"Saved!" whispered she. "The danger is overcome, and again you are the mighty queen, the adored wife!"

"And I have you to thank that I am so, princess! Without that warrant of arrest which you brought me, I was lost. Oh, Elizabeth, but what a martyrdom it was! To smile and jest, whilst my heart trembled with dread and horror; to appear innocent and unembarrassed, whilst it seemed to me as if I heard already the whiz of the axe that was about to strike my neck! Oh, my God, I passed through the agonies and the dread of a whole lifetime in that one hour! My soul has been harassed till it is wearied to death, and my strength is exhausted. I could weep, weep continually over this wretched, deceitful world, in which to wish right and to do good avail nothing; but in which you must dissemble and lie, deceive and disguise yourself, if you do not want to fall a victim to wickedness and mischief. But ah, Elizabeth, even my tears I dare shed only in secret, for a queen has no right to be melancholy. She must seem ever cheerful, ever happy and contented; and only God and the still, silent night know her sighs and her tears."

"And you may let me also see them, queen," said Elizabeth, heartily; "for you well know you may trust and rely on me."

Catharine kissed her fervently. "You have done me a great service to-day, and I have come," said she, "to thank you, not with sounding words only, but by deeds. Elizabeth, your wish will be fulfilled. The king will repeal the law which was to compel you to give your hand only to a husband of equal birth."

"Oh," cried Elizabeth, with flashing eyes, "then I shall, perhaps, some day be able to make him whom I love a king." Catharine smiled. "You have a proud and ambitious heart," said she. "God has endowed you with extraordinary ability. Cultivate it and seek to increase it; for my prophetic heart tells me that you are destined to become, one day, Queen of England. [Footnote: Catharine's own words.—See Leti, vol. I, p. 172.] But who knows whether then you will still wish to elevate him whom you now love, to be your husband? A queen, as you will be, sees with other eyes than those of a young, inexperienced maiden. Perchance I may not have done right in moving the king to alter this law; for I am not acquainted with the man that you love; and who knows whether he is worthy that you should bestow on him your heart, so innocent and pure?"

Elizabeth threw both her arms about Catharine's neck, and clung tenderly to her. "Oh," said she, "he would be worthy to be loved even by you, Catharine; for he is the noblest and handsomest cavalier in the whole world; and though he is no king, yet he is a king's brother-in-law, and will some day be a king's uncle."

Catharine felt her heart, as it were, convulsed, and a slight tremor ran through her frame. "And am I not to learn his name?" asked she.

"Yes, I will tell you it now; for now there is no longer danger in knowing it. The name of him whom I love, queen, is Thomas Seymour."

Catharine uttered a scream, and pushed Elizabeth passionately away from her heart. "Thomas Seymour?" cried she, in a menacing tone. "What! do you dare love Thomas Seymour?"

"And why should I not dare?" asked the young girl in astonishment. "Why should I not give him my heart, since, thanks to your intercession, I am no longer bound to choose a husband of equal birth? Is not Thomas Seymour one of the first of this land? Does not all England look on him with pride and tenderness? Does not every woman to whom he deigns a look, feel herself honored? Does not the king himself smile and feel more pleased at heart, when Thomas Seymour, that young, bold, and spirited hero, stands by his side?"

"You are right!" said Catharine, whose heart every one of these enthusiastic words, lacerated like the stab of a dagger—"yes, you are right. He is worthy of being loved by you—and you could hit upon no better choice. It was only the first surprise that made me see things otherwise than they are. Thomas Seymour is the brother of a queen: why then should he not also be the husband of a royal princess?"

With a bashful blush, Elizabeth hid her smiling face in Catharine's bosom. She did not see with what an expression of alarm and agony the queen observed her; how her lips were convulsively compressed, and her cheeks covered with a death-like pallor.

"And he?" asked she, in a low tone. "Does Thomas Seymour love you?"

Elizabeth raised her head and looked at the questioner in amazement "How!" said she. "Is it possible, then, to love, if you are not loved?"

"You are right," sighed Catharine. "One must be very humble and silly to be able to do that."

"My God! how pale you are, queen!" cried Elizabeth, who just now noticed Catharine's pale face. "Your features are distorted; your lips tremble. My God! what does this mean?"

"It is nothing!" said Catharine, with a smile full of agony. "The excitement and alarm of to-day have exhausted my strength. That is all. Besides, a new grief threatens us, of which you as yet know nothing. The king is ill. A sudden dizziness seized him, and made him fall almost lifeless at my side. I came to bring you the king's message; now duty calls me to my husband's sickbed. Farewell, Elizabeth."

She waved a good-by to her with her hand, and with hurried step left the room. She summoned up courage to conceal the agonies of her soul, and to pass proud and stately through the halls. To the courtiers bowing before her, she would still be the queen, and no one should suspect what agony was torturing her within like flames of fire. But at last arrived at her boudoir—at last sure of being overheard and observed by no one—she was no longer the queen, but only the agonized, passionate woman.

