The great court festival, so long expected, was at last to take place today. Knights and lords were preparing for the tournament; poets and scholars for the feast of the poets. For the witty and brave king wished to unite the two in this festival today, in order to give the world a rare and great example of a king who could claim all virtue and wisdom as his own; who could be equally great as a hero and as a divine; equally great as a poet and as a philosopher and a scholar.
The knights were to fight for the honor of their ladies; the poets were to sing their songs, and John Heywood to bring out his merry farces. Ay, even the great scholars were to have a part in this festival; for the king had specially, for this, summoned to London from Cambridge, where he was then professor in the university, his former teacher in the Greek language, the great scholar Croke, to whom belonged the merit of having first made the learned world of Germany, as well as of England, again acquainted with the poets of Greece. [Footnote: Tytler, p. 307.] He wished to recite with Croke some scenes from Sophocles to his wondering court; and though, to be sure, there was no one there who understood the Greek tongue, yet all, without doubt, must be enraptured with the wonderful music of the Greek and the amazing erudition of the king.
Preparations were going on everywhere; arrangements were being made; every one was making his toilet, whether it were the toilet of the mind or of the body.
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, made his also; that is to say, he had retired to his cabinet, and was busy filing away at the sonnets which he expected to recite to-day, and in which he lauded the beauty and the grace of the fair Geraldine.
He had the paper in his hand, and was lying on the velvet ottoman which stood before his writing-table.
Had Lady Jane Douglas seen him now, she would have been filled with painful rapture to observe how, with head leaned back on the cushion, his large blue eyes raised dreamily to heaven, he smiled and whispered gentle words.
He was wholly absorbed in sweet reminiscences; he was thinking of those rapturous, blessed hours which he a few days before had spent with his Geraldine; and as he thought of them he adored her, and repeated to her anew in his mind his oath of eternal love and inviolable truth.
His enthusiastic spirit was completely filled with a sweet melancholy; and he felt perfectly intoxicated by the magical happiness afforded him by his Geraldine.
She was his—his at last! After struggles so long and painful, after such bitter renunciation, and such mournful resignation, happiness had at last arisen for him; the never expected had at last become indeed a reality. Catharine loved him. With a sacred oath she had sworn to him that she would one day become his wife; that she would become his wife before God and man.
But when is the day to come on which he may show her to the world as his consort? When will she be at length relieved from the burden of her royal crown? When at length will fall from her those golden chains that bind her to a tyrannical and bloodthirsty husband—to the cruel and arrogant king? When will Catharine at length cease to be queen, in order to become Lady Surrey?
Strange! As he asked himself this, there ran over him a shudder, and an unaccountable dread fell upon his soul.
It seemed to him as if a voice whispered to him: “Thou wilt never live to see that day! The king, old as he is, will nevertheless live longer than thou! Prepare thyself to die, for death is already at thy door!”
And it was not the first time that he had heard that voice. Often before it had spoken to him, and always with the same words, the same warning. Often it seemed to him in his dreams as if he felt a cutting pain about the neck; and he had seen a scaffold, from which his own head was rolling down.
Henry Howard was superstitious; for he was a poet, and to poets it is given to perceive the mysterious connection between the visible and the invisible world; to believe that supernatural powers and invisible forms surround man, and either protect him or else curse him.
There were hours in which he believed in the reality of his dreams—in which he did not doubt of that melancholy and horrible fate which they foretold.
Formerly he had given himself up to it with smiling resignation; but now—since he loved Catharine, since she belonged to him—now he would not die. Now, when life held out to him its most enchanting enjoyments, its intoxicating delights—now he would not leave them—now he dreaded to die. He was therefore cautious and prudent; and, knowing the king’s malicious, savage, and jealous character, he had always been extremely careful to avoid everything that might excite him, that might arouse the royal hyena from his slumbers.
But it seemed to him as though the king bore him and his family a special spite; as though he could never forgive them that the consort whom he most loved, and who had the most bitterly wronged him, had sprung from their stock. In the king’s every word and every look, Henry Howard felt and was sensible of this secret resentment of the king; he suspected that Henry was only watching for the favorable moment when he could seize and strangle him.
He was therefore on his guard. For now, when Geraldine loved him, his life belonged no longer to himself alone; she loved him; she had a claim on him; his days were, therefore, hallowed in his own eyes.
So he had kept silence under the petty annoyances and vexations of the king. He had taken it even without murmuring, and without demanding satisfaction, when the king had suddenly recalled him from the army that was fighting against France, and of which he was commander-in-chief, and in his stead had sent Lord Hertford, Earl of Sudley, to the army which was encamped before Boulogne and Montreuil. He had quietly and without resentment returned to his palace; and since he could no longer be a general and warrior, he became again a scholar and poet. His palace was now again the resort of the scholars and writers of England; and he was always ready, with true princely munificence, to assist oppressed and despised talent; to afford the persecuted scholar an asylum in his palace. He it was who saved the learned Fox from starvation, and took him into his house, where Horatius Junius and the poet Churchyard, afterward so celebrated, had both found a home—the former as his physician and the latter as his page. [Footnote: Nott’s Life of the Earl of Surrey]
Love, the arts, and the sciences, caused the wounds that the king had given his ambition, to heal over; and he now felt no more rancor; now he almost thanked the king. For to his recall only did he owe his good fortune; and Henry, who had wished to injure him, had given him his sweetest pleasure.
He now smiled as he thought how Henry, who had taken from him the baton, had, without knowing it, given him in return his own queen, and had exalted him when he wished to humble him.
He smiled, and again took in hand the poem in which he wished to celebrate in song, at the court festival that day, the honor and praise of his lady-love, whom no one knew, or even suspected—the fair Geraldine.
“The verses are stiff,” muttered he; “this language is so poor! It has not the power of expressing all that fulness of adoration and ecstasy which I feel. Petrarch was more fortunate in this respect. His beautiful, flexible language sounds like music, and it is, even just by itself, the harmonious accompaniment of his love. Ah, Petrarch, I envy thee, and yet would not be like thee. For thine was a mournful and bitter-sweet lot. Laura never loved thee; and she was the mother of twelve children, not a single one of whom belonged to thee.”
He laughed with a sense of his own proud success in love, and seized Petrarch’s sonnets, which lay near him on the table, to compare his own new sonnet with a similar one of Petrarch’s.
He was so absorbed in these meditations, that he had not at all observed that the hanging which concealed the door behind him was pushed aside, and a marvellous young woman, resplendent with diamonds and sparkling with jewelry, entered his cabinet.
