A HISTORICAL ROMANCE.
FROM THE FRENCH OF THE PRINCESSE DE CRAON
After the king had declared that he no longer wished her to assume any authority in the household, the queen secluded herself entirely in the most retired portion of the palace. In default of happiness, she at least found forgetfulness there; for it was no longer thought necessary to watch over her. Her rival, on the contrary, glorying in the light of the king’s favor and of her own youth and beauty, spent her days in festivity and enjoyment. She allowed herself to be carried away by the flattery of the throng of courtiers who followed in her train and servilely implored a glance from the eye, a smile or a word from her whom they had so quickly abandoned but a short time before.
For several days, however, the tumult of these fêtes, the sound of music and dancing, had not entered to wound the heart of Catherine in her seclusion. She was seated near the fire, and turning in her hands some worsted stuff intended to make a garment for a poor child. The heavy folds of the curtains hung motionless, the light flame of the waxen tapers burning near her had not wavered, and yet Catherine started nervously and trembled. The anguish of mind she had so long endured had, so to speak, worn away the mortal covering and brought her soul in direct contact with exterior objects; she saw that which possessed no corporeal shape, she heard that which had no sound. Some person unknown has entered her apartments; her beautiful eyes are turned towards the door. Very soon, in fact, the curtains roll on their golden rings. A man enters. He advances a step and pauses. It is Norris, the favorite attendant of Henry VIII.
“What wouldst thou?” asked the queen with that sweet but imposing majesty of manner so natural to her that she could not lay it aside.
“Madam—the king—madam!” And the unfortunate man hesitated, trembling in every limb.
A mist passed over Catherine’s eyes.
“Madam,” he was at last able to articulate, “the king, my lord, sends me to tell you that before daybreak to-morrow morning he wishes you to be ready to leave the palace.”
The queen turned pale.…
“Has your majesty any command to give me?” said Norris after a moment’s silence.
“The king shall be obeyed,” replied the queen coldly, and she made a sign for him to withdraw. He bowed and hastily left the apartment. Catherine remained mute with grief and astonishment. “I have, then, still more to suffer!” she cried at length, falling on her knees. “He drives me from his presence—he, my own husband. He will not even permit me to breathe in the most remote corner of his palace!… Ah! well. Yes, I will fly from this house of malediction, whose hearthstone has been soiled by infamy, and may I never enter it again!”
But, alas! Catherine had as yet spoken for herself alone. Suddenly the mother’s heart asserted its supremacy; she arose hastily, seized one of the lights near her, and, passing rapidly through several apartments, she at length paused, panting for breath.
“No one!” she exclaimed, looking wildly around her, “no one has been near these apartments to disturb her rest. The most profound silence reigns.” And in her turn she feared to awaken her daughter.
Softly approaching the bed on which reposed the little Mary, she drew aside with her royal hand the heavy curtain of purple and gold. The child was sleeping profoundly; her head rested on one of the delicate arms; her long, golden hair, loosened from all confinement, hung over her lovely neck and shoulders, and down on her light muslin nightdress. She had thrown off the bedclothing that covered her. The blood, pure and calm, circulated gently through the transparent veins. She seemed as happy, as tranquil, as her mother was agitated and miserable. Catherine, in an agony inexpressible, regarded her sleeping child, her hand nervously clenching the curtain she was holding back.
“Sleep on, my daughter, sleep!” she murmured. “Mayst thou never know the weary vigils and bitter anguish of suffering! But what do I say? Does he not involve thee in the unjust proscription of thy mother? The hatred he bears towards her, will he not extend it to thee? Art thou not the very link that must be broken?”
And Catherine, in despair, drew back like a stranger in this apartment she must leave before the dawn of the morning.… Again she returned to the couch of her child. She bent over her; her lips almost touched her forehead. Then a gloomy courage took possession of her soul.
“Why torture myself thus,” she cried, “since thou art still left to me? Though all forget me, though the earth open beneath me, I will never more be separated from thee. Thou shalt be my joy, my life, my hope; thou shalt become my sole, my only friend! One day, yes, one day thou wilt understand thy mother. Let him cast thee far away from him—ah! what matters it? I open my heart to thee! The earth is vast; she will welcome her unfortunate children. And when, worn down by sorrow, I shall be ready to yield up my life, my hand will still be raised to bless thee, and my eyes will be fixed upon thine. It shall be thou who wilt close these eyes before I descend into the night of the grave, and thy tears will bedew my last resting-place. Then wilt thou be courageous, and in thy turn learn how to vanquish and defy evil fortune.”
Thus spoke the unhappy queen. She arose and again fell on her knees. But the hour strikes—that hour she had desired, hoped, waited for, as a moment of happiness, of hope and consolation. It now strikes, clashing, resounding through the silent chambers of her stricken heart, only to awaken a new and fearful sorrow. Still, she hesitates not; she again embraces the child, then tears herself away—flies. She hastens eagerly on—Catherine has disappeared.…
* * * * *
On being informed of the clergy’s refusal the king fell into a furious rage. For three days the bishops were shut up in Westminster. The royal commissioners went to and fro continually from the king’s palace to the assembly; but the deliberations were conducted with so much secrecy that nothing was known of them outside.