She sank on her knees, and cried, with a heart-rending wail of anguish: "My God, my God, grant that I may become mad, so that I may no longer know that he has forsaken me!"



CHAPTER XXXVI. THE CATASTROPHE.

After days of secret torture and hidden tears, after nights of sobbing anguish and wailing sorrow, Catharine had at last attained to inward peace; she had at last taken a firm and decisive resolution.

The king was sick unto death; and however much she had suffered and endured from him, still he was her husband; and she would not stand by his deathbed as a perjured and deceitful woman; she would not be constrained to cast down her eyes before the failing gaze of the dying king. She would renounce her love—that love, which, however, had been as pure and chaste as a maiden's prayer—that love, which was as unapproachably distant as the blush of morn, and yet had stood above her so vast and brilliant, and had irradiated the gloomy pathway of her life with celestial light.

She would make the greatest of sacrifices; she would give her lover to another. Elizabeth loved him. Catharine would not investigate and thoroughly examine the point, whether Thomas Seymour returned her love, and whether the oath he had taken to her, the queen, was really nothing more than a fancy of the brain, or a falsehood. No, she did not believe it; she did not believe that Thomas Seymour was capable of treachery, of double-dealing. But Elizabeth loved him; and she was young and beautiful, and a great future lay before her. Catharine loved Thomas Seymour strongly enough not to want to deprive him of this future, but gladly to present herself a sacrifice to the happiness of her lover. What was she—the woman matured in grief and suffering—in comparison with this youthful and fresh blossom, Elizabeth? What had she to offer her beloved further than a life of retirement, of love, and of quiet happiness? When once the king is dead and sets her free, Edward the Sixth ascends the throne; and Catharine then is nothing more than the forgotten and disregarded widow of a king; while Elizabeth, the king's sister, may perhaps bring a crown as her dower to him whom she loves.

Thomas Seymour was ambitious. Catharine knew that. A day might come when he would repent of having chosen the widow of a king instead of the heiress to a throne.

Catharine would anticipate that day. She would of her own free-will resign her lover to Princess Elizabeth. She had by a struggle brought her mind to this sacrifice; she had pressed her hands firmly on her heart, so as not to hear how it wailed and wept.

She went to Elizabeth, and said to her with a sweet smile: "To-day I will bring your lover to you, princess. The king has fulfilled his promise. He has to-day with his last dying strength signed this act, which gives you liberty to choose your husband, not from the ranks of princes alone, but to follow your own heart in your choice. I will give this act to your lover, and assure him of my assistance and aid. The king is suffering very much to-day, and his consciousness fails more and more. But be certain, if he is in a condition to hear me, I will spend all my powers of persuasion in inclining him to your wish, and in moving him to give his consent to your marriage with Earl Sudley. I now go to receive the earl. So tarry in your room, princess, for Seymour will soon come to bring you the act."

Whilst she thus spoke, it seemed to her as though her heart were pierced by red-hot daggers; as though a two-edged sword were cleaving her breast. But Catharine had a strong and courageous soul. She had sworn to herself to endure this torture to the end; and she endured it. No writhing of her lips, no sigh, no outcry, betrayed the pain that she was suffering. And if, indeed, her cheeks were pale, and her eye dim, they were so because she had spent nights watching by her husband's sick-bed, and because she was mourning for the dying king.

She had the heroism to embrace tenderly this young maiden to whom she was just going to present her love as a sacrifice, and to listen with a smile to the enthusiastic words of gratitude, of rapture and expectant happiness which Elizabeth addressed to her.

With tearless eyes and firm step she returned to her own apartments; and her voice did not at all tremble, as she bade the chamberlain in attendance to summon to her the master of horse, Earl Sudley. Only she had a feeling as though her heart was broken and crushed; and quite softly, quite humbly, she whispered: "I shall die when he is gone. But so long as he is here, I will live; and he shall not have a suspicion of what I suffer!"

And while Catharine suffered so dreadfully, Elizabeth was jubilant with delight and rapture; for at last she stood at the goal of her wishes, and this very day she was to become the betrothed of her lover. Oh, how slow and sluggish crept those minutes along! How many eternities had she still to wait before he would come—he, her lover, and soon her husband! Was he already with the queen? Could she expect him already? She stood as if spellbound at the window, and looked down into the courtyard. Through that great gateway over there he must come; through that door yonder he must go, in order to reach the queen's apartments.

She uttered an exclamation, and a glowing blush flitted across her face. There, there, he was. Yonder drew up his equipage; his gold-laced lackeys opened the door and he alighted. How handsome he was, and how magnificent to look upon! How noble and proud his tall figure! How regularly beautiful his fresh, youthful face! How saucy the haughty smile about his mouth; and how his eyes flamed and flashed and shone in wantonness and youthful happiness. His look glanced for a moment at Elizabeth's window. He saluted her, and then entered the door leading to the wing of the palace of Whitehall occupied by the queen. Elizabeth's heart beat so violently that she felt almost suffocated. Now he must have reached the great staircase—now he was above it—now he was entering the queen's apartments—he traverses the first, the second, the third chamber. In the fourth Catharine was waiting for him.