For an instant she stood still upon the threshold, and with a smile observed the earl, who was more and more absorbed in his reading.
She was of imposing beauty; her large eyes blazed and glowed like a volcano; her lofty brow seemed in all respects designed to wear a crown. And, indeed, it was a ducal coronet that sparkled on her black hair, which in long ringlets curled down to her full, voluptuous shoulders. Her tall and majestic form was clad in a white satin dress, richly trimmed with ermine and pearls; two clasps of costly brilliants held fast to her shoulders the small mantilla of crimson velvet, faced with ermine, which covered her back and fell down to her waist.
Thus appeared the Duchess of Richmond, the widow of King Henry’s natural son, Henry Richmond; the sister of Lord Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey; and the daughter of the noble Duke of Norfolk.
Since her husband had died and left her a widow at twenty, she resided in her brother’s palace, and had placed herself under his protection, and in the world they were known as “the affectionate brother and sister.”
Ah, how little knew the world, which is ever wont to judge from appearances, of the hatred and the love of these two; how little suspicion had it of the real sentiments of this brother and sister!
Henry Howard had offered his sister his palace as her residence, because he hoped by his presence to lay on her impulsive and voluptuous disposition a restraint which should compel her not to overstep the bounds of custom and decency. Lady Richmond had accepted this offer of his palace because she was obliged to; inasmuch as the avaracious and parsimonious king gave his son’s widow only a meagre income, and her own means she had squandered and lavishly thrown away upon her lovers.
Henry Howard had thus acted for the honor of his name; but he loved not his sister; nay, he despised her. But the Duchess of Richmond hated her brother, because her proud heart felt humbled by him, and under obligations of gratitude.
But their hatred and their contempt were a secret that they both preserved in the depths of the heart, and which they scarcely dared confess to themselves. Both had veiled this their inmost feeling with a show of affection, and only once in a while was one betrayed to the other by some lightly dropped word or unregarded look.
Lightly on the tips of her toes the duchess stole toward her brother, who did not yet observe her. The thick Turkish carpet made her steps inaudible. She already stood behind the earl, and he had not yet noticed her.
Now she bent over his shoulder, and fastened her sparkling eyes on the paper in her brother’s hand.
Then she read in a loud, sonorous voice the title of it: “Complaint, because Geraldine never shows herself to her lover unless covered by her veil.” [Footnote: Sonnet by Surrey.—See Nott’s Life and Works of Surrey.] “Ah,” said the duchess, laughing, “now, then, I have spied out your secret, and you must surrender to me at discretion. So you are in love; and Geraldine is the name of the chosen one to whom you address your poems! I swear to you, my brother, you will repay me dear for this secret.”
“It is no secret at all, sister,” said the earl, with a quiet smile, as he rose from the divan and saluted the duchess. “It is so little a secret, that I shall recite this sonnet at the court festival this very evening. I shall not, therefore, need your secrecy, Rosabella.”
“So the fair Geraldine never shows herself to you unless in a dark veil, black as the night,” said the duchess, musingly. “But tell me, brother, who then is the fair Geraldine? Of the ladies at court, I know not a single one who bears that name.”
“So you see from that, the whole is only a fiction—a creation of my fancy.”
“No, indeed,” said she, smiling; “one does not write with such warmth and enthusiasm unless he is really in love. You sing your lady-love, and you give her another name. That is very plain. Do not deny it, Henry, for I know indeed that you have a lady-love. It may be read in your eyes. And look you! it is on account of this dear one that I have come to you. It pains me, Henry, that you have no confidence in me, and allow me no share in your joys and sorrows. Do you not know, then, how tenderly I love you, my dear, noble brother?”
She put her arm tenderly round his neck, and wanted to kiss him. He bent his head back, and laying his hand on her rosy, round chin, he looked inquiringly and smilingly into her eyes.
“You want something of me, Rosabella!” said he. “I have never yet enjoyed your tenderness and sisterly affection, except when you needed my services.”
“How suspicious you are!” cried she, with a charming pout, as she shook his hand away from her face. “I have come from wholly disinterested sympathy; partly to warn you, partly to find out whether your love is perchance fixed upon a lady that would render my warning useless.”
“Well, so you see, Rosabella, that I was right, and that your tenderness was not aimless. Now, then, you want to warn me? I have yet to learn that I need any warning.”
“Nay, brother! For it would certainly be very dangerous and mischievous for you, if your love should chance not to be in accordance with the command of the king.”
A momentary flush spread over Henry Howard’s face, and his brow darkened.
“With the king’s command?” asked he, in astonishment. “I did not know that Henry the Eighth could control my heart. And, at any rate, I would never concede him that right. Say quickly, then, sister, what is it? What means this about the king’s command, and what matrimonial scheme have you women been again contriving? For I well know that you and my mother have no rest with the thought of seeing me still unmarried. You want to bestow on me, whether or no, the happiness of marriage; yet, nevertheless, it appears to me that you both have sufficiently learned from experience that this happiness is only imaginary, and that marriage in reality is, at the very least, the vestibule of hell.”
“It is true,” laughed the duchess; “the only happy moment of my married life was when my husband died. For in that I am more fortunate than my mother, who has her tyrant still living about her. Ah, how I pity my mother!”
“Dare not to revile our noble father!” cried the earl, almost threateningly. “God alone knows how much he has suffered from our mother, and how much he still suffers. He is not to blame for this unhappy marriage. But you have not come to talk over these sad and disgraceful family matters, sister! You wish to warn me, did you say?”
“Yes, warn you!” said the duchess, tenderly, as she took her brother’s hand and led him to the ottoman. “Come, let us sit down here, Henry, and let us for once chat confidentially and cordially, as becomes brother and sister. Tell me, who is Geraldine?”
“A phantom, an ideal! I have told you that already.”
“You really love, then, no lady at this court?”
“No, none! There is among all these ladies, with whom the queen has surrounded herself, not one whom I am able to love.”
“Ah, your heart then is free, Henry; and you will be so much more easily inclined to comply with the king’s wish.”
“What does the king wish?”
She laid her head on her brother’s shoulder, and said in a low whisper: “That the Howard and Seymour families be at last reconciled; that at last they may reconcile the hatred, which has for centuries separated them, by means of a firm and sincere bond of love.”
“Ah, the king wants that!” cried the earl, scornfully.
“Forsooth, now, he has made a good beginning toward bringing about this reconciliation. He has insulted me before all Europe, by removing me from my command, and investing a Seymour with my rank and dignity; and he requires that I in return shall love this arrogant earl, who has robbed me of what is my due; who has long intrigued and besieged the king’s ears with lies and calumnies, till he has gained his end and supplanted me.”
