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This Arnesto, then, was enamoured of Isabella, and so inflamedly that his very soul did burn in the sparkling light of Isabella’s eyes; and albeit in that time that Ricaredo was absent he had by some signs discovered his desires, yet was he never admitted by Isabella, or received any the least encouragement. And howbeit that repugnancy and disdains in love’s infancy are wont to make lovers to desist from their enterprise, yet in Arnesto the many and known disdains which Isabella showed him wrought the clean contrary, for he was set on fire with his own jealousies, and burned with desire to attempt her honesty.

And for that he saw that Ricaredo in the Queen’s opinion had deserved Isabella, and that within so little a while she was to be given unto him for wife, he was ready to run into despair, and to offer violence to himself. But before that he would go about to use so infamous and cowardly a remedy, he spake with his mother, entreating her that she would speak unto the Queen to give him Isabella to be his wife, which if she did not bring to pass, that he would then have her to know, and assuredly believe, that death stood knocking at the doors of his life.

The mother wondered to hear such words fall from her son, and for that she knew the roughness of his harsh nature and headstrong condition, and the fastness wherewith these desires did cleave unto his soul, she was afraid that this his love would end in some sinister event and unhappy issue. Yet notwithstanding, as a mother (to whom it is natural to desire and procure the good of her children), she promised to prefer his pretension to the Queen; though not with any hope to obtain such an impossibility of her as the breaking of her princely word, but that she might not omit to try in so desperate a case the utmost remedy.

And Isabella being that morning apparelled, by order from the Queen, so richly that my pen dares not presume to deliver the manner thereof unto you, and the Queen herself having put a chain of pearl about her neck, the best that was brought home by Ricaredo in the ship, valued at twenty thousand ducats, and a diamond ring on her finger worth six thousand or thereabouts, and the ladies being assembled and met together for to celebrate the approaching feast of this glorious wedding, came in the chief bedchamber woman to the Queen, and besought her on her knees that she would be pleased to suspend Isabella’s espousals two days more; for with this favour only which her Majesty should do her she should hold herself well satisfied and recompensed for all whatsoever she deserved or hoped for her service.

The Queen would first know of her why she did so earnestly desire this suspension, which went so directly against her word which she had given to Ricaredo. But that lady would not render her the reason until that she had granted her request, and that then she would make it known unto her. The Queen longed to know the cause of that her demand. And therefore, after that the lady had obtained that which she much desired, she recounted to her Majesty the love that her son bare to Isabella, and how that she feared that if she were not given him to wife he would either grow desperate to his utter undoing, or do some scandalous act or other. And that whereas she had craved those two days of delaying the business, it was only to this end and purpose, that her Majesty might have time to think upon some course, which might in her Majesty’s wisdom be most fit and convenient for her son’s good.