Elizabeth would have given a year of her life to hear what Catharine would say to him, and what reply he would make to the surprising intelligence—a year of her life to be able to see his rapture, his astonishment, and his delight. He was so handsome when he smiled, so bewitching when his eyes blazed with love and pleasure.

Elizabeth was a young, impulsive child. She had a feeling as if she must suffocate in the agony of expectation; her heart leaped into her mouth; her breath was stifled in her breast, she was so impatient for happiness.

"Oh, if he does not come soon I shall die!" murmured she. "Oh, if I could only at least see him, or only hear him!" All at once she stopped; her eyes flashed up, and a bewitching smile flitted across her features. "Yes," said she, "I will see him, and I will hear him. I can do it, and I will do it. I have the key which the queen gave me, and which opens the door that separates my rooms from hers. With that key I may reach her bed-chamber, and next to the bed-chamber is her boudoir, in which, without doubt, she will receive the earl. I will enter quite softly, and, hiding myself behind the hanging which separates the bed-chamber from the boudoir, I shall be able to see him, and hear everything that he says!"

She laughed out loud and merrily, like a child, and sprang for the key, which lay on her writing-table. Like a trophy of victory she swung it high above her on her hand and cried, "I will see him!" Then light, joyful, and with beaming eye, she left the room.

She had conjectured rightly. Catharine received the earl in her boudoir. She sat on the divan standing opposite the door which led into the reception-room. That door was open, and so Catharine had a perfect view of the whole of that large space. She could see the earl as he traversed it. She could once more enjoy, with a rapture painfully sweet, his proud beauty, and let her looks rest on him with love and adoration. But at length he crossed the threshold of the boudoir; and now there was an end of her happiness, of her sweet dream, and of her hopes and her rapture. She was nothing more than the queen, the wife of a dying king; no longer Earl Seymour's beloved, no longer his future and his happiness.

She had courage to greet him with a smile; and her voice did not tremble when she bade him shut the door leading into the hall, and drop the hanging. He did so, gazing at her with looks of surprise. He did not comprehend that she dared give him an interview; for the king was still alive, and even with his tongue faltering in death he might destroy them both.

Why did she not wait till the morrow? On the morrow the king might be already dead; and then they could see each other without constraint and without danger. Then was she his, and naught could longer stand in the way between them and happiness. Now, when the king was near his death—now he loved her only—he loved but Catharine. His ambition had decided his heart. Death had become the judge over Seymour's double affection and divided heart, and with King Henry's death Elizabeth's star had also paled.

Catharine was the widow of a king; and without doubt this tender husband had appointed his young and adored wife Regent during the minority of the Prince of Wales. Catharine then would have still five years of unlimited sway, of royal authority and sovereign power. If Catharine were his wife, then would he, Thomas Seymour, share this power; and the purple robes of royalty, which rested on her shoulders, would cover him also; and he would help her bear that crown which doubtless might sometimes press heavily on her tender brow. He would, in reality, be the regent, and Catharine would be so only in name. She, the Queen of England, and he, king of this queen. What a proud, intoxicating thought was that! And what plans, what hopes might not be twined with it! Five years of sway—was not that a time long enough to undermine the throne of the royal boy and to sap his authority? Who could conjecture whether the people, once accustomed to the regency of the queen, might not prefer to remain under her sceptre, instead of committing themselves to this feeble youth? The people must be constrained so to think, and to make Catharine, Thomas Seymour's wife, their reigning queen.

The king was sick unto death, and Catharine was, without doubt, the regent—perchance some day the sovereign queen.

Princess Elizabeth was only a poor princess, entirely without a prospect of the throne; for before her came Catharine, came Edward, and finally Mary, Elizabeth's eldest sister. Elizabeth had not the least prospect of the throne, and Catharine the nearest and best founded.

Thomas Seymour pondered this as he traversed the apartments of the queen; and when he entered her presence, he had convinced himself that he loved the queen only, and that it was she alone whom he had always loved. Elizabeth was forgotten and despised. She had no prospect of the throne—why, then, should he love her?

The queen, as we have said, ordered him to shut the door of the boudoir and to drop the hanging. At the same moment that he did this, the hanging of the opposite door, leading into the sleeping apartment, moved—perhaps only the draught of the closing door had done it. Neither the queen nor Seymour noticed it. They were both too much occupied with themselves. They saw not how the hanging again and again gently shook and trembled. They saw not how it was gently opened a little in the middle; nor did they see the sparkling eyes which suddenly peeped through the opening in the hanging; nor suspected they that it was the Princess Elizabeth who had stepped behind the curtain, the better to see and hear what was taking place in the boudoir.

