CHAPTER VII

PREFERMENT King James in bedgown and slippers, his head swathed in a multi-coloured kerchief, sat on the edge of his great canopied bed, looking like Pantaloon in the comedy. His fingers tugged fretfully at his thin sandy beard. There was humidity about the corners of his bovine eyes, and a melancholy beyond the usual in their depths. The Prince of Wales, tense with choler, strode restlessly to and fro in the royal bedchamber, talking briskly and vehemently. He was inveighing against Sir Robert Carr and Sir Robert'…