remember.
Now the robed and mitred great heads of the church, and their
attendants, filed in upon the platform and took their appointed
places; these were followed by the Lord Protector and other great
officials, and these again by a steel-clad detachment of the
Guard.
There was a waiting pause; then, at a signal, a triumphant peal of
music burst forth, and Tom Canty, clothed in a long robe of cloth
of gold, appeared at a door, and stepped upon the platform. The
entire multitude rose, and the ceremony of the Recognition ensued.
Then a noble anthem swept the Abbey with its rich waves of sound;
and thus heralded and welcomed, Tom Canty was conducted to the
throne. The ancient ceremonies went on, with impressive
solemnity, whilst the audience gazed; and as they drew nearer and
nearer to completion, Tom Canty grew pale, and still paler, and a
deep and steadily deepening woe and despondency settled down upon
his spirits and upon his remorseful heart.
At last the final act was at hand. The Archbishop of Canterbury
lifted up the crown of England from its cushion and held it out
over the trembling mock-King’s head. In the same instant a
rainbow-radiance flashed along the spacious transept; for with one
impulse every individual in the great concourse of nobles lifted a
coronet and poised it over his or her head–and paused in that
attitude.
A deep hush pervaded the Abbey. At this impressive moment, a
startling apparition intruded upon the scene–an apparition
observed by none in the absorbed multitude, until it suddenly
appeared, moving up the great central aisle. It was a boy,
bareheaded, ill shod, and clothed in coarse plebeian garments that
were falling to rags. He raised his hand with a solemnity which
ill comported with his soiled and sorry aspect, and delivered this
note of warning–
“I forbid you to set the crown of England upon that forfeited
head. I am the King!”
In an instant several indignant hands were laid upon the boy; but
in the same instant Tom Canty, in his regal vestments, made a
swift step forward, and cried out in a ringing voice–
“Loose him and forbear! He IS the King!”
A sort of panic of astonishment swept the assemblage, and they
partly rose in their places and stared in a bewildered way at one
another and at the chief figures in this scene, like persons who
wondered whether they were awake and in their senses, or asleep
and dreaming. The Lord Protector was as amazed as the rest, but
quickly recovered himself, and exclaimed in a voice of authority–
“Mind not his Majesty, his malady is upon him again–seize the
vagabond!”
He would have been obeyed, but the mock-King stamped his foot and
cried out–
“On your peril! Touch him not, he is the King!”
The hands were withheld; a paralysis fell upon the house; no one
moved, no one spoke; indeed, no one knew how to act or what to
say, in so strange and surprising an emergency. While all minds
were struggling to right themselves, the boy still moved steadily
forward, with high port and confident mien; he had never halted
from the beginning; and while the tangled minds still floundered
helplessly, he stepped upon the platform, and the mock-King ran
with a glad face to meet him; and fell on his knees before him and
said–
“Oh, my lord the King, let poor Tom Canty be first to swear fealty
to thee, and say, ‘Put on thy crown and enter into thine own
again!'”
The Lord Protector’s eye fell sternly upon the new-comer’s face;
but straightway the sternness vanished away, and gave place to an
expression of wondering surprise. This thing happened also to the
other great officers. They glanced at each other, and retreated a
step by a common and unconscious impulse. The thought in each
mind was the same: “What a strange resemblance!”
The Lord Protector reflected a moment or two in perplexity, then
he said, with grave respectfulness–
“By your favour, sir, I desire to ask certain questions which–”
“I will answer them, my lord.”
The Duke asked him many questions about the Court, the late King,
the prince, the princesses–the boy answered them correctly and