The queen had arisen and advanced a few steps to meet the earl. As she now stood before him—as their eyes met, she felt her courage sink and her heart fail.

She was compelled to look down at the floor to prevent him from seeing the tears which involuntarily came into her eyes. With a silent salutation she offered him her hand. Thomas Seymour pressed it impulsively to his lips, and looked with passionate tenderness into her face. She struggled to collect all her strength, that her heart might not betray itself. With a hurried movement she withdrew her hand from him, and took from the table a roll of paper containing the new act of succession signed by the king.

"My lord," said she, "I have called you hither, because I would like to intrust a commission to you. I beg you to carry this parchment to the Princess Elizabeth, and be pleased to deliver it to her. But before you do that, I will make you acquainted with its contents. This parchment contains a new law relative to the succession, which has already received the sanction of the king. By virtue of this, the royal princesses are no longer under the necessity of uniting themselves with a husband who is a sovereign prince, if they wish to preserve their hereditary claim on the throne unimpaired. The king gives the princesses the right to follow their own hearts; and their claim to the succession is not to suffer thereby, if the husband chosen is neither a king nor a prince. That, my lord, is the contents of this parchment which you are to carry to the princess, and without doubt you will thank me for making you the messenger of these glad tidings."

"And why," asked he, in astonishment—"why does your majesty believe that this intelligence should fill me with special thankfulness?"

She collected all her powers; she prayed to her own heart for strength and self-control.

"Because the princess has made me the confidante of her love, and because I am consequently aware of the tender tie which binds you to her," said she, gently; and she felt that all the blood had fled from her cheeks.

The earl looked into her face in mute astonishment. Then his inquiring and searching glance swept all around the room.

"We are overheard, then?" asked he, in a low voice.

"We are not alone?"

"We are alone," said Catharine, aloud. "Nobody can hear us, and God alone is witness of our conversation."

Elizabeth, who stood behind the hanging, felt her cheeks glow with shame, and she began to repent what she had done. But she was nevertheless, as it were, spellbound to that spot. It was certainly mean and unworthy of a princess to eavesdrop, but she was at that time but a young girl who loved, and who wanted to observe her lover. So she stayed; she laid her hand on her anxiously-throbbing heart, and murmured to herself: "What will he say? What means this anxious dread that comes over me?"

"Well," said Thomas Seymour, in an entirely altered tone, "if we are alone, then this mask which hides my face may fall; then the cuirass which binds my heart may be loosened. Hail, Catharine, my star and my hope! No one, you say, hears us, save God alone; and God knows our love, and He knows with what longing, and what ecstasy, I have sighed for this hour—for this hour, which at length again unites me to you. My God, it is an eternity since I have seen you, Catharine; and my heart thirsted for you as a famishing man for a refreshing draught. Catharine, my beloved, blessed be you, that you have at last called me to you!"

He opened his arms for her, but she repulsed him sharply. "You are mistaken in the name, earl," said she, bitterly. "You say Catharine, and mean Elizabeth! It is the princess that you love: to Elizabeth belongs your heart, and she has devoted her heart to you. Oh, earl, I will favor this love, and be certain I will not cease from prayer and supplication till I have inclined the king to your wishes, till he has given his consent to your marriage with the Princess Elizabeth."

Thomas Seymour laughed. "This is a masquerade, Catharine; and you still wear a mask over your beautiful and charming face. Oh, away with that mask, queen! I want to behold you as you are. I want to see again your own beautiful self; I want to see the woman who belongs to me, and who has sworn to be mine, and who has, with a thousand sacred oaths, vowed to love me, to be true to me, and to follow me as her husband and her lord. Or how, Catharine! Can you have forgotten your oath? Can you have become untrue to your own heart? Do you want to cast me away, and throw me, like a ball of which you are tired, to another?"

"Oh," said she, quite unconsciously, "I—I can never forget and never be untrue."

"Well, then, my Catharine, the bride and wife of my future, what then are you speaking to me of Elizabeth?—of this little princess, who sighs for love as the flower-bud for the sun, and takes the first man whom she finds in her way for the sun after which she pines? What care we for Elizabeth, my Catharine? And what have we to do with that child in this hour of long-wished-for reunion?"

"Oh, he calls me a child!" murmured Elizabeth. "I am nothing but a child to him!" And she pressed her hands on her mouth in order to repress her cry of anger and anguish, and to prevent them from hearing her teeth, which were chattering as though she were in a chill.

