Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 2.djvu/615

1536.] and Sir Robert Constable had been invited with the rest; they had declined to present themselves: the former pretended to be ill; Constable, when the King's messenger came to him, 'using no reverend behaviour nor making any convenable answer such as might have tended to his Grace's satisfaction,' shut himself up in a remote castle on the Yorkshire coast. Of the three leaders who had thrown themselves into the insurrection with a fixed and peremptory purpose, Aske alone, the truest and the bravest, ventured to the King's presence. Henry being specially desirous to see a man who had shaken his throne, paid him the respect of sending his request by the hands of a gentleman of the bedchamber. He took him now, he said, for his faithful subject, he wished to talk with him, and to hear from his own lips the history of the rising.

Aske consulted Lord Darcy. Darcy advised him. to go, but to place relays of horses along the road, to carry six servants with him, leaving three at Lincoln, Huntingdon, and Ware, and taking three to London, that in case the King broke faith, and made him prisoner, a swift message might be brought down to Templehurst, and Darcy, though too sick to pay his court to Henry, would be well enough to rescue Aske from the Tower. They would have acted more wisely if they had shown greater confidence. Aske went, however. He saw the King, and wrote out for him a straightforward and