But now the queen arose from her seat, and beckoned Henry Howard nearer to her.

"My lord," said she, almost with solemnity, "as a queen and as a woman I thank you for the noble and sublime lyrics which you have composed in honor of a woman! And for that the grace of my king has exalted me to be the first woman in England, it becomes me, in the name of all women, to return to you my thanks. To the poet is due a reward other than that of the warrior. To the victor on the battlefield is awarded a laurel crown. But you have gained a victory not less glorious, for you have conquered hearts! We acknowledge ourselves vanquished, and in the name of all these noble women, I proclaim you their knight! In token of which, accept this rosette, my lord. It entitles you to wear the queen's colors; it lays you under obligation to be the knight of all women!"

She loosened the rosette from her shoulder, and handed it to the earl.

He had sunk on one knee before her, and already extended his hand to receive this precious and coveted pledge.

But at this moment the king arose, and, with an imperious gesture, held back the queen's hand.

"Allow me, my lady," said he, in a voice quivering with rage—"allow me first to examine this rosette, and convince myself that it is worth enough to be presented to the noble earl as his sole reward. Let me see this rosette."

Catharine looked with astonishment into that face convulsed with passion and fury, but without hesitation she handed him the rosette.

"We are lost!" murmured Earl Surrey, while Earl Douglas and Gardiner exchanged with each other looks of triumph; and Jane Douglas murmured in her trembling heart prayers of anxiety and dread, scarcely hearing the malicious and exultant words which the Duchess of Richmond was whispering in her ear.

The king held the rosette in his hand and examined it. But his hands trembled so much that he was unable to unfasten the clasp which held it together.

He, therefore, handed it to John Heywood. "These diamonds are poor," said he, in a curt, dry tone. "Unfasten the clasp, fool; we will replace it with this pin here. Then will the present gain for the earl a double value; for it will come at the same time from me and from the queen."

"How gracious you are to-day!" said John Heywood, smiling—"as gracious as the cat, that plays a little longer with the mouse before she devours it."

"Unfasten the clasp!" exclaimed the king, in a thundering voice, no longer able to conceal his rage. Slowly John Heywood unfastened the clasp from the ribbon. He did it with intentional slowness and deliberation; he let the king see all his movements, every turn of his fingers; and it delighted him to hold those who had woven this plot in dreadful suspense and expectation.

Whilst he appeared perfectly innocent and unembarrassed, his keen, piercing glance ran over the whole assembly, and he noticed well the trembling impatience of Gardiner and Earl Douglas; and it did not escape him how pale Lady Jane was, and how full of expectation were the intent features of the Duchess of Richmond.

"They are the ones with whom this conspiracy originated," said John Heywood to himself. "But I will keep silence till I can one day convict them."

"There, here is the clasp!" said he then aloud to the king. "It stuck as tightly in the ribbon as malice in the hearts of priests and courtiers!"

The king snatched the ribbon out of his hand, and examined it by drawing it through his fingers.

"Nothing! nothing at all!" said he, gnashing his teeth; and now, deceived in his expectations and suppositions, he could no longer muster strength to withstand that roaring torrent of wrath which overflowed his heart. The tiger was again aroused in him; he had calmly waited for the moment when the promised prey would be brought to him; now, when it seemed to be escaping him, his savage and cruel disposition started up within him. The tiger panted and thirsted for blood; and that he was not to get it, made him raging with fury.

With a wild movement he threw the rosette on the ground, and raised his arm menacingly toward Henry Howard. "Dare not to touch that rosette," cried he, in a voice of thunder, "before you have exculpated yourself from the guilt of which you are accused."

Earl Surrey looked him steadily and boldly in the eye. "Have I been accused, then?" asked he. "Then I demand, first of all, that I be confronted with my accusers, and that my fault be named!"

"Ha, traitor! Do you dare to brave me?" yelled the king, stamping furiously with his foot. "Well, now, I will be your accuser and I will be your judge!"

"And surely, my king and husband, you will be a righteous judge," said Catharine, as she inclined imploringly toward the king and grasped his hand. "You will not condemn the noble Earl Surrey without having heard him; and if you find him guiltless, you will punish his accusers?"

But this intercession of the queen made the king raging. He threw her hand from him, and gazed at her with looks of such flaming wrath, that she involuntarily trembled.

"Traitoress yourself!" yelled he, wildly. "Speak not of innocence—you who are yourself guilty; and before you dare defend the earl, defend yourself!"

Catharine rose from her seat and looked with flashing eyes into the king's face blazing with wrath. "King Henry of England," said she, solemnly, "you have openly, before your whole court, accused your queen of a crime. I now demand that you name it!"

She was of wondrous beauty in her proud, hold bearing—in her imposing, majestic tranquillity.

The decisive moment had come, and she was conscious that her life and her future were struggling with death for the victory.

She looked over to Thomas Seymour, and their eyes met. She saw how he laid his hand on his sword, and nodded to her a smiling greeting.

"He will defend me; and before he will suffer me to be dragged to the Tower, he himself will plunge his sword into my breast," thought she, and a joyous, triumphant assurance filled her whole heart.

She saw nothing but him, who had sworn to die with her when the decisive moment came. She looked with a smile on the blade which he had already half drawn from its scabbard; and she hailed it as a dear, long-yearned-for friend.

She saw not that Henry Howard also had lain his hand on his sword; that he, too, was ready for her defence, firmly resolved to slay the king himself, before his mouth uttered the sentence of death over the queen.

But Lady Jane Douglas saw it. She understood how to read the earl's countenance; she felt that he was ready to go to death for his beloved; and it filled her heart at once with woe and rapture.

She, too, was now firmly resolved to follow her heart and her love; and, forgetting all else besides these, she hastened forward, and was now standing by Henry Howard.

"Be prudent, Earl Surrey," said she, in a low whisper. "Take your hand from your sword. The queen, by my mouth, commands you to do so!"

Henry Howard looked at her astonished and surprised; but he let his hand slip from the hilt of his sword, and again looked toward the queen.

She had repeated her demand; she had once more demanded of the king—who, speechless and completely overcome with anger, had fallen back into his seat—to name the crime of which she was accused.

"Now, then, my queen, you demand it, and you shall hear it," cried he. "You want to know the crime of which you are accused? Answer me then, my lady! They accuse you of not always staying at night in your sleeping-room. It is alleged that you sometimes leave it for many hours; and that none of your women accompanied you when you glided through the corridors and up the secret stairs to the lonely tower, in which, was waiting for you your lover, who at the same time entered the tower through the small street door."

"He knows all!" muttered Henry Howard; and again he laid his hand on his sword, and was about to approach the queen.

Lady Jane held him back. "Wait for the issue," said she. "There is still time to die!"

"He knows all!" thought the queen also; and now she felt within herself the daring courage to risk all, that at least she might not stand there a traitoress in the eyes of her lover.

"He shall not believe that I have been untrue to him," thought she. "I will tell all—confess all, that he may know why I went and whither."

"Now answer, my Lady Catharine!" thundered the king. "Answer, and tell me whether you have been falsely accused. Is it true that you, eight days ago, in the night between Monday and Tuesday, left your sleeping-room at the hour of midnight, and went secretly to the lonely tower? Is it true that you received there a man who is your lover?"

The queen looked at him in angry pride. "Henry, Henry, woe to you, that you dare thus insult your own wife!" cried she.

"Answer me! You were not on that night in your sleeping-room?"

"No," said Catharine, with dignified composure, "I was not there."

The king sank back in his seat, and a real roar of fury sounded from his lips. It made the women turn pale, and even the men felt themselves tremble.

Catharine alone had not heeded it at all; she alone had heard nothing save that cry of amazement which Thomas Seymour uttered; and she saw only the angry and up-braiding looks which he threw across at her. She answered these looks with a friendly and confident smile, and pressed both her hands to her heart, as she looked at him.

"I will justify myself before him at least," thought she.

The king had recovered from his first shock. He again raised himself up, and his countenance now exhibited a fearful, threatening coolness.

"You confess, then," asked he, "that you were not in your sleeping-room on that night?"

"I have already said so," exclaimed Catharine, impatiently. The king compressed his lips so violently, that they bled. "And a man was with you?" asked he—"a man with whom you made an assignation, and whom you received in the lonely tower?"

"A man was with me. But I did not receive him in the lonely tower; and it was no assignation."

"Who was that man?" yelled the king. "Answer me! Tell me his name, if you do not want me to strangle you myself!"

"King Henry, I fear death no longer!" said Catharine, with a contemptuous smile.

"Who was that man? Tell me his name!" yelled the king once more.

The queen raised herself more proudly, and her defiant look ran over the whole assembly.

"The man," said she, solemnly, "who was with me on that night—he is named—"

"He is named John Heywood!" said this individual; as he seriously and proudly walked forward from behind the king's throne. "Yes, Henry, your brother, the fool John Heywood, had on that night the proud honor of accompanying your consort on her holy errand; but, I assure you, that he was less like the king, than the king is just now like the fool."

A murmur of surprise ran through the assembly. The king leaned back in his royal seat speechless. "And now, King Henry," said Catharine, calmly—"now I will tell you whither I went with John Heywood on that night."

She was silent, and for a moment leaned back on her seat. She felt that the looks of all were directed to her; she heard the king's wrathful groan; she felt her lover's flashing, reproachful glances; she saw the derisive smile of those haughty ladies, who had never forgiven her—that she, from a simple baroness, had become queen. But all this made her only still bolder and more courageous.

She had arrived at the turning-point of her life, where she must risk everything to avoid sinking into the abyss.