With irresistible force Thomas Seymour drew Catharine into his arms. "Avoid me no longer," said he, in tender entreaty. "The hour has come which is finally to determine our destiny! The king is at the point of death, and my Catharine will at length be free—free to follow her own heart. At this hour I remind you of your oath! Do you remember still that day when you referred me to this hour? Do you still know, Catharine, how you vowed to be my wife and to receive me as the lord of your future? Oh, my beloved, that crown which weighed down your head will soon be taken away. Now I yet stand before you as your subject, but in a few hours it will be your lord and your husband that stands before you; and he will ask: 'Catharine, my wife, have you kept with me the faith you swore to me? Have you been guiltless of perjury in respect of your vows and your love? Have you preserved my honor, which is your honor also, clear from every spot; and can you, free from guilt, look me in the eye?"

He gazed at her with proud, flashing eyes, and before his commanding look her firmness and her pride melted away like ice before the sunshine. Again he was the master, whose right it was to rule her heart; and she again the lowly handmaid, whose sweetest happiness it was to submit and bow to the will of her lover.

"I can look you frankly in the eye," murmured she, "and no guilt burdens my conscience. I have loved naught but you, and my God only dwells near you in my heart." Wholly overcome, wholly intoxicated with happiness, she leaned her head upon his shoulder, and as he clasped her in his arms, as he covered with kisses her now unresisting lips, she felt only that she loved him unutterably, and that there was no happiness for her except with him.

It was a sweet dream, a moment of most exquisite ecstasy. But it was only a moment. A hand was laid violently on her shoulder, a hoarse angry voice called her name; and as she looked up, she encountered the wild glance of Elizabeth, who stood before her with deathly pale cheeks, with trembling lips, with expanded nostrils, and eyes darting flashes of wrath and hatred.

"This, then, is the friendly service which you swore to me?" said she, gnashing her teeth. "Did you steal into my confidence, and with scoffing mouth spy out the secrets of my heart, in order to go away and betray them to your paramour? That you might in his arms ridicule this pitiable maiden, who allowed herself for the moment to be betrayed by her heart, and took a felon for an honorable man! Woe, woe to you, Catharine, for I tell you I will have no compassion on the adulteress, who mocks at me, and betrays my father!"

She was raving; completely beside herself with anger, she dashed away the hand which Catharine laid on her shoulder, and sprang back from the touch of her enemy like an irritated lioness.

Her father's blood fumed and raged within her, and, a true daughter of Henry the Eighth, she concealed in her heart only bloodthirsty and revengeful thoughts.

She cast on Thomas Seymour a look of dark wrath, and a contemptuous smile played about her lips. "My lord," said she, "you have called me a child who allows herself to be easily deceived, because she longs so much for the sun and for happiness. You are right: I was a child; and I was foolish enough to take a miserable liar for a noble-man, who was worthy of the proud fortune of being loved by a king's daughter. Yes, you are right; that was a childish dream. Thanks to you, I have now awoke from it; and you have matured the child into a woman, who laughs at the folly of her youth, and despises to-day what she adored yesterday. I have nothing to do with you; and you are even too insignificant and too contemptible for my anger. But I tell you, you have played a hazardous game, and you will lose. You courted a queen and a princess, and you will gain neither of them: not the one, for she despises you; not the other, for she ascends the scaffold!"

With a wild laugh she was hurrying to the door, but Catharine with a strong hand held her back and compelled her to remain. "What are you going to do?" asked she, with perfect calmness and composure.

"What am I going to do?" asked Elizabeth, her eyes flashing like those of a lioness. "You ask me what I will do? I will go to my father, and tell him what I have here witnessed! He will listen to me; and his tongue will still have strength enough to pronounce your sentence of death! Oh, my mother died on the scaffold, and yet she was innocent. We will see, forsooth, whether you will escape the scaffold—you, who are guilty!"

"Well, then, go to your father," said Catharine; "go and accuse me. But first you shall hear me. This man whom I loved, I wanted to renounce, in order to give him to you. By the confession of your love, you had crushed my happiness and my future. But I was not angry with you. I understood you heart, for Thomas Seymour is worthy of being loved. But you are right; for the king's wife it was a sinful love, however innocent and pure I may have been. On that account I wanted to renounce it; on that account I wanted, on the first confession from you, to silently sacrifice myself. You yourself have now made it an impossibility. Go, then, and accuse us to your father, and fear not that I will belie my heart. Now, that the crisis has come, it shall find me prepared; and on the scaffold I will still account myself blest, for Thomas Seymour loves me!"

"Ay, he loves you, Catharine!" cried he, completely overcome and enchanted by her noble, majestic bearing.

"He loves you so warmly and ardently, that death with you seems to him an enviable lot; and he would not exchange it for any throne nor for any crown."

And as he thus spoke, he put his arms around Catharine's neck, and impetuously drew her to his heart.

Elizabeth uttered a fierce scream, and sprang to the door. But what noise was that which all at once drew nigh; which suddenly, like a wild billow, came roaring on, and filled the anterooms and the halls? What were these affrighted, shrieking voices calling? What were they screaming to the queen, and the physicians, and the priest?

