who had quietly disappeared. Will
had been the life and soul of our party
hitherto; his laugh had been the gayest, his
temper the sweetest, his work, on the rare
occasions when we tried a little real
rowing, the hardest. But all day, from the
moment we decided on taking our lunch
with us and on enjoying it in the pure
June air on Regatta Island, rather than in
a close inn-room, his manner had changed.
He had been strangely silent and
preoccupied, something seemed to weigh heavily
on his thoughts, and when any allusion to
our coming resting-place was made, it
seemed, in some odd way, to disturb him.
I was more intimate with Will than our
companions were, and this change of mood,
so unusual with him, struck me very
much.

Accordingly, when I missed him now, I
strolled away across the little island in
search of him. He was leaning against
a tree by the water's edge, with folded
arms, and was gazing at the water as it
flowed between him and the Buckinghamshire
shore, with a curious eagerness. He
was in deep thought, and evidently in
thought of no pleasant kind; his face was
white, his brows were contracted. Thinking
he must be ill, I hurriedly approached
him, and laying my hand on his shoulder,
cried:

"Why, Will, old boy, what's the matter?"