But Lady Jane also had arrived at such a decisive moment of her existence. She, too, said to herself: "I must at this hour risk all, if I do not want to lose all." She saw Henry Howard's pale, expectant face. She knew, if the queen now spoke, the whole web of their conspiracy would be revealed to him.

She must, therefore, anticipate the queen. She must warn Henry Howard.

"Fear nothing!" whispered she to him. "We were prepared for that. I have put into her hands the means of escape!"

"Will you now at last speak?" exclaimed the king, quivering with impatience and rage. "Will you at last tell us where you were on that night?"

"I will tell!" exclaimed Catharine, rising up again boldly and resolutely "But woe be to those who drive me to this! For I tell you beforehand, from the accused I will become an accuser who demands justice, if not before the throne of the King of England, yet before the throne of the Lord of all kings! King Henry of England, do you ask me whither I went on that night with John Heywood? I might, perhaps, as your queen and consort, demand that you put this question to me not before so many witnesses, but in the quiet of our chamber; but you seek publicity, and I do not shun it. Well, hear the truth, then, all of you! On that night, between Monday and Tuesday, I was not in my sleeping-apartment, because I had a grave and sacred duty to perform; because a dying woman called on me for help and pity! Would you know, my lord and husband, who this dying woman was? It was Anne Askew!"

"Anne Askew!" exclaimed the king in astonishment; and his countenance exhibited a less wrathful expression.

"Anne Askew!" muttered the others; and John Heywood very well saw how Bishop Gardiner's brow darkened, and how Chancellor Wriothesley turned pale and cast down his eyes.

"Yes, I was with Anne Askew!" continued the queen—"with Anne Askew, whom those pious and wise lords yonder had condemned, not so much on account of her faith, but because they knew that I loved her. Anne Askew was to die, because Catharine Parr loved her! She was to go to the stake, that my heart also might burn with fiery pains! And because it was so, I was obliged to risk everything in order to save her. Oh, my king, say yourself, did I not owe it to this poor girl to try everything in order to save her? On my account she was to suffer these tortures. For they had shamefully stolen from me a letter which Anne Askew, in the distress of her heart, had addressed to me; and they showed this letter to you in order to cast suspicion on me and accuse me to you. But your noble heart repelled the suspicion; and now their wrath fell again on Anne Askew, and she must suffer, because they did not find me punishable. She must atone for having dared to write to me. They worked matters with you so that she was put to the rack. But when my husband gave way to their urging, yet the noble king remained still awake in him. 'Go,' said he, 'rack her and kill her; but see first whether she will not recant.'"

Henry looked astonished into her noble and defiant face. "Do you know that?" asked he. "And yet we were alone, and no human being present. Who could tell you that?"

"When man is no longer able to help, then God undertakes!" said Catharine solemnly. "It was God who commanded me to go to Anne Askew, and try whether I could save her. And I went. But though the wife of a noble and great king, I am still but a weak and timid woman. I was afraid to tread this gloomy and dangerous path alone; I needed a strong manly arm to lean upon; and so John Heywood lent me his."

"And you were really with Anne Askew," interposed the king, thoughtfully—"with that hardened sinner, who despised mercy, and in the stubbornness of her soul would not be a partaker of the pardon that I offered her?"

"My lord and husband," said the queen, with tears in her eyes, "she whom you have just accused stands even now before the throne of the Lord, and has received from her God the forgiveness of her sins! Therefore, do you likewise pardon her; and may the flames of the stake, to which yesterday the noble virgin body of this girl was bound, have consumed also the wrath and hatred which had been kindled in your heart against her! Anne Askew passed away like a saint; for she forgave all her enemies and blessed her tormentors."

"Anne Askew was a damnable sinner, who dared resist the command of her lord and king!" interrupted Bishop Gardiner, looking daggers at her.

"And dare you maintain, my lord, that you at that time fulfilled the commands of your royal master simply and exactly?" asked Catharine. "Did you keep within them with respect to Anne Askew? No! I say; for the king had not ordered you to torture her; he had not bidden you to lacerate in blasphemous wrath a noble human form, and distort that likeness of God into a horrible caricature. And that, my lord, you did! Before God and your king, I accuse you of it—I, the queen! For you know, my lord and husband, I was there when Anne Askew was racked. I saw her agony, and John Heywood saw it with me."

The eyes of all were now directed inquiringly to the king, of whose ferocity and choler every one expected a violent outbreak.

But this time they were mistaken. The king was so well satisfied to find his consort clear of the crime laid to her charge, that he willingly forgave her for having committed a crime of less weighty character. Besides, it filled him with respect to see his consort confronting her accusers so boldly and proudly; and he felt toward them just as burning wrath and hatred as he had before harbored against the queen. He was pleased that the malignant and persistent persecutors of his fair and proud wife should now be humbled by her before the eyes of all his court.

Therefore he looked at her with an imperceptible smile, and said with deep interest: "But how could this happen, my lady? By what path did you get thither?"

"That is an inquiry which any one except the king is authorized to make. King Henry alone knows the way that I went!" said Catharine, with a slight smile.

John Heywood, who was still standing behind the king's throne, now bent down close to Henry's ear, and spoke with him a long time in a quick, low tone.

The king listened to him attentively; then he murmured so loud that the bystanders could very well understand him: "By God, she is a spirited and brave woman; and we should be obliged to confess that, even were she not our queen!"

"Continue, my lady!" said he then aloud, turning to the queen with a gracious look. "Relate to me, Catharine, what saw you then in the torture-chamber?"

"Oh, my king and lord, it horrifies me only to think of it," cried she, shuddering and turning pale. "I saw a poor young woman who writhed in fearful agony, and whose staring eyes were raised in mute supplication to Heaven. She did not beg her tormentors for mercy; she wanted from them no compassion and no pity; she did not scream and whine from the pain, though her limbs cracked and her flesh snapped apart like glass; she raised her clasped hands to God, and her lips murmured low prayers, which, perhaps, made the angels of heaven weep, but were not able to touch the hearts of her tormentors. You had ordered her to be racked, if she would not retract. They did not ask her whether she would do this—they racked her. But her soul was strong and full of courage; and, under the tortures of the executioner, her lips remained mute. Let theologians say and determine whether Anne Askew's faith was a false one; but this they will not dare deny: that in the noble enthusiasm of this faith, she was a heroine who at least did not deny her God. At length, worn out with so much useless exertion, the assistant executioners discontinued their bloody work, to rest from the tortures which they had prepared for Anne Askew. The lieutenant of the Tower declared the work of the rack ended. The highest degrees had been applied, and they had proved powerless; cruelty was obliged to acknowledge itself conquered. But the priests of the Church, with savage vehemence, demanded that she should be racked once more. Dare deny that, ye lords, whom I behold standing there opposite with faces pale as death! Yes, my king, the servants of the rack refused to obey the servants of God; for in the hearts of the hangman's drudges there was more pity than in the hearts of the priests! And when they refused to proceed in their bloody work, and when the lieutenant of the Tower, in virtue of the existing law, declared the racking at an end, then I saw one of the first ministers of our Church throw aside his sacred garments; then the priest of God transformed himself into a hangman's drudge, who, with bloodthirsty delight, lacerated anew the noble mangled body of the young girl, and more cruel than the attendants of the rack, unsparingly they broke and dislocated the limbs, which they had only squeezed in their screws. [Footnote: Burnet's "History of the Reformation," vol. i, p. 132.] Excuse me, my king, from sketching this scene of horror still further! Horrified and trembling, I fled from that frightful place, and returned to my room, shattered and sad at heart."

Catharine ceased, exhausted, and sank back into her seat.

A breathless stillness reigned around. All faces were pale and colorless. Gardiner and Wriothesley stood with their eyes fixed, gloomy and defiant, expecting that the king's wrath would crush and destroy them.

But the king scarcely thought of them; he thought only of his fair young queen, whose boldness inspired him with respect, and whose innocence and purity filled him with a proud and blissful joy.

He was, therefore, very much inclined to forgive those who in reality had committed no offence further than this, that they had carried out a little too literally and strictly the orders of their master.

A long pause had ensued—a pause full of expectation and anxiety for all who were assembled in the hall. Only Catharine reclined calmly in her chair, and with beaming eyes looked across to Thomas Seymour, whose handsome countenance betrayed to her the gratification and satisfaction which he felt at this clearing up of her mysterious night-wandering.

At last the king arose, and, bowing low before his consort, said in a loud, full-toned voice: "I have deeply and bitterly injured you, my noble wife; and as I publicly accused you, I will also publicly ask your forgiveness! You have a right to be angry with me; for it behooved me, above all, to believe with unshaken firmness in the truth and honor of my wife. My lady, you have made a brilliant vindication of yourself; and I, the king, first of all bow before you, and beg that you may forgive me and impose some penance."

"Leave it to me, queen, to impose a penance on this repentant sinner!" cried John Hey wood, gayly. "Your majesty is much too magnanimous, much too timid, to treat him as roughly as my brother King Henry deserves. Leave it to me, then, to punish him; for only the fool is wise enough to punish the king after his deserts."

Catharine nodded to him with a grateful smile. She comprehended perfectly John Heywood's delicacy and nice tact; she apprehended that he wanted by a joke to relieve her from her painful situation, and put an end to the king's public acknowledgment, which at the same time must turn to her bitter reproach—bitter, though it were only self-reproach.

"Well," said she, smiling, "what punishment, then, will you impose upon the king?"

"The punishment of recognizing the fool as his equal!"

"God is my witness that I do so!" cried the king, almost solemnly. "Fools we are, one and all, and we fall short of the renown which we have before men."

