Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/238

218 trusted never to see that day, and that the prince should be but evil taught if he were of his father's teaching; and further, in multiplying of words, said plainly to the Earl that, rather than it should come to pass that the prince should be under the governance of his father or you, I would bide the adventure to thrust this dagger in you. The Earl said he was very hasty, and God sent a shrewd cow short horns. 'Yea, my lord,' quoth Blage, 'and I trust your horns also shall be kept so short as you shall not be able to do hurt with them;' and thus they departed in choler.'

Sir George Blage's intemperance may be accounted for by his escape from the destination in Smithfield, which Norfolk's party had intended for him. It is easy from these fragments of evidence to gather that Surrey had for some time been speculating on a Norfolk regency. The prize was one for which he might naturally hope, for which ambition and the interests of his party would alike tempt him to strike; and it would be a recompense for the shadow under which his family had suffered since Catherine Howard had disgraced them.

But a darker charge against him was next to follow.

'Sir Gawin Carew, examined, said that my Lady of Richmond had discovered unto him as strange a practice of her brother as ever he heard of, which was that the