Elizabeth stopped amazed, and listened. Thomas Seymour and Catharine, arm linked in arm, stood near her. They scarcely heard what was taking place; they looked at each other and smiled, and dreamed of love and death and an eternity of happiness.

Now the door flew open; there was seen John Heywood's pale face: there were the maids of honor and the court officials. And all shrieked and all wailed: "The king is dying! He is struck with apoplexy! The king is at the point of death!"

"The king calls you! The king desires to die in the arms of his wife!" said John Heywood, and, as he quietly pushed Elizabeth aside and away from the door as she was pressing violently forward, he added: "The king will see nobody but his wife and the priest; and he has authorized me to call the queen!"

He opened the door; and through the lines of weeping and wailing court officials and servants, Catharine moved on, to go to the death-bed of her royal husband.



CHAPTER XXXVII. "LE ROI EST MORT—VIVE LA REINE!"

King Henry lay a-dying. That life full of sin, full of blood and crime, full of treachery and cunning, full of hypocrisy and sanctimonious cruelty—that life was at last lived out. That hand, which had signed so many death-warrants, was now clutched in the throes of death. It had stiffened at the very moment when the king was going to sign the Duke of Norfolk's death-warrant. [Footnote: historical. The king's own words.—Leti, vol. I, p. 16.] And the king was dying with the gnawing consciousness that he had no longer the power to throttle that enemy whom he hated. The mighty king was now nothing more than a feeble, dying old man, who was no longer able to hold the pen and sign this death-warrant for which he had so long hankered and hoped. Now it lay before him, and he no longer had the power to use it. God, in His wisdom and His justice, had decreed against him the most grievous and horrible of punishments; He had left him his consciousness; He had not crippled him in mind, but in body only. And that motionless and rigid mass which, growing chill in death, lay there on the couch of purple trimmed with gold—that was the king—a king whom agony of conscience did not permit to die, and who now shuddered and was horrified in view of death, to which he had, with relentless cruelty, hunted so many of his subjects.

Catharine and the Archbishop of Canterbury, the noble Cranmer, stood at his bedside: and whilst in convulsive agony he grasped Catharine's hands, he listened to the devout prayers which Cranmer was saying over him.

Once he asked with mumbling tongue: "My lord, what kind of a world then is that where those who condemn others to die, are condemned to die themselves?"

And as the pious Cranmer, touched by the agonies and tortures of conscience which he read in the king's looks, and full of pity for the dying tyrant, sought to comfort him, and spoke to him of the mercy of God which has compassion on every sinner, the king groaned out: "No, no! No mercy for him who knew no mercy!"

At length this awful struggle of death with life was ended; and death had vanquished life. The king had closed his eyes to earth, to open them again there above, as a guilt-laden sinner in the presence of God.

For three days his death was kept a secret. They wanted first to have everything arranged, and to fill up the void which his death must make. They wanted, when they spoke to the people of the dead king, to show them also at the same time the living king. And since they knew that the people would not weep for the dead, they were to rejoice for the living; since they would sing no funeral psalms, they were to let their hymns of joy resound.

On the third day the gates of Whitehall were thrown open, and a gloomy funeral train moved through the streets of London. In dead silence the populace saw borne past them the coffin of the king, before whom they had trembled so much, and for whom they now had not a word of mourning or of pity—no tears for the dead who for seven-and-thirty years had been their king.

They were bearing the coffin to Westminster Abbey to the splendid monument which Wolsey had built there for his royal master. But the way was long, and the panting horses with black housings, which drew the hearse, had often to stop and rest. And all of a sudden, as the carriage stood still on one of the large open squares, blood was seen to issue from the king's coffin. It streamed down in crimson currents and flowed over the stones of the streets. The people with a shudder stood around and saw the king's blood flowing, and thought how much blood he had spilt on that same spot, for the coffin was standing on the square where the executions were wont to take place, and where the scaffolds were erected and the stakes set. As the people stood gazing at the blood which flowed from the king's coffin, two dogs sprang forth from the crowd and, with greedy tongue, licked the blood of King Henry the Eighth. But the people, shuddering and horror-stricken, fled in all directions, and talked among themselves of the poor priest who a few weeks before was executed here on this very spot, because he would not recognize the king as the supreme lord of the Church and God's vicegerent; of that unfortunate man who cursed the king, and on the scaffold said: "May the dogs one day drink the blood of this king who has shed so much innocent blood!" And now the curse of the dying man had found its fulfilment, and the dogs had drunk the king's blood. [Footnote: Historical.—See Tytler, p. 481.]

When the gloomy funeral train had left the palace of Whitehall, when the king's corpse no longer infected the halls with its awful stench of corruption, and the court was preparing to do homage to the boy Edward as the new king, Thomas Seymour, Earl of Sudley, entered the room of the young royal widow. He came in a magnificent mourning suit, and his elder brother, Edward Seymour, and Cranmer, archbishop of Canterbury, walked by his side.

With a blush and a sweet smile, Catharine bade them welcome.