"But my sentence is not yet complete, brother!" continued John Heywood. "I furthermore give sentence, that you also forthwith allow me to recite my poem to you, and that you open your ears in order to hear what John Heywood, the wise, has indited!"

"You have, then, fulfilled my command, and composed a new interlude?" cried the king, vivaciously.

"No interlude, but a wholly novel, comical affair—a play full of lampoons and jokes, at which your eyes are to overflow, yet not with weeping, but with laughter. To the right noble Earl of Surrey belongs the proud honor of having presented to our happy England her first sonnets. Well, now, I also will give her something new. I present her the first comedy; and as he sings the beauty of his Geraldine, so I celebrate the fame of Gammer Gurton's sewing-needle—Gammer Gurton's needle—so my piece is called; and you, King Henry, shall listen to it as a punishment for your sins!"

"I will do so," cried the king, cheerfully, "provided you permit it, Kate! But before I do so, I make also one more condition—a condition for you, queen! Kate, you have disdained to impose a penance on me, but grant me at least the pleasure of being allowed to fulfil some wish of yours! Make me a request, that I may grant it you!"

"Well, then, my lord and king," said Catharine with a charming smile, "I beg you to think no more of the incidents of this day, and to forgive those whom I accused, only because their accusation was my vindication. They who brought charges against me have in this hour felt contrition for their own fault. Let that suffice, king, and forgive them, as I do!"

"You are a noble and great woman, Kate!" cried the king; and, as his glance swept over toward Gardiner with an almost contemptuous expression, he continued: "Your request is granted. But woe to them who shall dare accuse you again! And have you nothing further to demand, Kate?"

"Nay, one thing more, my lord and husband!" She leaned nearer to the king's ear, and whispered: "They have also accused your noblest and most faithful servant; they have accused Cranmer. Condemn him not, king, without having heard him; and if I may beg a favor of you, it is this: talk with Cranmer yourself. Tell him of what they have charged him, and hear his vindication."

"It shall be so, Kate," said the king, "and you shall be present! But let this be a secret between us, Kate, and we will carry it out in perfect silence. And now, then, John Heywood, let us hear your composition; and woe to you, if it does not accomplish what you promised—if it does not make us laugh! For you well know that you are then inevitably exposed to the rods of our injured ladies."

"They shall have leave to whip me to death, if I do not make you laugh!" cried John Heywood, gayly, as he drew out his manuscript.

Soon the hall rang again with loud laughter; and in the universal merriment no one observed that Bishop Gardiner and Earl Douglas slipped quietly away.

In the anteroom without, they stopped and looked at each other long and silently; their countenances expressed the wrath and bitterness which filled them; and they understood this mute language of their features.

"She must die!" said Gardiner in a short and quick tone. "She has for once escaped from our snares; we will tie them all the tighter next time!"

"And I already hold in my hand the threads out of which we will form these snares," said Earl Douglas. "We have to-day falsely accused her of a love-affair. When we do it again, we shall speak the truth. Did you see the looks that Catharine exchanged with the heretical Earl Sudley, Thomas Seymour?"

"I saw them, earl!"

"For these looks she will die, my lord. The queen loves Thomas Seymour, and this love will be her death."

"Amen!" said Bishop Gardiner, solemnly, as he raised his eyes devoutly to heaven. "Amen! The queen has grievously and bitterly injured us to-day; she has insulted and abused us before all the court. We will requite her for it some day! The torture-chamber, which she has depicted in such lively colors, may yet one day open for her, too—not that she may behold another's agonies, but that she may suffer agonies herself. We shall one day avenge ourselves!"



CHAPTER XXVI. REVENGE.

Miss Holland, the beautiful and much-admired mistress of the Duke of Norfolk, was alone in her magnificently adorned boudoir. It was the hour when ordinarily the duke was wont to be with her; for this reason she was charmingly attired, and had wrapped herself in that light and voluptuous negligee which the duke so much liked, because it set off to so much advantage the splendid form of his friend.

But to-day the expected one did not make his appearance: in his stead his valet had just come and brought the fair miss a note from his master. This note she was holding in her hand, while with passionate violence she now walked up and down her boudoir. A glowing crimson blazed upon her cheeks, and her large, haughty eyes darted wild flashes of wrath.

She was disdained—she, Lady Holland, was forced to endure the disgrace of being dismissed by her lover.

There, there, in that letter which she held in her hand, and which burned her fingers like red-hot iron—there it stood in black and white, that he would see her no more; that he renounced her love; that he released her.

Her whole frame shook as she thought of this. It was not the anguish of a loving heart which made her tremble; it was the wounded pride of the woman.

He had abandoned her. Her beauty, her youth no longer had the power to enchain him—the man with white hairs and withered features.

He had written her that he was satiated and weary, not of her, but only of love in general; that his heart had become old and withered like his face: and that there was still in his breast no more room for love, but only for ambition.

Was not that a revolting, an unheard-of outrage—to abandon the finest woman in England for the sake of empty, cold, stern ambition?

She opened the letter once more. Once more she read that place. Then grinding her teeth with tears of anger in her eyes: "He shall pay me for this! I will take vengeance for this insult!" She thrust the letter into her bosom, and touched the silver bell.

"Have my carriage brought round!" was her order to the servant who entered; and he withdrew in silence.

"I will avenge myself!" muttered she, as with trembling hands she wrapped herself in her large Turkish shawl. "I will avenge myself; and, by the Eternal! it shall be a bloody and swift vengeance! I will show him that I, too, am ambitious, and that my pride is not to be humbled. He says he will forget me. Oh, I will compel him to think of me, even though it be only to curse me!"

With hasty step she sped through the glittering apartments, which the liberality of her lover had furnished so magnificently, and descended to the carriage standing ready for her.

"To the Duchess of Norfolk's!" said she to the footman standing at the door of the carriage, as she entered it.

The servant looked at her in astonishment and inquiringly.

"To the Duke of Norfolk; is it not, my lady?"

"No, indeed, to the duchess!" cried she with a frown, as she leaned back on the cushion.

After a short time, the carriage drew up before the palace of the duchess, and with haughty tread and commanding air she passed through the porch.

"Announce me to the duchess immediately," was her order to the lackey who was hurrying to meet her.

"Your name, my lady?"

"Miss Arabella Holland."

The servant stepped back, and stared at her in surprise.

"Miss Arabella Holland! and you order me to announce you to the duchess?"

A contemptuous smile played a moment about the thin lips of the beautiful miss. "I see you know me," said she, "and you wonder a little to see me here. Wonder as much as you please, good friend; only conduct me immediately to the duchess."

"I doubt whether her ladyship receives calls to-day," stammered the servant, hesitatingly.

"Then go and ask; and, that I may learn her answer as soon as possible, I will accompany you."

With a commanding air, she motioned to the servant to go before her; and he could not summon up courage to gainsay this proud beauty.

In silence they traversed the suite of stately apartments, and at length stood before a door hung with tapestry.

"I must beg you to wait here a moment, my lady, so that I can announce you to the duchess, who is there in her boudoir."

"No, indeed; I will assume that office myself," said Miss Holland, as with strong hand she pushed back the servant and opened the door.

The duchess was sitting at her writing-table, her back turned to the door through which Arabella had entered. She did not turn round; perhaps she had not heard the door open. She continued quietly writing.

Miss Arabella Holland with stately step crossed the room, and now stood close to the chair of the duchess.

"Duchess, I would like to speak with you," said she, coolly and calmly.

The duchess uttered a cry and looked up. "Miss Holland!" cried she amazed, and hastily rising. "Miss Holland! you here with me, in my house! What do you want here? How dare you cross my threshold?"

"I see you still hate me, my lady," said Arabella, smiling. "You have not yet forgiven me that the duke, your husband, found more delight in my young, handsome face, than in yours, now growing old—that my sprightly, wanton disposition pleased him better than your cold, stately air."

The duchess turned pale with rage, and her eyes darted lightning. "Silence, you shameless creature! silence, or I will call my servants to rid me of you!"

"You will not call them; for I have come to be reconciled with you, and to offer you peace."

"Peace with you!" sneered the duchess—"peace with that shameless woman who stole from me my husband, the father of my children?—who loaded me with the disgrace of standing before the whole world as a repudiated and despised wife, and of suffering myself to be compared with you, that the world might decide which of us two was worthier of his love? Peace with you, Miss Holland?—with the impudent strumpet who squanders my husband's means in lavish luxury, and, with scoffing boldness, robs my children of their lawful property?"

"It is true, the duke is very generous," said Miss Holland, composedly. "He loaded me with diamonds and gold."

"And meanwhile I was doomed almost to suffer want," said the duchess, grinding her teeth.

"Want of love, it may be, my lady, but not want of money; for you are very magnificently fitted up; and every one knows that the Duchess of Norfolk is rich enough to be able to spare the trifles that her husband laid at my feet. By Heaven! my lady, I would not have deemed it worth the trouble to stoop for them, if I had not seen among these trifles his heart. The heart of a man is well worth a woman's stooping for! You have neglected that, my lady, and therefore you lost your husband's heart. I picked it up. That is all. Why will you make a crime of that?"

"That is enough!" cried the duchess. "It does not become me to dispute with you; I desire only to know what gave you the courage to come to me?"

"My lady, do you hate me only? Or do you also hate the duke your husband?"

"She asks me whether I hate him!" cried the duchess, with a wild, scornful laugh. "Yes, Miss Holland, yes! I hate him as ardently as I despise you. I hate him so much that I would give my whole estate—ay, years of my life—if I could punish him for the disgrace he has put upon me."