“It is true the king recalled you from the army; but this was done in order to give you the first place at his court—to appoint you lord chamberlain to the queen.”
Henry Howard trembled and was silent. “It is true,” he then muttered; “I am obliged to the king for this place.”
“And then,” continued the duchess, with an innocent air, “then I do not believe either that Lord Hertford is to blame for your recall. To prove this to you, he has made a proposal to the king, and to me also, which is to testify to you and to all the world how great an honor Lord Hertford esteems it to be allied to the Howards, and above all things to you, by the most sacred bonds.”
“Ah, that noble, magnanimous lord!” cried Henry Howard, with a bitter laugh. “As matters do not advance well with laurels, he tries the myrtles; since he can win no battles, he wants to make marriages. Now, sister, let me hear what he has to propose.”
“A double marriage, Henry. He asks my hand for his brother Thomas Seymour, provided you choose his sister, Lady Margaret, for your wife.”
“Never!” cried the earl. “Never will Henry Howard present his hand to a daughter of that house; never condescend so far as to elevate a Seymour to be his wife. That is well enough for a king—not for a Howard!”
“Brother, you insult the king!”
“Well, I insult him, then! He has insulted me, too, in arranging this base scheme.”
“Brother, reflect; the Seymours are powerful, and stand high in the king’s favor.”
“Yes, in the king’s favor they stand high! But the people know their proud, cruel, and arrogant disposition; and the people and nobility despise them. The Seymours have the voice of the king in their favor; the Howards the voice of the whole country, and that is of more consequence. The king can exalt the Seymours, for they stand far beneath him. He cannot exalt the Howards, for they are his equals. Nor can he degrade them. Catharine died on the scaffold—the king became thereby only a hangman—our escutcheon was not sullied by that act!”
“These are very proud words, Henry!”
“They become a son of the Norfolks, Rosabella! Ah, see that petty Lord Hertford, Earl Seymour. He covets a ducal coronet for his sister. He wants to give her to me to wife; for as soon as our poor father dies, I wear his coronet! The arrogant upstarts! For the sister’s escutcheon, my coronet; for the brother’s, your coronet. Never, say I, shall that be!”
The duchess had become pale, and a tremor ran through her proud form. Her eyes flashed, and an angry word was already suspended on her lips; but she still held it back. She violently forced herself to calmness and self-possession.
“Consider once more, Henry,” said she, “do not decide at once. You speak of our greatness; but you do not bear in mind the power of the Seymours. I tell you they are powerful enough to tread us in the dust, despite all our greatness. And they are not only powerful at the present; they will be so in the future also; for it is well known in what disposition and what way of thinking the Prince of Wales is trained up. The king is old, weak, and failing; death lurks behind his throne, and will soon enough press him in his arms. Then Edward is king. With him, the heresy of Protestantism triumphs; and however great and numerous our party may be, yet we shall be powerless and subdued. Yes, we shall be the oppressed and persecuted.”
“We shall then know how to fight, and if it must be so, to die also!” cried her brother. “It is more honorable to die on the battle-field than to purchase life and humiliation.”
“Yes, it is honorable to die on the field of battle; but, Henry, it is a disgrace to come to an end upon the scaffold. And that, my brother, may be your fate, if you do not this time bend your pride; if you do not grasp the hand that Lord Hertford extends to you in reconciliation, but mortally offend him. He will take bloody vengeance, when once he comes into power.”
“Let him do it, if he can; my life is in God’s hand! My head belongs to the king, but my heart to myself; and that I will never degrade to merchandise, which I may barter for a little security and royal favor.”
“Brother, I conjure you, consider it!” cried the duchess, no longer able to restrain her passionate disposition, and all ablaze in her savage wrath. “Dare not in proud arrogance to destroy my future also! You may die on the scaffold, if you choose; but I—I will be happy; I will at last, after so many years of sorrow and disgrace, have my share of life’s joys also. It is my due, and I will not relinquish it; and you shall not be allowed to tear it from me. Know, then, my brother, I love Thomas Seymour; all my desire, all my hope is fixed on him; and I will not tear this love out of my heart; I will not give him up.”
“Well, if you love him, marry him, then!” exclaimed her brother. “Become the wife of this Thomas Seymour! Ask the duke, our father, for his consent to this marriage, and I am certain he will not refuse you, for he is prudent and cautious, and will, better than I, calculate the advantages which a connection with the Seymours may yield our family. Do that, sister, and marry your dearly beloved. I do not hinder you.”
“Yes, you do hinder me—you alone!” cried his sister, flaming with wrath. “You will refuse Margaret’s hand; you will give the Seymours mortal offence. You thereby make my union with Thomas Seymour impossible! In the proud selfishness of your haughtiness, you see not that you are dashing to atoms my happiness, while you are thinking only of your desire to offend the Seymours. But I tell you, I love Thomas Seymour—nay, I adore him. He is my happiness, my future, my eternal bliss. Therefore have pity on me, Henry! Grant me this happiness, which I implore you for as Heaven’s blessing. Prove to me that you love me, and are willing to make this sacrifice for me. Henry, on my knees, I conjure you! Give me the man I love; bend your proud head; become Margaret Seymour’s husband, that Thomas Seymour may become mine.”
She had actually sunk upon her knees; and her face deluged with tears, bewitchingly beautiful in her passionate emotion, she looked up imploringly to her brother.
But the earl did not lift her up; on the contrary, with a smile, he fell back a step. “How long is it now, duchess,” asked he, mockingly, “since you swore that your secretary, Mr. Wilford, was the man whom you loved? Positively, I believed you—I believed it till I one day found you in the arms of your page. On that day, I swore to myself never to believe you again, though you vowed to me, with an oath ever so sacred, that you loved a man. Well, now, you love a man; but what one, is a matter of indifference. To-day his name is Thomas, tomorrow Archibald, or Edward as you please!”
For the first time the earl drew the veil away from his heart, and let his sister see all the contempt and anger that he felt toward her.
The duchess also felt wounded by his words, as by a red-hot iron.
She sprang from her knees; and with flurried breath, with looks flashing with rage, every muscle of her countenance convulsed and trembling, there she stood before her brother. She was a woman no more; she was a lioness, that, without compassion or pity, will devour him who has dared irritate her.
“Earl of Surrey, you are a shameless wretch!” said she, with compressed, quivering lips. “Were I a man, I would slap you in the face, and call you a scoundrel. But, by the eternal God, you shall not say that you have done this with impunity! Once more, and for the last time, I now ask you, will you comply with Lord Hertford’s wish? Will you marry Lady Margaret, and accompany me with Thomas Seymour to the altar?”