"Queen," said Thomas Seymour with solemn air, "I come to-day to claim of you the fulfilment of your vow! Oh, do not cast down your eyes, nor blush for shame. The noble archbishop knows your heart, and he knows that it is as pure as the heart of a maiden, and that an unchaste thought has never sullied your pure soul. And my brother would not be here, had he not faith in and respect for a love which has preserved itself so faithful and constant amidst storms and dangers. I have selected these two noble friends as my suitors, and in their presence I will ask you: 'Queen Catharine, the king is dead, and no fetters longer bind your heart; will you not give it me as my own? Will you accept me as your husband, and sacrifice for me your royal title and your exalted position?'"

With a bewitching smile she gave him her hand. "You well know," whispered she, "that I sacrifice nothing for you, but receive from you all of happiness and love that I hope for."

"Will you then, in the presence of these two friends, accept me as your future husband, and plight me your vow of truth and love?"

Catharine trembled and cast down her eyes with the bashfulness of a young girl. "Alas!" whispered she, "do you not then see my mourning dress? Is it becoming to think of happiness, while the funeral lamentations have scarcely died away?"

"Queen Catharine," said Archbishop Cranmer, "let the dead bury their dead! Life also has its rights; and man should not give up his claim on happiness, for it is a most holy possession. You have endured much and suffered much, queen, but your heart is pure and without guilt; therefore you may now, with a clear conscience, bid welcome to happiness also. Do not delay about it. In God's name I have come to bless your love, and give to your happiness a holy consecration."

"And I," said Edward Seymour, "I have begged of my brother the honor of being allowed to accompany him in order to say to your majesty that I know how to duly appreciate the high honor which you show our family, and that, as your brother-in-law, I shall ever be mindful that you were once my queen and I your subject."

"But I," cried Thomas Seymour, "I would not delay coming to you, in order that I might show you that love only brings me to you, and that no other consideration could induce me. The king's will is not yet opened, and I know not its contents. But however it may determine with respect to all of us, it cannot diminish or increase my happiness in possessing you. Whatever you may be, you will ever be to me only the adored woman, the ardently loved wife; and only to assure you of this, I have come this very day."

Catharine extended her hand to him with a bewitching smile. "I have never doubted of you, Seymour," whispered she, "and never did I love you more ardently than when I wanted to renounce you."

She bowed her head on her lover's shoulder, and tears of purest joy bedewed her cheeks. The Archbishop of Canterbury joined their hands, and blessed them as betrothed lovers; and the elder Seymour, Earl Hertford, bowed and greeted them as a betrothed couple.

On that very same day the king's will was opened. In the large gilded hall, in which King Henry's merry laughter and thundering voice of wrath had so often resounded, were now read his last commands. The whole court was assembled, as it was wont to be for a joyous festival; and Catharine once more sat on the royal throne. But the dreaded tyrant, the bloodthirsty King Henry the Eighth, was no longer at her side; but the poor pale boy, Edward, who had inherited from his father neither energy nor genius, but only his thirst for blood and his canting hypocrisy. At his side stood his sisters, the Princesses Mary and Elizabeth. Both were pale and of a sad countenance; but with both, it was not for their father that they were grieving.

Mary, the bigoted Roman Catholic, saw with horror and bitter anguish the days of adversity which were about to befall her church; for Edward was a fanatical opponent of the Roman Catholic religion, and she knew that he would shed the blood of the papists with relentless cruelty. On this account it was that she mourned.

But Elizabeth, that young girl of ardent heart—she thought neither of her father nor of the dangers threatening the Church; she thought only of her love, she felt only that she had been deprived of a hope, of an illusion—that she had awoke from a sweet and enchanting dream to the rude and barren reality. She had given up her first love, but her heart bled and the wound still smarted.

The will was read. Elizabeth looked toward Thomas Seymour during this solemn and portentous reading. She wanted to read in his countenance the impression made on him by these grave words, so pregnant with the future; she wanted to search the depths of his soul, and to penetrate the secret thoughts of his heart. She saw how he turned pale when, not Queen Catharine, but his brother, Earl Hertford, was appointed regent during Edward's minority; she saw the sinister, almost angry look which he threw at the queen; and with a cruel smile she murmured:

"I am revenged! He loves her no longer!"

John Heywood, who was standing behind the queen's throne, had also observed the look of Thomas Seymour, yet not like Elizabeth, with a rejoicing, but with a sorrowful heart, and he dropped his head upon his breast and murmured: "Poor Catharine! He will hate her, and she will be very unhappy."

But she was still happy. Her eye beamed with pure delight when she perceived that her lover was, by the king's will, appointed High Admiral of England and guardian of the young king. She thought not of herself, but only of him, of her lover; and it filled her with the proudest satisfaction to see him invested with places of such high honor and dignity.

