"
"Remember Buckingham," said Cromwell; "it is dangerous to meddle
with the succession to the throne."
"Nonsense! I have guided England's destiny hitherto, and will guide
it further."
Cromwell saw that it was time to change the topic.
"It is a good thing that the King is leaving the Tower. It must be
depressing for him to have only a wall between himself and the
prisoners, and to see the scaffold from his windows."
"Don't talk against our Tower! It is a Biblia Pauperum, an
illustrated English History comprising the Romans, King Alfred,
William the Conqueror, and the Wars of the Roses. I was fourteen
years old when England found its completion at the battle of
Bosworth, and the thirty years' War of the Roses came to an end
with the marriage between York and Lancaster...."
"My father used to talk of the hundred years' war with France, which
ended in the same year in which Constantinople was taken by the
Turks--_i.e._ 1453."
"Yes, all countries are baptized in blood; that is the sacrament
of circumcision, and see what fertility follows this manuring with
blood! You don't know that apple-trees bear most fruit after a
blood-bath."
"Yes I do; my father always used to bury offal from butchers' shops
at the root of fruit-trees."
Here he stopped and coloured, for he had made a slip with his
tongue.
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