“No, I will not, and I will never do it!” exclaimed her brother, solemnly. “The Howards bow not before the Seymours; and never will Henry Howard marry a wife that he does not love!”
“Ah, you love her not!” said she, breathless, gnashing her teeth. “You do not love Lady Margaret; and for this reason must your sister renounce her love, and give up this man whom she adores. Ah, you love not this sister of Thomas Seymour? She is not the Geraldine whom you adore—to whom you dedicate your verses! Well, now, I will find her out—your Geraldine. I will discover her; and then, woe to you and to her! You refuse me your hand to lead me to the altar with Thomas Seymour; well, now, I will one day extend you my hand to conduct you and your Geraldine to the scaffold!”
And as she saw how the earl startled and turned pale, she continued with a scornful laugh: “Ah, you shrink, and horror creeps over you! Does your conscience admonish you that the hero, rigid in virtue, may yet sometimes make a false step? You thought to hide your secret, if you enveloped it in the veil of night, like your Geraldine, who, as you wailingly complain in that poem there, never shows herself to you without a veil as black as night. Just wait, wait! I will strike a light for you, before which all your night-like veils shall be torn in shreds; I will light up the night of your secret with a torch which will be large enough to set on fire the fagot piles about the stake to which you and your Geraldine are to go!”
“Ah, now you let me see for the first time your real countenance,” said Henry Howard, shrugging his shoulders. “The angel’s mask falls from your face; and I behold the fury that was hidden beneath it. Now you are your mother’s own daughter; and at this moment I comprehend for the first time what my father has suffered, and why he shunned not even the disgrace of a divorce, just to be delivered from such a Megaera.”
“Oh, I thank you, thank you!” cried she, with a savage laugh. “You are filling up the measure of your iniquity. It is not enough that you drive your sister to despair; you revile your mother also! You say that we are furies; well, indeed, for we shall one day be such to you, and we will show you our Medusa-face, before which you will be stiffened to stone. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, from this hour out, I am your implacable enemy; look out for the head on your shoulders, for my hand is raised against it, and in my hand is a sword! Guard well the secret that sleeps in your breast; for you have transformed me to a vampire that will suck your heart’s blood. You have reviled my mother, and I will go hence and tell her of it. She will believe me; for she well knows that you hate her, and that you are a genuine son of your father; that is to say, a canting hypocrite, a miserable fellow, who carries virtue on the lips and crime in the heart.”
“Cease, I say, cease,” cried the earl, “if you do not want me to forget that you are a woman and my sister!”
“Forget it by all means,” said she, scornfully. “I have forgotten long since that you are my brother, as you have long since forgotten that you are the son of your mother. Farewell, Earl of Surrey; I leave you and your palace, and will from this hour out abide with my mother, the divorced wife of the Duke of Norfolk. But mark you this: we two are separated from you in our love—but not in our hate! Our hatred to you remains eternal and unchangeable; and one day it will crush you! Farewell, Earl of Surrey; we meet again in the king’s presence!”
She rushed to the door. Henry Howard did not hold her back. He looked after her with a smile as she left the cabinet, and murmured, almost compassionately: “Poor woman! I have, perhaps, cheated her out of a lover, and she will never forgive me that. Well, let it be so! Let her, as much as she pleases, be my enemy, and torment me with petty pin-prickings, if she be but unable to harm her. I hope, though, that I have guarded well my secret, and she could not suspect the real cause of my refusal. Ah, I was obliged to wrap myself in that foolish family pride, and make haughtiness a cloak for my love. Oh, Geraldine, thee would I choose, wert thou the daughter of a peasant; and I would not hold my escutcheon tarnished, if for thy sake I must draw a pale athwart it.—But hark! It is striking four! My service begins! Farewell, Geraldine, I must to the queen!”
And while he betook himself to his dressing-room, to put on his state robes for the great court feast, the Duchess of Richmond returned to her own apartments, trembling and quivering with rage. She traversed these with precipitate haste, and entered her boudoir, where Earl Douglas was waiting for her.
“Well,” said he, stepping toward her with his soft, lurking smile, “has he consented?”
“No,” said she, gnashing her teeth. “He swore he would never enter into an alliance with the Seymours.”
“I well knew that,” muttered the earl. “And what do you decide upon now, my lady?”
“I will have revenge! He wants to hinder me from being happy; I will for that make him unhappy!”
“You will do well in that, my lady; for he is an apostate and perjurer; an unfaithful son of the Church. He inclines to the heretical sect, and has forgotten the faith of his fathers.”
“I know it!” said she, breathlessly.
Earl Douglas looked at her in astonishment, and continued: “But he is not merely an atheist, he is a traitor also; and more than once he has reviled his king, to whom he, in his pride of heart, believes himself far superior.”
“I know it!” repeated she.
“So proud is he,” continued the earl, “so full of blasphemous haughtiness, that he might lay his hands upon the crown of England.”
“I know it!” said the duchess again. But as she saw the earl’s astonished and doubting looks, she added, with an inhuman smile: “I know everything that you want that I should know! Only impute crimes to him; only accuse him; I will substantiate everything, testify to everything that will bring him to ruin. My mother is our ally; she hates the father as hotly as I the son. Bring your accusation, then, Earl Douglas; we are your witnesses!”
“Nay, indeed, my lady,” said he, with a gentle, insinuating smile. “I know nothing at all; I have heard nothing; how, then, can I bring an accusation? You know all; to you he has spoken. You must be his accuser!”
“Well, then, conduct me to the king!” said she.
“Will you allow me to give you some more advice first?”
“Do so, Earl Douglas.”
“Be very cautious in the choice of your means. Do not waste them all at once, so that if your first thrust does not hit, you may not be afterward without weapons. It is better, and far less dangerous, to surely kill the enemy that you hate with a slow, creeping poison, gradually and day by day, than to murder him at once with a dagger, which may, however, break on a rib and become ineffective. Tell, then, what you know, not at once, but little by little. Administer your drug which is to make the king furious, gradually; and if you do not hit your enemy to-day, think that you will do it so much the more surely to-morrow. Nor do you forget that we have to punish, not merely the heretic Henry Howard, but above all things the heretical queen, whose unbelief will call down the wrath of the Most High upon this land.”