"Then, my lady, we shall soon understand each other; for I too hate him," said Miss Holland, quietly seating herself on the velvet divan, and smiling as she observed the speechless astonishment of the duchess.

"Yes, my lady, I hate him; and without doubt still more ardently, still more intensely than you yourself; for I am young and fiery; you are old, and have always managed to preserve a cool heart."

The duchess was convulsed with rage; but silently, and with an effort, she gulped down the drop of wormwood which her wicked rival mingled in the cup of joy which she presented to her.

"You do hate him, Miss Holland?" asked she, joyfully.

"I hate him, and I have come to league myself with you against him. He is a traitor, a perfidious wretch, a perjurer. I will take vengeance for my disgrace!"

"Ah, has he then deserted you also?"

"He has deserted me also."

"Well, then, God be praised!" cried the duchess, and her face beamed with joy. "God is great and just; and He has punished you with the same weapons with which you sinned! For your sake, he deserted me; and for the sake of another woman, he forsakes you."

"Not so, my lady!" said Miss Holland, proudly. "A woman like me is not forsaken on account of a woman; and he who loves me will love no other after me. There, read his letter!"

She handed the duchess her husband's letter.

"And what do you want to do now?" asked the duchess, after she had read it.

"I will have revenge, my lady! He says he no longer has a heart to love; well, now, we will so manage, that he may no longer have a head to think. Will you be my ally, my lady?"

"I will."

"And I also will be," said the Duchess of Richmond, who just then opened the door and came out of the adjoining room.

Not a word of this entire conversation had escaped her, and she very well understood that the question was not about some petty vengeance, but her father's head. She knew that Miss Holland was not a woman that, when irritated, pricked with a pin; but one that grasped the dagger to strike her enemy a mortal blow.

"Yes, I too will be your ally," cried the Duchess of Richmond; "we have all three been outraged by the same man. Let, then, our revenge be a common one. The father has insulted you; the son, me. Well, then, I will help you to strike the father, if you in return will assist me to destroy the son."

"I will assist you," said Arabella, smiling; "for I also hate the haughty Earl of Surrey, who prides himself on his virtue, as if it were a golden fleece which God himself had stuck on his breast. I hate him; for he never meets me but with proud disregard; and he alone is to blame for his father's faithlessness."

"I was present when with tears he besought the duke, our father, to free himself from your fetters, and give up this shameful and disgraceful connection with you," said the young duchess.

Arabella answered nothing. But she pressed her hands firmly together, and a slight pallor overspread her cheeks.

"And why are you angry with your brother?" asked the old duchess, thoughtfully.

"Why am I angry with him, do you ask, my mother? I am not angry with him; but I execrate him, and I have sworn to myself never to rest till I have avenged myself. My happiness, my heart, and my future, lay in his hands; and he has remorselessly trodden under his haughty feet these—his sister's precious treasures. It lay with him to make me the wife of the man I love; and he has not done it, though I lay at his feet weeping and wringing my hands."

"But it was a great sacrifice that you demanded," said her mother. "He had to give his hand to a woman he did not love, so that you might be Thomas Seymour's wife."

"Mother, you defend him; and yet he it is that blames you daily; and but yesterday it seemed to him perfectly right and natural that the duke had forsaken you, our mother."

"Did he do that?" inquired the duchess, vehemently. "Well, now, as he has forgotten that I am his mother, so will I forget that he is my son. I am your ally! Revenge for our injured hearts! Vengeance on father and son!"

She held out both hands, and the two young women laid their hands in hers.

"Vengeance on father and son!" repeated they both; and their eyes flashed, and crimson now mantled their cheeks.

"I am tired of living like a hermit in my palace, and of being banished from court by the fear that I may encounter my husband there."

"You shall encounter him there no more," said her daughter, laconically.

"They shall not laugh and jeer at me," cried Arabella. "And when they learn that he has forsaken me, they shall also know how I have avenged myself for it."

"Thomas Seymour can never become my husband so long as Henry Howard lives; for he has mortally offended him, as Henry has rejected the hand of his sister. Perhaps I may become his wife, if Henry Howard is no more," said the young duchess. "So let us consider. How shall we begin, so as to strike them surely and certainly?"

"When three women are agreed, they may well be certain of their success," said Arabella, shrugging her shoulders. "We live—God be praised for it—under a noble and high-minded king, who beholds the blood of his subjects with as much pleasure as he does the crimson of his royal mantle, and who has never yet shrunk back when a death-warrant was to be signed."

"But this time he will shrink back," said the old duchess. "He will not dare to rob the noblest and most powerful family of his kingdom of its head."

"That very risk will stimulate him," said the Duchess of Richmond, laughing; "and the more difficult it is to bring down these heads, so much the more impatiently will he hanker after it. The king hates them both, and he will thank us, if we change his hatred into retributive justice."

"Then let us accuse both of high treason!" cried Arabella. "The duke is a traitor; for I will and can swear that he has often enough called the king a bloodthirsty tiger, a relentless tyrant, a man without truth and without faith, although he coquettishly pretends to be the fountain and rock of all faith."

"If he has said that, and you have heard him, you are in duty bound to communicate it to the king, if you do not want to be a traitoress yourself," exclaimed the young duchess, solemnly.

"And have you not noticed that the duke has for some time borne the same coat-of-arms as the king?" asked the Duchess of Norfolk. "It is not enough for his haughty and ambitious spirit to be the first servant of this land; he strives to be lord and king of it."

"Tell that to the king, and by to-morrow the head of the traitor falls. For the king is as jealous of his kingdom as ever a woman was of her lover. Tell him that the duke bears his coat-of-arms, and his destruction is certain."

"I will tell him so, daughter."

"We are sure of the father, but what have we for the son?"

"A sure and infallible means, that will as certainly dispatch him into eternity as the hunter's tiny bullet slays the proudest stag. Henry loves the queen; and I will furnish the king proof of that," said the young duchess.

"Then let us go to the king!" cried Arabella, impetuously.

"No, indeed! That would make a sensation, and might easily frustrate our whole plan," said the Duchess of Richmond. "Let us first talk with Earl Douglas, and hear his advice. Come; every minute is precious! We owe it to our womanly honor to avenge ourselves. We cannot and will not leave unpunished those who have despised our love, wounded our honor, and trodden under foot the holiest ties of nature!"



CHAPTER XXVII. THE ACKNOWLEDGMENT.

The Princess Elizabeth was sitting in her room, melancholy and absorbed in thought. Her eyes were red with weeping; and she pressed her hand on her heart, as if she would repress its cry of anguish.

With a disconsolate, perplexed look she gazed around her chamber, and its solitude was doubly painful to her to-day, for it testified to her forsaken condition, to the disgrace that still rested on her. For were it not so, to-day would have been to the whole court a day of rejoicing, of congratulations.

To-day was Elizabeth's birthday; fourteen years ago to-day, Anne Boleyn's daughter had seen the light of this world.

"Anne Boleyn's daughter!" That was the secret of her seclusion. That was why none of the ladies and lords of the court had remembered her birthday; for that would have been at the same time a remembrance of Anne Boleyn, of Elizabeth's beautiful and unfortunate mother, who had been made to atone for her grandeur and prosperity by her death.

Moreover, the king had called his daughter Elizabeth a bastard, and solemnly declared her unworthy of succeeding to the throne.

Her birthday, therefore, was to Elizabeth only a day of humiliation and pain. Reclining on her divan, she thought of her despised and joyless past, of her desolate and inglorious future.

She was a princess, and yet possessed not the rights of her birth; she was a young maiden, and yet doomed, in sad resignation, to renounce all the delights and enjoyments of youth, and to condemn her passionate and ardent heart to the eternal sleep of death. For when the Infante of Spain sued for her hand, Henry the Eighth had declared that the bastard Elizabeth was unworthy of a princely husband. But in order to intimidate other suitors also, he had loudly and openly declared that no subject should dare be so presumptuous as to offer his hand to one of his royal daughters, and he who dared to solicit them in marriage should be punished as a traitor.

So Elizabeth was condemned to remain unmarried; and nevertheless she loved; nevertheless she harbored only this one wish, to be the wife of her beloved, and to be able to exchange the proud title of princess for the name of Countess Seymour.

Since she loved him, a new world, a new sun had arisen on her; and before the sweet and enchanting whispers of her love, even the proud and alluring voices of her ambition had to be silent. She no longer thought of it, that she would never be a queen; she was only troubled that she could not be Seymour's wife.

She no longer wanted to rule, but she wanted to be happy. But her happiness reposed on him alone—on Thomas Seymour.

Such were her thoughts, as she was in her chamber on the morning of her birthday, alone and lonely; and her eyes reddened by tears, her painfully convulsed lips, betrayed how much she had wept to-day; how much this young girl of fourteen years had already suffered.

But she would think no more about it; she would not allow the lurking, everywhere-prying, malicious, and wicked courtiers the triumph of seeing the traces of her tears, and rejoicing at her pains and her humiliation. She was a proud and resolute soul; she would rather have died than to have accepted the sympathy and pity of the courtiers.

"I will work," said she. "Work is the best balm for all pains."

And she took up the elaborate silk embroidery which she had begun for her poor, unfortunate friend, Anne of Cleves, Henry's divorced wife. But the work occupied only her fingers, not her thoughts.

She threw it aside and seized her books. She took Petrarch's Sonnets; and his love plaints and griefs enchained and stirred her own love-sick heart.

