"There is no doubt of it," said the king. "But what of that? His father,
his grandfather, and his great-grandfather all went into foreign
countries to fetch home their wives,--why not the prince, my son?"
"England may learn why," was the answer of the alarmed councillors, and
after them of the disturbed country. "The king of Spain is not to be
trusted with such a royal morsel. Suppose he seizes the heir to
England's throne, and holds him as hostage! The boy is mad, and the king
in his dotage to permit so wild a thing." Such was the scope of general
comment on the prince's escapade.
While England fumed, and King James had begun to fret in chorus with the
country, his "sweet boys and dear venturous knights, worthy to be put in
a new romanso," as he had remarked on first learning of their flight,
were making their way at utmost horse-speed across France. A few miles
beyond Bayonne they met a messenger from the Earl of Bristol, ambassador
at Madrid, bearing despatches to England. They stopped him, opened his
papers, and sought to read them, but found the bulk of them written in a
cipher beyond their powers to solve. Baffled in this, they bade Gresley,
the messenger, to return with them as far as Irun, as they wished him to
bear to the king a letter written on Spanish soil.
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