“I have not, and I do not ask it, sire,” replied Green, in the same grave tone with which he had previously spoken.  “I may have done many things that are wrong, sire, but I have neither injured, insulted, nor offended any one whom I knew to be a true subject of the Prince I considered my lawful King.  Possessing still his commission, I believed myself at liberty to levy upon those who were avowedly his enemies, the rents of that property whereof they had deprived me fighting in his cause.—­Sire, I may have been wrong in my view, and I believe I have been so.  I speak not in my own justification, therefore.  My head is at your feet if you choose to take it:  death has no terrors for me; life has no charms.  I stay as long as God wills it:  when he calls me hence, it matters little what way I take my departure.  My request, sire, is for the liberation of the Duke, who, believe me, is perfectly innocent; and I earnestly entreat your majesty not to keep him longer within the walls of a prison, which to the heart of an Englishman is worse than death itself.”

“I am sufficiently an Englishman to feel that,” replied the King.—­ “Your own free pardon for all offences up to this time we give, or rather promise you, should it be needed, without your asking it.  Mark the King’s words, gentlemen.  In regard to the liberation of the Duke, demanded of us, as you have demanded it; that is, as the only request of a person who has rendered us most important service, and to whom we have pledged our word to concede some boon, we would grant it also, but—­”

“Oh, sire!” exclaimed Green, “let your clemency blot out that but.”

“Hear me, hear me,” said the King, relapsing into his usual tone; “I would willingly grant you the Duke’s liberation as the boon which you require, and which I promised; but that I granted the order for his liberation some four days ago, not even demanding bail for his appearance, but perfectly satisfied of his innocence.  I ordered also such steps to be taken, that a nolle prosequi might be entered, so as to put his mind fully at rest.  I told the Earl of Byerdale the day before yesterday, that I had done this at the request of the Duke of Shrewsbury, and I bade him take the warrant, which, signed by myself, and countersigned by Mr. Secretary Trumbull, was then lying in the hands of the clerk.  It is either in the clerk’s hands still, or in those of Lord Byerdale.  But that lord has committed a most grievous offence in suffering any of my subjects to remain in a prison when the order was signed for their liberation.”

“May it please your majesty,” said Keppel, stepping forward, “I questioned the clerk this morning, as I passed, knowing what your majesty had done, and hearing, to my surprise, from my Lord Pembroke, that the Duke was still in prison.  The clerk tells me that he had still the warrant, Lord Byerdale seeming to have forgotten it entirely.”