With streaming tears, and yet smiling and full of sweet melancholy, Elizabeth read these noble and tender poems. It appeared to her as if Petrarch had only said what she herself so warmly felt. There were her thoughts, her griefs. He had said them in his language; she must now repeat them in her own. She seated herself, and with hands trembling with enthusiasm, fluttering breath, perfectly excited and glowing, in glad haste she began a translation of Petrarch's first sonnet. [Footnote: Elizabeth, who even as a girl of twelve years old spoke four languages, was very fond of composing verses, and of translating the poems of foreign authors. But she kept her skill in this respect very secret, and was always very angry if any one by chance saw one of her poems. After her death there were found among her papers many translations, especially of Petrarch's Sonnets, which were the work of her earliest youth.—Leti, vol. i, p. 150.] A loud knock interrupted her; and in the hastily opened door now appeared the lovely form of the queen.

"The queen!" exclaimed Elizabeth with delight. "Have you come to me at such an early morning hour?"

"And should I wait till evening to wish my Elizabeth happiness on her festival? Should I first let the sun go down on this day, which gave to England so noble and so fair a princess?" asked Catharine. "Or you thought, perhaps, I did not know that this was your birthday, and that to-day my Elizabeth advances from the years of childhood, as a proud maiden full of hope?"

"Full of hope?" said Elizabeth, sadly. "Anne Boleyn's daughter has no hopes: and when you speak of my birthday, you remind me at the same time of my despised birth!"

"It shall be despised no longer!" said Catharine, and, as she put her arm tenderly around Elizabeth's neck, she handed her a roll of parchment.

"Take that, Elizabeth; and may this paper be to you the promise of a joyful and brilliant future! At my request, the king has made this law, and he therefore granted me the pleasure of bringing it to you."

Elizabeth opened the parchment and read, and a radiant expression overspread her countenance.

"Acknowledged! I am acknowledged!" cried she. "The disgrace of my birth is taken away! Elizabeth is no more a bastard—she is a royal princess!"

"And she may some day be a queen!" said Catharine, smiling.

"Oh," cried Elizabeth, "it is not that which stirs me with such joy. But the disgrace of my birth is taken away; and I may freely hold up my head and name my mother's name! Now thou mayst sleep calmly in thy grave, for it is no longer dishonored! Anne Boleyn was no strumpet; she was King Henry's lawful wife, and Elizabeth is the king's legitimate daughter! I thank Thee, my God—I thank Thee!" And the young, passionate girl threw herself on her knees, and raised her hands and her eyes to heaven.

"Spirit of my glorified mother," said she, solemnly, "I call thee! Come to me! Overshadow me with thy smile, and bless me with thy breath! Queen Anne of England, thy daughter is no longer a bastard, and no one dares venture more to insult her. Thou wert with me when I wept and suffered, my mother; and often in my disgrace and humiliation, it was as if I heard thy voice, which whispered comfort to me; as if I saw thy heavenly eyes, which poured peace and love into my breast! Oh, abide with me now also, my mother—now, when my disgrace is taken away, abide with me in my prosperity; and guard my heart, that it may be kept pure from arrogance and pride, and remain humble in its joy! Anne Boleyn, they laid thy beautiful, innocent head upon the block; but this parchment sets upon it again the royal crown; and woe, woe to those who will now still dare insult thy memory!"

She sprang from her knees and rushed to the wall opposite, on which was a large oil painting, which represented Elizabeth herself as a child playing with a dog.

"Oh, mother, mother!" said she, "this picture was the last earthly thing on which thy looks rested; and to these painted lips of thy child thou gavest thy last kiss, which thy cruel hangman would not allow to thy living child. Oh, let me sip up this last kiss from that spot; let me touch with my mouth the spot that thy lips have consecrated!"

She bent down and kissed the picture.

"And now come forth out of thy grave, my mother," said she, solemnly. "I have been obliged so long to hide, so long to veil thee! Now thou belongest to the world and to the light! The king has acknowledged me as his lawful daughter; he cannot refuse me to have a likeness of my mother in my room."

As she thus spoke, she pressed on a spring set in the broad gilt frame of the picture; and suddenly the painting was seen to move and slowly open like a door, so as to render visible another picture concealed beneath it, which represented the unfortunate Anne Boleyn in bridal attire, in the full splendor of her beauty, as Holbein had painted her, at the desire of her husband the king.

"How beautiful and angelic that countenance is!" said Catharine, stepping nearer. "How innocent and pure those features! Poor queen! Yet thine enemies succeeded in casting suspicion on thee and bringing thee to the scaffold. Oh, when I behold thee, I shudder; and my own future rises up before me like a threatening spectre! Who can believe herself safe and secure, when Anne Boleyn was not secure; when even she had to die a dishonorable death? Ah, do but believe me, Elizabeth, it is a melancholy lot to be Queen of England; and often indeed have I asked the morning whether I, as still Queen of England, shall greet the evening. But no—we will not talk of myself in this hour, but only of you, Elizabeth—of your future and of your fortune. May this document be acceptable to you, and realize all the wishes that slumber in your bosom!"

"One great wish of mine it has fulfilled already," said Elizabeth, still occupied with the picture. "It allows me to show my mother's likeness unveiled! That I could one day do so was her last prayer and last wish, which she intrusted to John Heywood for me. To him she committed this picture. He alone knew the secret of it, and he has faithfully preserved it."

"Oh, John Heywood is a trusty and true friend," said Catharine, heartily; "and it was he who assisted me in inclining the king to our plan and in persuading him to acknowledge you."

With an unutterable expression Elizabeth presented both hands to her. "I thank you for my honor, and the honor of my mother," said she; "I will love you for it as a daughter; and never shall your enemies find with me an open ear and a willing heart. Let us two conclude with each other a league offensive and defensive! Lot us keep true to each other; and the enemies of the one shall be the enemies of the other also. And where we see danger we will combat it in common; and we will watch over each other with a true sisterly eye, and warn one another whenever a chance flash brings to light an enemy who is stealing along in the darkness, and wants with his dagger to assassinate us from behind."

"So be it!" said Catharine, solemnly. "We will remain inseparable, and true to one another, and love each other as sisters!"

And as she imprinted a warm kiss on Elizabeth's lips, she continued: "But now, princess, direct your looks once more to that document, of which at first you read only the beginning. Do but believe me, it is important enough for you to read it quite to the end; for it contains various arrangements for your future, and settles on you a suite and a yearly allowance, as is suitable for a royal princess."

"Oh, what care I for these things?" cried Elizabeth, merrily. "That is my major-domo's concern, and he may attend to it."

"But there is yet another paragraph that will interest you more," said Catharine, with a slight smile; "for it is a full and complete reparation to my proud and ambitious Elizabeth. You recollect the answer which your father gave to the King of France when he solicited your hand for the dauphin?"

"Do I recollect it!" cried Elizabeth, her features quickly becoming gloomy. "King Henry said: 'Anne Boleyn's daughter is not worthy to accept the hand of a royal prince.'"

"Well, then, Elizabeth, that the reparation made to you may be complete, the king, while he grants you your lawful title and honor, has decreed that you are permitted to marry only a husband of equal birth; to give your hand only to a royal prince, if you would preserve your right of succeeding to the throne, Oh, certainly, there could be no more complete recantation of the affront once put upon you. And that he consented to do this, you owe to the eloquent intercession of a true and trusty friend; you have John Hey wood to thank for it."

"John Heywood!" cried Elizabeth, in a bitter tone.

"Oh, I thank you, queen, that it was not you who determined my father to this decision. John Heywood did it, and you call him my friend? You say that he is a true and devoted servant to us both? Beware of his fidelity, queen, and build not on his devotedness; for I tell you his soul is full of falsehood; and while he appears to bow before you in humbleness, his eyes are only searching for the place on your heel where he can strike you most surely and most mortally. Oh, he is a serpent, a venomous serpent; and he has just wounded me mortally and incurably. But no," continued she, energetically, "I will not submit to this fraud; I will not be the slave of this injurious law! I will be free to love and to hate as my heart demands; I will not be shackled, nor be compelled to renounce this man, whom I perhaps love, and to marry that one, whom I perhaps abhor."

With an expression of firm, energetic resolve, she took the roll of parchment and handed it back to Catharine. "Queen, take this parchment back again; return it to my father, and tell him that I thank him for his provident goodness, but will decline the brilliant lot which this act offers me. I love freedom so much, that even a royal crown cannot allure me when I am to receive it with my hands bound and my heart not free."

"Poor child!" sighed Catharine, "you know not, then, that the royal crown always binds us in fetters and compresses our heart in iron clamps? Ah, you want to be free, and yet a queen! Oh, believe me, Elizabeth, none are less free than sovereigns! No one has less the right and the power to live according to the dictates of his heart than a prince."

"Then," exclaimed Elizabeth, with flashing eyes, "then I renounce the melancholy fortune of being, perchance, one day queen. Then I do not subscribe to this law, which wants to guide my heart and limit my will. What! shall the daughter of King Henry of England allow her ways to be traced out by a miserable strip of parchment? and shall a sheet of paper be able to intrude itself between me and my heart? I am a royal princess; and why will they compel me to give my hand only to a king's son? Ay, you are right; it is not my father that has made this law, for my father's proud soul has never been willing to submit to any such constraint of miserable etiquette. He has loved where he pleased; and no Parliament—no law—has been able to hinder him in this respect. I will be my father's own daughter. I will not submit to this law!"

"Poor child!" said Catharine, "nevertheless you will be obliged to learn well how to submit; for one is not a princess without paying for it. No one asks whether our heart bleeds. They throw a purple robe over it, and though it be reddened with our heart's blood, who then sees and suspects it? You are yet so young, Elizabeth; you yet hope so much!"

