But I would ask, What hope have you left, or what portion, even in its
best days, did your thriftless loyalty acquire you? Eusebius Beaumont it
found an obscure rector, and so it left you; for you could only boast
simplicity of life and doctrine; but court-chaplains, drivellers in
learning, and lewd knaves in manners, were rewarded with stalls and
mitres. You, Allan Neville, were stripped of your patrimony, and
slandered in your reputation, by the injustice of the King for whom you
bled."
Neville started from his indignant reverie. "Were you," said he,
"invested with tenfold terrors, I would not hear this aspersion cast
upon my Sovereign's memory. Injustice consists in knowing what is wrong,
and persisting in doing it. My King was misled, deceived, like myself,
by the viper we both cherished; even by one of those recreants to whom
you owe your exaltation. With double perfidy, you overthrew the King by
attributing to him the crimes of his favourites, and then converted them
into state-engines, first to elevate you to greatness, and afterwards to
convey away the offscourings of the dignity you had soiled.
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