“Come to the king,” said she, hastily. “On the way you can tell me what I ought to make known and what conceal. I will do implicitly what you say. Now, Henry Howard,” said she softly to herself, “hold yourself ready; the contest begins! In your pride and selfishness you have destroyed the happiness of my life—my eternal felicity. I loved Thomas Seymour; I hoped by his side to find the happiness that I have so long and so vainly sought in the crooked paths of life. By this love my soul would have been saved and restored to virtue. My brother has willed otherwise. He has, therefore, condemned me to be a demon, instead of an angel. I will fulfil my destiny. I will be an evil spirit to him.” [Footnote: The Earl of Surrey, by his refusal to marry Margaret Seymour, gave occasion to the rupture of the proposed alliance between Thomas Seymour and the Duchess of Richmond, his sister. After that the duchess mortally hated him and combined with his enemies against him. The Duchess of Richmond is designated by all the historians of her time as “the most beautiful woman of her century, but also a shameless Messalina.”—See Tytler, p. 890. Also Burnet, vol. i, p. 134; Leti, vol. i, p. 83; and Nott’s Life of Henry Howard.]
The festivities of the day are concluded, and the gallant knights and champions, who have to-day broken a lance for the honor of their ladies, may rest from their victories upon their laurels. The tournament of arms was over, and the tournament of mind was about to begin. The knights, therefore, retired to exchange the coat-of-mail for gold-embroidered velvet apparel; the ladies to put on their lighter evening dresses; and the queen, likewise with this design, had withdrawn to her dressing-room, while the ladies and lords of her court were in attendance in the large anteroom to escort her to the throne.
Without, it was beginning to grow dusky, and the twilight cast its long shadows across this hall, in which the cavaliers of the court were walking up and down with the ladies, and discussing the particularly important events of the day’s tourney.
The Earl of Sudley, Thomas Seymour, had borne off the prize of the day, and conquered his opponent, Henry Howard. The king had been in raptures on this account. For Thomas Seymour had been for some time his favorite; perhaps because he was the declared enemy of the Howards. He had, therefore, added to the golden laurel crown which the queen had presented to the earl as the award, a diamond pin, and commanded the queen to fasten it in the earl’s ruff with her own hand. Catharine had done so with sullen countenance and averted looks; and even Thomas Seymour had shown himself only a very little delighted with the proud honor with which the queen, at her husband’s command, was to grace him.
The rigid popish party at court formed new hopes from this, and dreamed of the queen’s conversion and return to the true, pure faith; while the Protestant, “the heretical” party, looked to the future with gloomy despondency, and were afraid of being robbed of their most powerful support and their most influential patronage.
Nobody had seen that, as the queen arose to crown the victor, Thomas Seymour, her handkerchief, embroidered with gold, fell from her hands, and that the earl, after he had taken it up and presented it to the queen, had thrust his hand for a moment, with a motion wholly accidental and undesigned, into his ruff, which was just as white as the small neatly-folded paper which he concealed in it, and which he had found in the queen’s handkerchief.
One person had seen it. This little ruse of the queen had not escaped John Heywood, who had immediately, by some cutting witticism, set the king to laughing, and tried to draw the attention of the courtiers from the queen and her lover.
He was now standing crowded into the embrasure of a window, and entirely concealed behind the silk curtain; and so, without being seen, he let his falcon eyes roam over the whole room.
He saw everything; he heard everything; and, noticed by none, he observed all.
He saw how Earl Douglas now made a sign to Bishop Gardiner, and how he quickly answered it.
As if by accident, both now left the groups with whom they had just been chatting, and drew near each other, looking about for some place where, unobserved and separated from the rest, they might converse together. In all the windows were standing groups, chatting and laughing; only that window behind the curtain of which John Heywood was concealed, was unoccupied.
So Earl Douglas and the bishop turned thither.
“Shall we attain our end to-day?” asked Gardiner, in a low voice.
“With God’s gracious assistance, we shall annihilate all our enemies to-day. The sword already hangs over their heads, and soon it will fall and deliver us from them,” said Earl Douglas, solemnly.
“Are you, then, certain of it?” asked Gardiner, and an expression of cruel delight flitted across his malicious, ashy face. “But tell me, how comes it that Archbishop Cranmer is not here?”
“He is sick, and so had to remain at Lambeth.”
“May this sickness be the forerunner of his death!” muttered the bishop, devoutly folding his hands.
“It will be so, your highness; God will destroy His enemies and bless us. Cranmer is accused, and the king will judge him without mercy.”
“And the queen?”
Earl Douglas was a moment silent, and then said, in a low whisper: “Wait but a few hours more, and she will be queen no longer. Instead of returning from the throne-room to her apartments, we shall accompany her to the Tower.”
John Heywood, completely enveloped in the folds of the curtain, held his breath and listened.
“And you are, then, perfectly sure of our victory?” asked Gardiner. “Can no accident, no unforeseen circumstance, snatch it from us?”
“If the queen gives him the rosette—no! For then the king will find Geraldine’s love-letter in the silver knot, and she is condemned. So all depends on the queen’s wearing the rosette, and not discovering its contents. But see, your highness, there is the Duchess of Richmond approaching us. She makes a sign to me. Now pray for us, your highness, for I am going with her to the king, and she will accuse this hated Catharine Parr! I tell you, bishop, it is an accusation involving life and death; and if Catharine escape one danger, she will run into another. Wait here for me, your highness; I will return soon and tell you the result of our scheme. Lady Jane, also, will soon bring us news here.”
He left the window and followed the duchess, who crossed the hall, and with her disappeared through the door that led to the king’s apartments.
The ladies and lords of the court laughed and chatted away.
John Heywood stood, with throbbing heart and in breathless anxiety, behind the curtain, close by Gardiner, who had folded his hands and was praying.
While Gardiner prayed, and Douglas accused and calumniated, the queen, suspecting nothing of these plots they were framing against her, was in her toilet-room and being adorned by her women.
She was to-day very beautiful, very magnificent to look upon; at once a woman and queen; at the same time resplendent and modest, with a bewitching smile on her rosy lips; and yet commanding respect in her proud and glorious beauty. None of Henry’s queens had so well understood the art of appearing in public, and none remained so much the woman while doing so.
As she now stood before the large mirror, which the Republic of Venice had sent the king as a wedding-gift, and which reflected the figure of the queen sparkling with diamonds, she smiled, for she was obliged to confess to herself that she was very beautiful to-day; and she thought that to-day Thomas Seymour would look upon his love with pride.
As she thought of him, a deep crimson overspread her face, and a thrill flew through her frame. How handsome he had been at the tournament that day; how splendidly he leaped over the barriers; how his eye flashed; how contemptuous had been his smile! And then, that look which he directed over to her at the moment when he had conquered his antagonist, Henry Howard, and hurled the lance from his hand! Oh, her heart was then ready to burst with delight and rapture!