Poor Catharine! Her eye did not see the sullen cloud which still rested on the brow of her beloved. She was so happy and so innocent, and so little ambitious! For her this only was happiness, to be her lover's, to be the wife of Thomas Seymour.

And this happiness was to be hers. Thirty days after the death of King Henry the Eighth she became the wife of the high admiral, Thomas Seymour, Earl of Sudley. Archbishop Cranmer solemnized their union in the chapel at Whitehall, and the lord protector, now Duke of Somerset, formerly Earl of Hertford, the brother of Thomas Seymour, was the witness of this marriage, which was, however, still kept a secret, and of which there were to be no other witnesses. When, however, they resorted to the chapel for the marriage, Princess Elizabeth came forward to meet the queen, and offered her hand.

It was the first time they had met since the dreadful day on which they confronted each other as enemies—the first time that they had again seen each other eye to eye.

Elizabeth had wrung this sacrifice from her heart. Her proud soul revolted at the thought that Thomas Seymour might imagine that she was still grieving for him, that she still loved him. She would show him that her heart was entirely recovered from that first dream of her youth—that she had not the least regret or pain.

She accosted him with a haughty, cold smile, and presented Catharine her hand. "Queen," said she, "you have so long been a kind and faithful mother to me, that I may well once more claim the right of being your daughter. Let me, therefore, as your daughter, be present at the solemn transaction in which you are about to engage; and allow me to stand at your side and pray for you, whilst the archbishop performs the sacred service, and transforms the queen into the Countess of Sudley. May God bless you, Catharine, and give you all the happiness that you deserve!"

And Princess Elizabeth knelt at Catharine's side, as the archbishop blest this new marriage tie. And while she prayed her eye again glided over toward Thomas Seymour, who was standing there by his young wife. Catharine's countenance beamed with beauty and happiness, but upon Thomas Seymour's brow still lay the cloud that had settled there on that day when the king's will was opened—that will which did not make Queen Catharine regent, and which thereby destroyed Thomas Seymour's proud and ambitious schemes.

And that cloud remained on Thomas Seymour's brow. It sank down lower and still lower. It soon overshadowed the happiness of Catharine's love, and awakened her from her short dream of bliss.

What she suffered, how much of secret agony and silent woe she endured, who can wish to know or conjecture? Catharine had a proud and a chaste soul. She concealed from the world her pain and her grief, as bashfully as she had once done her love. Nobody suspected what she suffered and how she struggled with her crushed heart.

She never complained; she saw bloom after bloom fall from her life; she saw the smile disappear from her husband's countenance; she heard his voice, at first so tender, gradually harden to harsher tones; she felt his heart growing colder and colder, and his love changing into indifference, perhaps even into hate.

She had devoted her whole heart to love, but she felt day by day, and hour by hour, that her husband's heart was cooling more and more. She felt, with dreadful heartrending certainty, she was his with all her love.

But he was no longer hers.

And she tormented her heart to find out why he no longer loved her—what she had been guilty of, that he turned away from her. Seymour had not the delicacy and magnanimity to conceal from her his inward thoughts; and at last she comprehended why he neglected her.

He had hoped that Catharine would be Regent of England, that he then would be consort of the regent. Because it had not happened so his love had died.

Catharine felt this, and she died of it. But not suddenly, not at once, did death release her from her sorrows and racking tortures. Six months she had to suffer and struggle with them. After six months she died.

Strange rumors were spread at her death; and John Heywood never passed by Earl Seymour without gazing at him with an angry look, and saying: "You have murdered the beautiful queen! Deny it, if you can!"

Thomas Seymour laughed, and did not consider it worth his while to defend himself against the accusations of the fool. He laughed, notwithstanding he had not yet put off the mourning he wore for Catharine.

In these mourning garments he ventured to approach the Princess Elizabeth, to swear to her his ardent love, and sue for her hand. But Elizabeth repelled him with coldness and haughty contempt; and, like the fool, the princess also said: "You have murdered Catharine! I cannot be the wife of a murderer!"

And God's justice punished the murderer of the innocent and noble Catharine; and scarcely three months after the death of his wife, the high admiral had to ascend the scaffold, and was executed as a traitor.

By Catharine's wish, her books and papers were given to her true friend John Heywood, and he undertook with the greatest care an examination of the same. He found among her papers many leaves written by herself, many verses and poems, which breathed forth the sorrowfulness of her spirit. Catharine herself had collected them into a book, and with her own hand she had given to the book this title: "Lamentations of a Sinner."

Catharine had wept much as she penned these "Lamentations"; for in many places the manuscript was illegible, and her tears had obliterated the characters.

John Heywood kissed the spots where the traces of her tears remained, and whispered: "The sinner has by her suffering been glorified into a saint; and these poems are the cross and the monument which she has prepared for her own grave. I will set up this cross, that the good may take comfort, and the wicked flee from it." And he did so. He had the "Lamentations of a Sinner" printed; and this book was the fairest monument of Catharine.

THE END