"I hope so much, because I have already suffered so much—my eyes have been already made to shed so many tears. I have already in my childhood had to take before-hand my share of the pain and sorrow of life; now I will demand my share of life's pleasure and enjoyment also."

"And who tells you that you shall not have it? This love forces on you no particular husband; it but gives you the proud right, once disputed, of seeking your husband among the princes of royal blood."

"Oh," cried Elizabeth, with flashing eyes, "if I should ever really be a queen, I should be prouder to choose a husband whom I might make a king, than such a one as would make me a queen. [Footnote: Elizabeth's own words,—Leti, vol. ii, p. 62.] Oh, say yourself, Catharine, must it not be a high and noble pleasure to confer glory and greatness on one we love, to raise him in the omnipotence of our love high above all other men, and to lay our own greatness, our own glory, humbly at his feet, that he may be adorned therewith and make his own possession what is ours?"

"By Heaven, you are as proud and ambitious as a man!" said Catharine, smiling. "Your father's own daughter! So thought Henry when he gave his hand to Anne Boleyn; so thought he when he exalted me to be his queen. But it behooves him thus to think and act, for he is a man."

"He thought thus, because he loved—not because he was a man."

"And you, too, Elizabeth—do you, too, think thus because you love?"

"Yes, I love!" exclaimed Elizabeth, as with an impulsive movement she threw herself into Catharine's arms, and hid her blushing face in the queen's bosom. "Yes, I love! I love like my father—regardless of my rank, of my birth; but feeling only that my lover is of equally high birth in the nobility of his sentiment, in his genius and noble mind; that he is my superior in all the great and fine qualities which should adorn a man, and yet are conferred on so few. Judge now, queen, whether that law there can make me happy. He whom I love is no prince—no son of a king."

"Poor Elizabeth!" said Catharine, clasping the young girl fervently in her arms.

"And why do you bewail my fate, when it is in your power to make me happy?" asked Elizabeth, urgently.

"It was you who prevailed on the king to relieve me of the disgrace that rested on me; you will also have power over him to set aside this clause which contains my heart's sentence of condemnation."

Catharine shook her head with a sigh. "My power does not reach so far," said she, sadly. "Ah, Elizabeth, why did you not put confidence in me? Why did you not let me know sooner that your heart cherished a love which is in opposition to this law? Why did you not tell your friend your dangerous secret?"

"Just because it is dangerous I concealed it from you; and just on that account I do not even now mention the name of the loved one. Queen, you shall not through me become a guilty traitoress against your husband; for you well know that he punishes every secret concealed from him as an act of high treason. No, queen; if I am a criminal, you shall not he my accomplice. Ah, it is always dangerous to be the confidant of such a secret. You see that in John Heywood. He alone was my confidant, and he betrayed me. I myself put the weapons into his hands, and he turned them against me."

"No, no," said Catharine, thoughtfully; "John Heywood is true and trusty, and incapable of treachery."

"He has betrayed me!" exclaimed Elizabeth, impetuously. "He knew—he only—that I love, and that my beloved, though of noble, still is not of princely birth. Yet it was he, as you said yourself, who moved the king to introduce this paragraph into the act of succession."

"Then, without doubt, he has wished to save you from an error of your heart."

"No, he has been afraid of the danger of being privy to this secret, and at the cost of my heart and my happiness he wanted to escape this danger. But oh, Catharine, you are a noble, great and strong woman; you are incapable of such petty fear—such low calculation; therefore, stand by me; be my savior and protectress! By virtue of that oath which we have just now mutually taken—by virtue of that mutual clasp of the hands just given—I call you to my help and my assistance. Oh, Catharine, allow me this high pleasure, so full of blessing, of being at some time, perhaps, able to make him whom I love great and powerful by my will. Allow me this intoxicating delight of being able with my hand to offer to his ambition at once power and glory—it may be even a crown. Oh, Catharine, on my knees I conjure you—assist me to repeal this hated law, which wants to bind my heart and my hand!"

In passionate excitement she had fallen before the queen, and was holding up her hands imploringly to her.

Catharine, smiling, bent down and raised her up in her arms. "Enthusiast," said she, "poor young enthusiast! Who knows whether you will thank me for it one day, if I accede to your wish; and whether you will not some time curse this hour which has brought you, perhaps, instead of the hoped-for pleasure, only a knowledge of your delusion and misery?"

"And were it even so," cried Elizabeth, energetically, "still it is better to endure a wretchedness we ourselves have chosen, than to be forced to a happy lot. Say, Catharine—say, will you lend me your assistance? Will you induce the king to withdraw this hated clause? If you do it not, queen, I swear to you, by the soul of my mother, that I will not submit to this law; that I will solemnly, before all the world, renounce the privilege that is offered me; that I—"

"You are a dear, foolish child," interrupted Catharine—"a child, that in youthful presumption might dare wish to fetch the lightnings down from heaven, and borrow from Jupiter his thunderbolt. Oh, you are still too young and inexperienced to know that fate regards not our murmurs and our sighs, and, despite our reluctance and our refusal, still leads us in its own ways, not our own. You will have to learn that yet, poor child!"

"But I will not!" cried Elizabeth, stamping on the floor with all the pettishness of a child. "I will not ever and eternally be the victim of another's will; and fate itself shall not have power to make me its slave!"

"Well, we will see now," said Catharine, smiling. "We will try this time, at least, to contend against fate; and I will assist you if I can."

"And I will love you for it as my mother and my sister at once," cried Elizabeth, as with ardor she threw herself into Catharine's arms. "Yes, I will love you for it; and I will pray God that He may one day give me the opportunity to show my gratitude, and to reward you for your magnanimity and goodness."



CHAPTER XXVIII. INTRIGUES.

For a few days past the king's gout had grown worse, and, to his wrath and grief, it confined him as a prisoner to his rolling chair.

The king was, therefore, very naturally gloomy and dejected, and hurled the lightnings of his wrath on all those who enjoyed the melancholy prerogative of being in his presence. His pains, instead of softening his disposition, seemed only to heighten still more his natural ferocity; and often might be heard through the palace of Whitehall the king's angry growl, and his loud, thundering invectives, which no longer spared any one, nor showed respect for any rank or dignity.

Earl Douglas, Gardiner, and Wriothesley very well knew how to take advantage of this wrathful humor of the king for their purposes, and to afford the cruel monarch, tortured with pain, one satisfaction at least—the satisfaction of making others suffer also.

Never had there been seen in England so many burnt at the stake as in those days of the king's sickness; never had the prisons been so crowded; never had so much blood flowed as King Henry now caused to be shed. [Footnote: During the king's reign, and at the instigation of the clergy, twenty-eight hundred persons were burnt and executed, because they would not recognize the religious institutions established by the king as the only right and true ones.—Leti, vol. i, p. 34.] But all this did not yet suffice to appease the blood-thirstiness of the king, and his friends and counsellors, and his priests.

Still there remained untouched two mighty pillars of Protestantism that Gardiner and Wriothesley had to overthrow. These were the queen and Archbishop Cranmer.

Still there were two powerful and hated enemies whom the Seymours had to overcome; these were the Duke of Norfolk and his son, the Earl of Surrey.

But the various parties that in turn besieged the king's ear and controlled it, were in singular and unheard-of opposition, and at the same time inflamed with bitterest enmity, and they strove to supplant each other in the favor of the king.

To the popish party of Gardiner and Earl Douglas, everything depended on dispossessing the Seymours of the king's favor; and they, on the other hand, wanted above all things to continue in power the young queen, already inclined to them, and to destroy for the papists one of their most powerful leaders, the Duke of Norfolk.

The one party controlled the king's ear through the queen; the other, through his favorite, Earl Douglas.

Never had the king been more gracious and affable to his consort—never had he required more Earl Douglas's presence than in those days of his sickness and bodily anguish.

But there was yet a third party that occupied an important place in the king's favor—a power which every one feared, and which seemed to keep itself perfectly independent and free from all foreign influences. This power was John Heywood, the king's fool, the epigrammatist, who was dreaded by the whole court.

Only one person had influence with him. John Heywood was the friend of the queen. For the moment, then, it appeared as if the "heretical party," of which the queen was regarded as the head, was the most powerful at court.

It was therefore very natural for the popish party to cherish an ardent hatred against the queen; very natural for them to be contriving new plots and machinations to ruin her and hurl her from the throne.

But Catharine knew very well the danger that threatened her, and she was on her guard. She watched her every look, her every word; and Gardiner and Douglas could not examine the queen's manner of life each day and hour more suspiciously than she herself did.

She saw the sword that hung daily over her head; and, thanks to her prudence and presence of mind, thanks to the ever-thoughtful watchfulness and cunning of her friend Heywood! she had still known how to avoid the falling of that sword.

Since that fatal ride in the wood of Epping Forest, she had not again spoken to Thomas Seymour alone; for Catharine very well knew that everywhere, whithersoever she turned her steps, some spying eye might follow her, some listener's ear might be concealed, which might hear her words, however softly whispered, and repeat them where they might be interpreted into a sentence of death against her.

She had, therefore, renounced the pleasure of speaking to her lover otherwise than before witnesses, and of seeing him otherwise than in the presence of her whole court.

What need had she either for secret meetings? What mattered it to her pure and innocent heart that she was not permitted to be alone with him? Still she might see him, and drink courage and delight from the sight of his haughty and handsome face; still she might be near him, and could listen to the music of his voice, and intoxicate her heart with his fine, euphonious and vigorous discourse.

Catharine, the woman of eight-and-twenty, had preserved the enthusiasm and innocence of a young girl of fourteen. Thomas Seymour was her first love; and she loved him with that purity and guileless warmth which is indeed peculiar to the first love only.