Wholly given up to her reverie, she sank in her gilded arm-chair and cast her eyes to the ground, dreaming and smiling.
Behind her stood her women in respectful silence, waiting for a sign from their mistress. But the queen no longer thought at all of them; she imagined herself alone; she saw nobody but that handsome, manly face for which she had reserved a place in her heart.
Now the door opened, and Lady Jane Douglas entered. She, too, was magnificently dressed, and sparkling with diamonds; she, too, was beautiful, but it was the pallid, dreadful beauty of a demon; and he who looked upon her just then, as she entered the room, would have trembled, and his heart would have been seized with an undefined fear.
She threw a quick glance on her mistress lost in revery; and as she saw that her toilet was finished, she made a sign to the women, who silently obeyed and left the room.
Still Catharine noticed nothing. Lady Jane stood behind her and observed her in the mirror. As she saw the queen smile, her brow darkened and fierce fire flashed in her eyes.
“She shall smile no more,” said she to herself. “I suffer thus terribly by her; well, now, she shall suffer too.”
Softly and noiselessly she slipped into the next room, the door of which stood ajar, and opened with hurried hand a carton filled with ribbons and bows. Then she drew from the velvet pocket, wrought with pearls, which hung at her side, suspended by a gold chain, a dark-red rosette, and threw it into the box. That was all.
Lady Jane now returned to the adjoining room; and her countenance, which had been previously gloomy and threatening, was now proud and joyful.
With a bright smile she walked up to the queen, and kneeling down at her side, she pressed a fervent kiss on the hand that was hanging down.
“What is my queen musing over?” asked she, as she laid her head on Catharine’s knee and tenderly looked up at her.
The queen gave a slight start, and raised her head. She saw Lady Jane’s tender smile, and her yet searching looks.
Because she felt conscious of guilt, at least of guilty thoughts, she was on her guard, and remembered John Heywood’s warning.
“She is observing me,” she said to herself; “she seems affectionate; so she is brooding over some wicked plot.”
“Ah, it is well you have come, Jane,” said she aloud. “You can help me; for, to tell you the truth, I am in great perplexity. I am in want of a rhyme, and I am thinking in vain how I shall find it.”
“Ah, are you composing poetry, queen?”
“Why, Jane, does that surprise you? Shall I, the queen, be able, then, to bear off no prize? I would give my precious jewels, if I could succeed in composing a poem to which the king was obliged to award the prize. But I am wanting in a musical ear; I cannot find the rhyme, and so shall be obliged at last to give up the idea of winning laurels also. How the king would enjoy it, though! For, to confess the truth to you, I believe he is a little afraid that Henry Howard will bear off the prize, and he would be very thankful to me if I could contest it with him. You well know the king has no love for the Howards.”
“And you, queen?” asked Jane; and she turned so pale, that the queen herself noticed it.
“You are unwell, Jane,” said she, sympathizingly. “Really, Jane, you seem to be suffering. You need recreation; you should rest a little.”
But Jane had already regained her calm and earnest air, and she succeeded in smiling.
“No, indeed!” said she. “I am well, and satisfied to be permitted to be near you. But will you allow me, queen, to make a request of you?”
“Ask, Jane, ask, and it is granted beforehand; for I know that Jane will request nothing that her friend cannot grant.”
Lady Jane was silent, and looked thoughtfully upon the ground. With firm resolution she struggled with herself. Her proud heart reared fiercely up at the thought of bowing before this woman, whom she hated, and of being obliged to approach her with a fawning prayer. She felt such raging hate against the queen, that in that hour she would willingly have given her own life, if she could have first seen her enemy at her feet, wailing and crushed.
Henry Howard loved the queen; so Catharine had robbed her of the heart of him whom she adored. Catharine had condemned her to the eternal torment of renouncing him—to the rack of enjoying a happiness and a rapture that was not hers—to warm herself at a fire which she like a thief had stolen from the altar of another’s god.
Catharine was condemned and doomed. Jane had no more compassion. She must crush her.
“Well,” asked the queen, “you are silent? You do not tell me what I am to grant you?”
Lady Jane raised her eyes, and her look was serene and peaceful. “Queen,” said she, “I encountered in the ante-room one who is unhappy, deeply bowed down. In your hand alone is the power to raise him up again. Will you do it?”
“Will I do it!” exclaimed Catharine, quickly. “Oh, Jane, you well know how much my heart longs to help and be serviceable to the unfortunate! Ah, so many wounds are inflicted at this court, and the queen is so poor in balm to heal them! Allow me this pleasure then, Jane, and I shall be thankful to you, not you to me! Speak then, Jane, speak quickly; who is it that needs my help?”
“Not your help, queen, but your compassion and your grace. Earl Sudley has conquered poor Earl Surrey in the tournament to-day, and you comprehend that your lord chamberlain feels himself deeply bowed and humbled.”
“Can I alter that, Jane? Why did the visionary earl, the enthusiastic poet, allow himself a contest with a hero who already knows what he wants, and ever accomplishes what he wills? Oh, it was wonderful to look upon, with what lightning speed Thomas Seymour lifted him out of the saddle! And the proud Earl Surrey, the wise and learned man, the powerful party leader, was forced to bow before the hero, who like an angel Michael had thrown him in the dust.”
The queen laughed.
That laugh went through Jane’s heart like a cutting sword.
“She shall pay me for that!” said she softly to herself. “Queen,” said she aloud, “you are perfectly right; he has deserved this humiliation; but now, after he is punished, you should lift him up. Nay, do not shake your beautiful head. Do it for your own sake, queen; do it from prudence. Earl Surrey, with his father, is the head of a powerful party, whom this humiliation of the Howards fills with a still more burning hate against the Seymours, and who will, in time to come, take a bloody revenge for it.”
“Ah, you frighten me!” said the queen, who had now become serious.
Lady Jane continued: “I saw how the Duke of Norfolk bit his lips, as his son had to yield to Seymour; I heard how one, here and there, muttered low curses and vows of vengeance against the Seymours.”
“Who did that? Who dared to do it?” exclaimed Catharine, springing up impetuously from her arm-chair. “Who at this court is so audacious as to wish to injure those whom the queen loves? Name him to me, Jane; I will know his name! I will know it, that I may accuse him to the king. For the king does not want that these noble Seymours should give way to the Howards; he does not want that the nobler, the better, and more glorious, should bow before these quarrelsome, domineering papists. The king loves the noble Seymours, and his powerful arm will protect them against all their enemies.”
