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By Sir Walter Scott: Tressilian

The story opens at an inn kept by one Gosling, whose nephew, Michael Lambourne, a swaggering drunkard, returns after years of absence and finds that Tony Foster, an old crony, who lighted the fires when Latimer and Ridley were burned, is keeping guard over a beautiful woman at Cumnor Mansion. Lambourne gains admission there, accompanied by Tressilian, a knight of peerless character, who is in search of her to whom he has been betrothed and who has been lured away from her father's house. Lambourne becomes an accomplice in crime with Foster, and Tressilian meets the mysterious lady, who proves to be none other than Amy Robsart, for it was she who was his promised bride.

He tries to persuade her to return to her father, but in vain, and in attempting to escape from the premises he meets Richard Varney, master of horse to Leicester, a shrewd, calculating villain, who is a constant spur to the earl's ambition to be king.

Tressilian naturally concludes that Amy is this fellow's mistress, and, drawing his sword, overcomes and would have slain him but for the timely arrival of Lambourne, when he was obliged to flee, and, knowing the queen's interest in such affairs, he resolves to obtain her intervention in Amy's behalf.