It sufficed her, therefore, to see him; to be near him; to know that he loved her; that he was true to her; that all his thoughts and wishes belonged to her, as hers to him.

And that she knew. For there ever remained to her the sweet enjoyment of his letters—of those passionately written avowals of his love. If she was not permitted to say also to him how warmly and ardently she returned this love, yet she could write it to him.

It was John Heywood, the true and discreet friend, that brought her these letters, and bore her answers to him, stipulating, as a reward for this dangerous commission, that they both should regard him as the sole confidant of their love; that both should burn up the letters which he brought them. He had not been able to hinder Catharine from this unhappy passion, but wanted at least to preserve her from the fatal consequences of it. Since he knew that this love needed a confidant, he assumed this role, that Catharine, in the vehemence of her passion and in the simplicity of her innocent heart, might not make others sharers of her dangerous secret.

John Heywood therefore watched over Catharine's safety and happiness, as she watched over Thomas Seymour and her friends. He protected and guarded her with the king, as she guarded Cranmer, and protected him from the constantly renewed assaults of his enemies.

This it was that they could never forgive the queen—that she had delivered Cranmer, the noble and liberal-minded Archbishop of Canterbury, from their snares. More than once Catharine had succeeded in destroying their intriguing schemes, and in rending the nets that Gardiner and Earl Douglas, with so sly and skilful a hand, had spread for Cranmer.

If, therefore, they would overthrow Cranmer, they must first overthrow the queen. For this there was a real means—a means of destroying at once the queen and the hated Seymours, who stood in the way of the papists.

If they could prove to the king that Catharine entertained criminal intercourse with Thomas Seymour, then were they both lost; then were the power and glory of the papists secured.

But whence to fetch the proofs of this dangerous secret, which the crafty Douglas had read only in Catharine's eyes, and for which he had no other support than his bare conviction? How should they begin to influence the queen to some inconsiderate step, to a speaking witness of her love?

Time hung so heavily on the king's hands! It would have been so easy to persuade him to some cruel deed—to a hasty sentence of death!

But it was not the blood of the Seymours for which the king thirsted. Earl Douglas very well knew that. He who observed the king day and night—he who examined and sounded his every sigh, each of his softly murmured words, every twitch of his mouth, every wrinkle of his brow—he well knew what dark and bloody thoughts stirred the king's soul, and whose blood it was for which he thirsted.

The royal tiger would drink the blood of the Howards; and that they still lived in health, and abundance, and glory, while he, their king and master, lonely and sad, was tossing on his couch in pain and agony—that was the worm which gnawed at the king's heart, which made his pains yet more painful, his tortures yet keener.

The king was jealous—jealous of the power and greatness of the Howards. It filled him with gloomy hatred to think that the Duke of Norfolk, when he rode through the streets of London, was everywhere received with the acclamations and rejoicing of the people, while he, the king, was a prisoner in his palace. It was a gnawing pain for him to know that Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, was praised as the handsomest and greatest man of England; that he was called the noblest poet; the greatest scholar; while yet he, the king, had also composed his poems and written his learned treatises, aye, even a particular devout book, which he had printed for his people, and ordered them to read instead of the Bible. [Footnote: Burnet, vol. i, p. 95.]

It was the Howards who everywhere disputed his fame. The Howards supplanted him in the favor of his people, and usurped the love and admiration which were due to the king alone, and which should be directed toward no one but him. He lay on his bed of pain, and without doubt the people would have forgotten him, if he had not by the block, the stake, and the scaffold, daily reminded them of himself. He lay on his bed of pain, while the duke, splendid and magnificent, exhibited himself to the people and transported them with enthusiasm by the lavish and kingly generosity with which he scattered his money among the populace.

Yes, the Duke of Norfolk was the king's dangerous rival. The crown was not secure upon his head so long as the Howards lived. And who could conjecture whether in time to come, when Henry closed his eyes, the exultant love of the people might not call to the throne the Duke of Norfolk, or his noble son, the Earl of Surrey, instead of the rightful heir—instead of the little boy Edward, Henry's only son?

When the king thought of that, he had a feeling as though a stream of fire were whirling up to his brain; and he convulsively clenched his hands, and screamed and roared that he would take vengeance—vengeance on those hated Howards, who wanted to snatch the crown from his son.

Edward, the little boy of tender age—he alone was the divinely consecrated, legitimate heir to the king's crown. It had cost his father so great a sacrifice to give his people this son and successor! In order to do it, he had sacrificed Jane Seymour, his own beloved wife; he had let the mother be put to death, in order to preserve the son, the heir of his crown.

And the people did not once thank the king for this sacrifice that Jane Seymour's husband had made for them. The people received with shouts the Duke of Norfolk, the father of that adulterous queen whom Henry loved so much that her infidelity had struck him like the stab of a poisoned dagger.

These were the thoughts that occupied the king on his bed of pain, and upon which he dwelt with all the wilfulness and moodiness of a sick man.

"We shall have to sacrifice these Howards to him!" said Earl Douglas to Gardiner, as they had just again listened to a burst of rage from their royal master. "If we would at last succeed in ruining the queen, we must first destroy the Howards."

The pious bishop looked at him inquiringly, and in astonishment.

Earl Douglas smiled. "Your highness is too exalted and noble to be always able to comprehend the things of this world. Your look, which seeks only God and heaven, does not always see the petty and pitiful things that happen here on the earth below."

"Oh, but," said Gardiner, with a cruel smile, "I see them, and it charms my eye when I see how God's vengeance punishes the enemies of the Church here on earth. Set up then, by all means, a stake or a scaffold for these Howards, if their death can be to us a means to our pious and godly end. You are certain of my blessing and my assistance. Only I do not quite comprehend how the Howards can stand in the way of our plots which are formed against the queen, inasmuch as they are numbered among the queen's enemies, and profess themselves of the Church in which alone is salvation."

"The Earl of Surrey is an apostate, who has opened his ear and heart to the doctrines of Calvin!"

"Then let his head fall, for he is a criminal before God, and no one ought to have compassion on him! And what is there that we lay to the charge of the father?"

"The Duke of Norfolk is well-nigh yet more dangerous than his son; for although a Catholic, he has not nevertheless the right faith; and his soul is full of unholy sympathy and injurious mildness. He bewails those whose blood is shed because they were devoted to the false doctrine of the priests of Baal; and-he calls us both the king's blood-hounds."

"Well, then," cried Gardiner with an uneasy, dismal smile, "we will show him that he has called us by the right name; we will rend him in pieces!"

"Besides, as we have said, the Howards stand in the way of our schemes in relation to the queen," said Earl Douglas, earnestly. "The king's mind is so completely filled with this one hatred and this one jealousy, that there is no room in it for any other feeling, for any other hate. It is true he signs often enough these death-warrants which we lay before him; but he does it, as the lion, with utter carelessness and without anger, crushes the little mouse that is by chance under his paws. But if the lion is to rend in pieces his equal, he must beforehand be put into a rage. When he is raging, then you must let him have his prey. The Howards shall be his first prey. But, then, we must exert ourselves, that when the lion again shakes his mane his wrath may fall upon Catharine Parr and the Seymours."

"The Lord our God will be with us, and enlighten us, that we may find the right means to strike His enemies a sure blow!" exclaimed Gardiner, devoutly folding his hands.

"I believe the right means are already found," said Earl Douglas, with a smile; "and even before this day descends to its close, the gates of the Tower will open to receive this haughty and soft-hearted Duke of Norfolk and this apostate Earl Surrey. Perchance we may even succeed in striking at one blow the queen together with the Howards. See! an equipage stops before the grand entrance, and I see the Duchess of Norfolk and her daughter, the Duchess of Richmond, getting out of the carriage. Only see! they are making signs to us. I have promised to conduct these two noble and pious ladies to the king, and I shall do so. Whilst we are there, pray for us, your highness, that our words, like well-aimed arrows, may strike the king's heart, and then rebound upon the queen and the Seymours!"



CHAPTER XXIX. THE ACCUSATION.

In vain had the king hoped to master his pains, or at least to forget them, while he tried to sleep. Sleep had fled from the king's couch; and as he now sat in his rolling-chair, sad, weary, and harassed with pain, he thought, with gloomy spite, that the Duke of Norfolk told him but yesterday that sleep was a thing under his control, and he could summon it to him whenever it seemed good to him. This thought made him raving with anger; and grinding his teeth, he muttered: "He can sleep; and I, his lord and king—I am a beggar that in vain whines to God above for a little sleep, a little forgetfulness of his pains! But it is this traitorous Norfolk that prevents me from sleeping. Thoughts of him keep me awake and restless. And I cannot crush this traitor with these hands of mine; I am a king, and yet so powerless and weak, that I can find no means of accusing this traitor, and convicting him of his sinful and blasphemous deeds. Oh, where may I find him—that true friend, that devoted servant, who ventures to understand my unuttered thoughts, and fulfil the wishes to which I dare not give a name?"

Just as he was thus thinking, the door behind him opened and in walked Earl Douglas. His countenance was proud and triumphant, and so wild a joy gleamed from his eyes that even the king was surprised at it.

"Oh," said he, peevishly, "you call yourself my friend; and you are cheerful, Douglas, while your king is a poor prisoner whom the gout has chained with brazen bands to this chair."

"You will recover, my king, and go forth from this imprisonment as the conqueror, dazzling and bright, that by his appearance under God's blessing treads all his enemies in the dust—that triumphs over all those who are against him, and would betray their king!"

"Are there, then, any such traitors, who threaten their king?" asked Henry, with a dark frown.

"Ay, there are such traitors!"