“And, without doubt, your majesty will assist him in it?” said Jane, smiling.
This smile brought the queen back to her senses again.
She perceived that she had gone too far; that she had betrayed too much of her secret. She must, therefore, repair the damage, and allow her excitement to be forgotten. Therefore she said, calmly: “Certainly, Jane; I will assist the king to be just. But never will I be unjust, not even against these papists. If I cannot love them, nevertheless no one shall say that I hate them. And besides, it becomes a queen to rise above parties. Say, then, Jane, what can I do for poor Surrey? With what shall we bind up these wounds that the brave Seymour has inflicted on him?”
“You have publicly given the victor in the tournament a token of your great favor—you have crowned him.”
“It was the king’s order,” exclaimed Catharine, warmly.
“Well! He will not, however, command you to reward the Earl of Surrey also, if he likewise should gain the victory this evening. Do it, therefore, of your own accord, queen. Give him openly, before your whole court, a token of your favor! It is so easy for princes to make men happy, to comfort the unfortunate! A smile, a friendly word, a pressure of the hand is sufficient for it. A ribbon that you wear on your dress makes him to whom you present it, proud and happy, and raises him high above all others. Ponder it well, queen; I speak not for Earl Surrey’s sake; I am thinking more of yourself. If you have the courage, publicly and in spite of the disgrace with which King Henry threatens the Howards, to be nevertheless just to them, and to recognize their merits as well as that of others—believe me, if you do that, the whole of this powerful party, which is now hostile to you, will fall at your feet overcome and conquered. You will at last become the all-powerful and universally loved Queen of England; and, like the heretics, the papists also will call you their mistress and protectress. Consider no longer! Let your noble and generous heart prevail! Spiteful fortune has prostrated Henry Howard in the dust. Extend him your hand, queen, that he may rise again, and again stand there at your court, proud and radiant as he always was. Henry Howard well deserves that you should be gracious to him. Great and beaming like a star, he shines on high above all men; and there is no one who can say that he himself is more prudent or braver, wiser or more learned, noble or greater, than the noble, the exalted Surrey. All England resounds with his fame. The women repeat with enthusiasm his beautiful sonnets and love-songs; the learned are proud to call him their equal, and the warriors speak with admiration of his feats of arms. Be just, then, queen! You have so highly honored the merit of valor; now, honor the merit of mind also! You have, in Seymour, honored the warrior; now, in Howard, honor the poet and the man!”
“I will do it,” said Catharine, as with a charming smile she looked into Jane’s glowing and enthusiastic countenance. “I will do it, Jane, but upon one condition!”
“And this condition is—”
Catharine put her arm around Jane’s neck, and drew her close to her heart, “That you confess to me, that you love Henry Howard, whom you know how to defend so enthusiastically and warmly.”
Lady Jane gave a start, and for a moment leaned her head on the queen’s shoulder, exhausted.
“Well,” asked she, “do you confess it? Will you acknowledge that your proud, cold heart is obliged to declare itself overcome and conquered?”
“Yes, I confess it,” cried Lady Jane, as with passionate vehemence she threw herself at Catharine’s feet. “Yes, I love him—I adore him. I know it is a disdained and unhappy love; but what would you have? My heart is mightier than everything else. I love him; he is my god and my lord; I adore him as my savior and lord. Queen, you know all my secret; betray me if you will! Tell it to my father, if you wish him to curse me. Tell it to Henry Howard, if it pleases you to hear how he scoffs at me. For he, queen—he loves me not!”
“Poor unfortunate Jane!” exclaimed the queen, compassionately.
Jane uttered a low cry, and rose from her knees. That was too much. Her enemy commiserated her. She, who was to blame for her sorrow—she bemoaned her fate.
Ah, she could have strangled the queen; she could have plunged a dagger into her heart, because she dared to commiserate her.
“I have complied with your condition, queen,” said she, breathing hurriedly. “Will you now comply with my request?”
“And will you really be an advocate for this unthankful, cruel man, who does not love you? Proudly and coldly he passes your beauty by, and you—you intercede for him!”
“Queen, true love thinks not of itself! It sacrifices itself. It makes no question of the reward it receives, but only of the happiness which it bestows. I saw in his pale, sorrowful face, how much he suffered; ought I not to think of comforting him? I approached him, I addressed him; I heard his despairing lamentation over that misfortune, which, however, was not the fault of his activity and courage, but, as all the world saw, the fault of his horse, which was shy and stumbled. And as he, in all the bitterness of his pain, was lamenting that you, queen, would despise and scorn him, I, with full trust in your noble and magnanimous heart, promised him that you would, at my request, yet give him to-day, before your whole court, a token of your favor. Catharine, did I do wrong?”
“No, Jane, no! You did right; and your words shall be made good. But how shall I begin? What shall I do?”
“The earl this evening, after the king has read the Greek scene with Croke, will recite some new sonnets which he has composed. When he has done so, give him some kind of a present—be it what it may, no matter—as a token of your favor.”
“But how, Jane, if his sonnets deserve no praise and no acknowledgment?”
“You may be sure that they do deserve it. For Henry Howard is a noble and true poet, and his verses are full of heavenly melody and exalted thoughts.”
The queen smiled. “Yes,” said she, “you love him ardently; for you have no doubt as to him. We will, therefore, recognize him as a great poet. But with what shall I reward him?”
“Give him a rose that you wear in your bosom—a rosette that is fastened to your dress and shows your colors.”
“But alas, Jane, to-day I wear neither a rose nor a rosette.”
“Yet you can wear one, queen. A rosette is, indeed, wanting here on your shoulder. Your purple mantle is too negligently fastened. We must put some trimming here.”
She went hastily into the next room and returned with the box in which were kept the queen’s ribbons embroidered with gold, and bows adorned with jewels.
Lady Jane searched and selected, here and there, a long time. Then she took the crimson velvet rosette, which she herself had previously thrown into the box, and showed it to the queen.
“See, it is at the same time tasteful and rich, for a diamond clasp confines it in the middle. Will you allow me to fasten this rosette on your shoulder, and will you give it to the Earl of Surrey?”
“Yes, Jane, I will give it to him, because you wish it. But, poor Jane, what do, you gain by my doing it?”
“At any rate, a friendly smile, queen.”
“And is that enough for you? Do you love him so much, then?”
“Yes, I love him!” said Jane Douglas, with a sigh of pain, as she fastened the rosette on the queen’s shoulder.
“And now, Jane, go and announce to the master of ceremonies that I am ready, as soon as the king wishes it, to resort to the gallery.” Lady Jane turned to leave the chamber. But, already upon the threshold, she returned once more.
“Forgive me, queen, for venturing to make one more request of you. You have, however, just shown yourself too much the noble and true friend of earlier days for me not to venture one more request.”
“Now, what is it, poor Jane?”
“I have intrusted my secret not to the queen, but to Catharine Parr, the friend of my youth. Will she keep it, and betray to none my disgrace and humiliation?”
“My word for that, Jane. Nobody but God and ourselves shall ever know what we have spoken.”
Lady Jane humbly kissed her hand and murmured a few words of thanks; then she left the queen’s room to go in quest of the master of ceremonies.
In the queen’s anteroom she stopped a moment, and leaned against the wall, exhausted, and as it were crushed. Nobody was here who could observe and listen to her. She had no need to smile, no need to conceal, beneath a calm and equable appearance, all those tempestuous and despairing feelings which were working within. She could allow her hatred and her resentment, her rage and her despair, to pour forth in words and gestures, in tears and imprecations, in sobs and sighs. She could fall on her knees and beseech God for grace and mercy, and call on the devil for revenge and destruction.
When she had so done, she arose, and her demeanor resumed its wonted cold and calm expression. Only her cheeks were still paler; only a still gloomier fire darted from her eyes, and a scornful smile played about her thin, compressed lips.
She traversed the rooms and corridors, and now she entered the king’s anteroom. As she observed Gardiner, who was standing alone and separated from the rest in the embrasure of the window, she went up to him; and John Heywood, who was still hidden behind the curtain, shuddered at the frightful and scornful expression of her features.
She offered the bishop her hand, and tried to smile. “It is done” said she, almost inaudibly.
“What! The queen wears the rosette?” asked Gardiner vivaciously.
“She wears the rosette, and will give it to him.”
“And the note is in it?”
“It is concealed under the diamond clasp.”
“Oh, then she is lost!” muttered Gardiner. “If the king finds this paper, Catharine’s death-warrant is signed.”
“Hush!” said Lady Jane. “See! Lord Hertford is coming toward us. Let us go to meet him.”
They both left the window and walked out into the hall.
John Heywood immediately slipped from behind the curtain, and, softly gliding along by the wall, left the hall perceived by no one.
Outside, he stopped and reflected.
“I must see this conspiracy to the bottom,” said he to himself. “I must find out through whom and by what they wish to destroy her; and I must have sure and undeniable proof in my hands, in order to be able to convict them, and successfully accuse them to the king. Therefore it is necessary to be cautious and prudent. So let us consider what to do. The simplest thing would be to beg the queen not to wear the rosette. But that is only to demolish the web for this time, without, however, being able to kill the spider that wove it. So she must wear the rosette; for besides, without that I should never be able either to find out to whom she is to give it. But the paper that is concealed in the rosette—that I must have—that must not be in it. ‘If the king finds this paper. Catharine’s death-warrant is signed.’ Now, my reverend priest of the devil, the king will not find that paper, for John Heywood will not have it so. But how shall I begin? Shall I tell the queen what I heard? No! She would lose her cheerful spirit and become embarrassed, and the embarrassment would be in the king’s eyes the most convincing proof of her guilt. No, I must take this paper out of the rosette without the queen’s being aware of it. Boldly to work, then! I must have this paper, and tweak these hypocrites by the nose. How it can be done, it is not clear to me yet; but I will do it—that is enough. Halloo, forward to the queen!”
With precipitant haste he ran through the halls and corridors, while with a smile he muttered away to himself: “Thank God, I enjoy the honor of being the fool; for only the king and the fool have the privilege of being able to enter unannounced every room, even the queen’s.”
Catharine was alone in her boudoir, when the small door, through which the king was accustomed to resort to her, was softly opened.
“Oh, the king is coming!” said she, walking to the door to greet her husband.
“Yes, the king is coming, for the fool is already here,” said John Heywood, who entered through the private door. “Are we alone, queen? Does nobody overhear us?”
“No, John Heywood, we are all alone. What do you bring me?”
“A letter, queen.”
“From whom?” asked she, and a glowing crimson flitted over her cheek.
“From whom?” repeated John Heywood, with a waggish smile. “I do not know, queen; but at any rate it is a begging letter; and without doubt you would do well not to read it at all; for I bet you, the shameless writer of this letter demands of you some impossibility—it may be a smile, or a pressure of the hand, a lock of your hair, or perchance even a kiss. So, queen, do not read the begging letter at all.”
“John,” said she, smiling, and yet trembling with impatience, “John, give me the letter.”
“I will sell it to you, queen. I have learned that from the king, who likewise gives nothing away generously, without taking in return more than he gives. So let us trade. I give you the letter; you give me the rosette which you wear on your shoulder there.”
“Nay, indeed, John; choose something else—I cannot give you the rosette.”
“And by the gods be it sworn!” exclaimed John, with comic pathos, “I give you not the letter, if you do not give me the rosette.”
“Silly loon,” said the queen, “I tell you I cannot! Choose something else, John; and I conjure you, dear John, give me the letter.”
“Then only, when you give me the rosette. I have sworn it by the gods, and what I vow to them, that I stick to! No, no, queen—not those sullen airs, not that angry frown. For if I cannot in earnest receive the rosette as a present, then let us do like the Jesuits and papists, who even trade with the dear God, and snap their fingers at Him. I must keep my oath! I give you the letter, and you give me the rosette; but listen—you only lend it to me; and when I have it in my hand a moment, I am generous and bountiful, like the king, and I make you a present of your own property.”
With a quick motion the queen tore the rosette from her shoulder, and handed it to John Heywood.
“Now give me the letter, John.”
“Here it is,” said John Heywood as he received the rosette. “Take it; and you will see that Thomas Seymour is my brother.”
“Your brother?” asked Catharine with a smile, as with trembling hand she broke the seal.
“Yes, my brother, for he is a fool! Ah, I have a great many brothers. The family of fools is so very large!”
The queen no longer heard. She was reading the letter of her lover. She had eyes only for those lines, that told her that Thomas Seymour loved her, adored her, and was pining away with longing after her. She did not see how John Heywood, with nimble hand, unfastened the diamond clasp from the rosette, and took out of it the little paper that was concealed in the folds of the ribbon.
“She is saved!” murmured he, while he thrust the fatal paper into his doublet, and fastened the clasp again with the pin. “She is saved, and the king will not sign her death-warrant this time.”
Catharine had read the letter to the end, and hid it in her bosom.