"Name them to me!" said the king, trembling with passionate impatience. "Name them to me, that my arm may crush them and my avenging justice overtake the heads of the guilty."

"It is superfluous to mention them, for you, King Henry, the wise and all-knowing—you know their names."

And bending down closer to the king's ear, Earl Douglas continued: "King Henry, I certainly have a right to call myself your most faithful and devoted servant, for I have read your thoughts. I have understood the noble grief that disturbs your heart, and banishes sleep from your eyes and peace from your soul. You saw the foe that was creeping in the dark; you heard the low hiss of the serpent that was darting his venomous sting at your heel. But you were so much the noble and intrepid king, that you would not yourself become the accuser—nay, you would not once draw back the foot menaced by the serpent. Great and merciful, like God Himself, you smiled upon him whom you knew to be your enemy. But I, my king—I have other duties. I am like the faithful dog, that has eyes only for the safety of his master, and falls upon every one that comes to menace him. I have seen the serpent that would kill you, and I will bruise his head!"

"And what is the name of this serpent of which you speak?" asked the king; and his heart beat so boisterously that he felt it on his trembling lips.

"It is called," said Earl Douglas, earnestly and solemnly—"it is called Howard!"

The king uttered a cry, and, forgetting his gout and his pains, arose from his chair.

"Howard!" said he, with a cruel smile. "Say you that a Howard threatens our life? Which one is it? Name me the traitor!"

"I name them both—father and son! I name the Duke of Norfolk and the Earl of Surrey! I say that they both are traitors, who threaten the life and honor of my king, and with blasphemous arrogance dare stretch out their hands even to the crown!"

"Ah, I knew it, I knew it!" screamed the king. "And it was this that made me sleepless, and ate into my body like red-hot iron."

And as he fastened on Douglas his eyes flashing with rage, he asked, with a grim smile: "Can you prove that these Howards are traitors? Can you prove that they aim at my crown?"

"I hope to be able to do so," said Douglas. "To be sure, there are no great convincing facts—"

"Oh," said the king, interrupting him with a savage laugh, "there is no need of great facts. Give into my hand but a little thread, and I will make out of it a cord strong enough to haul the father and son up to the gallows at one time."

"Oh, for the son there is proof enough," said the earl, with a smile: "and as regards the father, I will produce your majesty some accusers against him, who will be important enough to bring the duke also to the block. Will you allow me to bring them to you immediately?"

"Yes, bring them, bring them!" cried the king. "Every minute is precious that may lead these traitors sooner to their punishment."

Earl Douglas stepped to the door and opened it. Three veiled female figures entered and bowed reverentially.

"Ah," whispered the king, with a cruel smile, as he sank back again into his chair, "they are the three Fates that spin the Howards' thread of life, and will now, it is to be hoped, break it off. I will furnish them with the scissors for it; and if they are not sharp enough, I will, with my own royal hands, help them to break the thread."

"Sire," said Earl Douglas, as, at a sign from him, the three women unveiled themselves—"sire, the wife, the daughter, and the mistress of the Duke of Norfolk have come to accuse him of high treason. The mother and the sister of the Earl of Surrey are here to charge him with a crime equally worthy of death."

"Now verily," exclaimed the king, "it must be a grievous and blasphemous sin which so much exasperates the temper of these noble women, and makes them deaf to the voice of nature!"

"It is indeed such a sin," said the Duchess of Norfolk, in a solemn tone; and, approaching a few paces nearer to the king, she continued: "Sire, I accuse the duke, my divorced husband, of high treason and disloyalty to his king. He has been so bold as to appropriate your own royal coat-of-arms; and on his seal and equipage, and over the entrance of his palace, are displayed the arms of the kings of England."

"That is true," said the king, who, now that he was certain of the destruction of the Howards, had regained his calmness and self-possession, and perfectly reassumed the air of a strict, impartial judge. "Yes, he bears the royal arms on his shield, but yet, if we remember rightly, the crown and paraph of our ancestor Edward the Third are wanting."

"He has now added this crown and this paraph to his coat-of-arms," said Miss Holland. "He says he is entitled to them; for that, like the king, he also is descended in direct line from Edward the Third; and, therefore, the royal arms belong likewise to him."

"If he says that, he is a traitor who presumes to call his king and master his equal," cried the king, coloring up with a grim joy at now at length having his enemy in his power.

"He is indeed a traitor," continued Miss Holland. "Often have I heard him say he had the same right to the throne of England as Henry the Eighth; and that a day might come when he would contend with Henry's son for that crown."

"Ah," cried the king, and his eyes darted flashes so fierce that even Earl Douglas shrank before them, "ah, he will contend with my son for the crown of England! It is well, now; for now it is my sacred duty, as a king and as a father, to crush this serpent that wants to bite me on the heel; and no compassion and no pity ought now to restrain me longer. And were there no other proofs of his guilt and his crime than these words that he has spoken to you, yet are they sufficient, and will rise up against him, like the hangman's aids who are to conduct him to the block."

"But there are yet other proofs," said Miss Holland, laconically.

The king was obliged to unbutton his doublet. It seemed as though joy would suffocate him.

"Name them!" commanded he.

"He dares deny the king's supremacy; he calls the Bishop of Rome the sole head and holy Father of the Church."

"Ah, does he so?" exclaimed the king, laughing. "Well, we shall see now whether this holy Father will save this faithful son from the scaffold which we will erect for him. Yes, yes, we must give the world a new example of our incorruptible justice, which overtakes every one, however high and mighty he may be, and however near our throne he may stand. Really, really, it grieves our heart to lay low this oak which we had planted so near our throne, that we might lean upon it and support ourselves by it; but justice demands this sacrifice, and we will make it—not in wrath and spite, but only to meet the sacred and painful duty of our royalty. We have greatly loved this duke, and it grieves us to tear this love from our heart."

And with his hand, glittering with jewels, the king wiped from his eyes the tears which were not there.

"But how?" asked the king, then, after a pause, "will you have the courage to repeat your accusation publicly before Parliament? Will you, his wife, and you, his mistress, publicly swear with a sacred oath to the truth of your declaration?"

"I will do so," said the duchess, solemnly, "for he is no longer my husband, no longer the father of my children, but simply the enemy of my king; and to serve him is my most sacred duty."

"I will do so," cried Miss Holland, with a bewitching smile; "for he is no longer my lover, but only a traitor, an atheist, who is audacious enough to recognize as the holy head of Christendom that man at Rome who has dared to hurl his curse against the sublime head of our king. It is this, indeed, that has torn my heart from the duke, and that has made me now hate him as ardently as I once loved him."

With a gracious smile, the king presented both his hands to the two women. "You have done me a great service to-day, my ladies," said he, "and I will find a way to reward you for it. I will give you, duchess, the half of his estate, as though you were his rightful heir and lawful widow. And you, Miss Holland, I will leave in undisputed possession of all the goods and treasures that the enamored duke has given you."

The two ladies broke out into loud expressions of thanks and into enthusiastic rapture over the liberal and generous king, who was so gracious as to give them what they already had, and to bestow on them what was already their own property.

"Well, and are you wholly mute, my little duchess," asked the king after a pause, turning to the Duchess of Richmond, who had withdrawn to the embrasure of a window.

"Sire," said the duchess, smiling, "I was only waiting for my cue."

"And this cue is—"

"Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey! As your majesty knows, I am a merry and harmless woman; and I understand better how to laugh and joke than to talk much seriously. The two noble and fair ladies have accused the duke, my father; and they have done so in a very dignified and solemn manner. I wish to accuse my brother, Henry Howard; but you must exercise forbearance, if my words sound less solemn and elevated. They have told you, sire, that the Duke of Norfolk is a traitor and a criminal who denominates the Pope of Rome, and not you, my exalted king, the head of the Church. Now, the Earl of Surrey is neither a traitor nor a papist; and he has neither devised criminal plots against the throne of England, nor has he denied the supremacy of the king. No, sire, the Earl of Surrey is no traitor and no papist!"

The duchess paused, and looked with a malicious and droll smile into the astonished faces of those present.

A dark frown gathered on the king's brow, and his eyes, which just before had looked so cheerful, were now fixed with an angry expression on the young duchess.

"Why, then, my lady, have you made your appearance here?" asked he. "Why have you come here, if you have nothing further to say than what I already know—that the Earl of Surrey is a very loyal subject, and a man without any ambition, who neither courts the favor of my people nor thinks of laying his traitorous hands on my crown?"

The young duchess shook her head with a smile. "I know not whether he does all that," said she. "I have indeed heard that he said, with bitter scorn, that you, my king, wanted to be the protector of religion, yet you yourself were entirely without religion and without belief. Also, he of late broke out into bitter curses against you, because you had robbed him of his field-marshal's staff, and given it to Earl Hertford, that noble Seymour. Also, he meant to see whether the throne of England were so firm and steady that it had no need of his hand and his arm to prop it. All that I have of course heard from him; but you are right, sire, it is unimportant—it is not worth mentioning, and therefore I do not even make it as an accusation against him."

"Ah, you are always a mad little witch, Rosabella!" cried the king, who had regained his cheerfulness. "You say you will not accuse him, and yet you make his head a plaything that you poise upon your crimson lips. But take care, my little duchess—take care, that this head does not fall from your lips with your laughing, and roll down to the ground; for I will not stop it—this head of the Earl of Surrey, of whom you say that he is no traitor."

"But is it not monotonous and tiresome, if we accuse the father and son of the same crime?" asked the duchess, laughing. "Let us have a little variation. Let the duke be a traitor; the son, my king, is by far a worse criminal!"