Meanwhile, night came on, and the most profound silence reigned throughout the long cloisters of the abbey. The pale rays of the moon alone illuminated the splendid arches. The sanctuary was deserted, and the red flicker of a lamp suspended in the immense vault showed no larger than a luminous point set in space. A woman covered with a long veil stood within the sacred place, leaning against the iron railing, apparently absorbed in prayer. But no, she was not praying; the human soul must be calm and resigned before it can truly lift itself up towards God. Burning tears streamed from her eyes in torrents upon the stone pavement beneath her feet; she started at the slightest creaking of the wooden stalls surrounding the choir, and her attentive ear caught even the least breath of air. Anon footsteps were heard.
“St. Catherine, pray for us,” said a dear and well-known voice.
“Amen,” responded the queen; and she advanced towards two men who were approaching.
“More!” she exclaimed, “More! you have abandoned me, then?”
“Never, madam!”
“Well, then,” she cried, seizing his hand, “abandon me now! Cease, cease to sacrifice yourself for me! Know that you have no longer a queen; the banished Catherine leaves to-morrow the palace of her cruel husband. No place of refuge is offered her; she is left to choose some obscure corner of the earth where she will be at liberty to die. But he is mistaken! I will never leave the soil of England—no, never!” she cried. “I will never look again upon my own happy land. ‘Woman,’ they would say to me, ‘you have deserted your children; you have not known how to die in the land over which you ought to reign; has the Spanish blood, then, ceased to flow in your veins?’ No, never!”
On hearing her speak thus More stood transfixed with astonishment and sorrow.
“They have dared!” he said at last, “they have dared, Rochester!”
“Yes,” replied the queen, “they have dared! But, Rochester, speak; the time is short; every moment is precious. What has passed in the assembly?”
“Where shall I find words to tell you, madam?” replied the good and venerable old man. “Parliament has been won over; your friends, powerless, have been made to tremble for their own lives; threats of death pass from mouth to mouth. I myself have scarcely been able to escape their criminal attempts on my life; a dish on my table was poisoned, and several of my people have died from eating of it. Consternation reigns secretly in every heart. The clergy are threatened on all sides; the people are exasperated by a thousand calumnies, the sources of which remain scrupulously concealed. The soil of old England seems about to be shaken to its foundations. Vice stalks forth with head erect, while the virtuous man flies in terror. There is time yet, madam. Save yourself! Save us all! Renounce an alliance so fatal for you; abandon this prince who no longer puts any restraint upon his passions—he is not worthy of you; and let the house of the Lord become your retreat and be your refuge!”
“What sayest thou?” replied Catherine. “Was it for cowardly advice like this I called you to me, Rochester? And my daughter—what kingdom and what father would you give her?”
“God, madam, and the justice of her cause!” cried the afflicted old bishop.
“Then you have yielded?” said the queen.
“Yes,” replied Rochester, “we have recoiled before our worst fears; we have made a pact with falsehood, since we can no longer believe in the veracity of the king. He has summoned before him in turn each one of the most influential members of the conference. He has sworn to them, in the presence of God himself, that he desired in naught to usurp the authority of the spiritual head of the church; that naught could ever change him from being the faithful and obedient child of the church he is; that he hated heresy, and that his sole desire was to prevent it spreading in his kingdom—in a word, that he wished to live and die in the Catholic faith, in the faith of his fathers, and that he only asked of them a title that would give him honor and prove the confidence they had in their prince and the love they bore toward their lawful sovereign. Now, madam, what shall I say to you? He has been so far successful in convincing them that they have carried the majority of votes. We have granted him everything—with this restriction, however: that we acceded to his demand only so far as the law of God would permit. But, alas! discouragement and dissensions have entered among us, and the choice of men by whom the king surrounds himself is sufficient evidence of the road he is resolved to follow. Thomas Audley replaces More, and Cranmer, that base intriguer, is installed in the place of the learned and immortal Warham.”
“Great heaven!” said the queen, “that vile tool of Anne Boleyn primate of England? Then all is lost to faith, hope, the future, succor—all!”
Meanwhile, a strange disturbance was heard, and all at once a door leading to the interior of the abbey was opened. A number of the king’s guard appeared, armed and bearing torches. The queen, terrified, hurriedly retired with More and Rochester within the shadow of a chapel where for centuries had reposed the ashes of the old Saxon kings. The tombs, on which they were represented in sculpture the size of life, lying at full length, their hands crossed on their breasts, the head and feet resting on pillows of stone, cast deep shadows all around them. These shadows, fortunately, concealed the queen, Rochester, and More entirely from observation, while they could see distinctly all that took place in the choir.
The monks, marching in two lines, defiled two by two and took their places in the stalls, while the guards stationed themselves at the different openings. The gleam of the torches lighted up everything. Soon was seen to enter the Abbot of Westminster, who preceded three men richly dressed and enveloped in cloaks. They all three seated themselves in large velvet arm-chairs; but one of them sat in the loftiest and most richly adorned of all. In a word, it was plain that a tribunal was constituted, but that it waited the presence of the accused in order to give judgment. He tarried not long. The door again opened, and they beheld a young woman enter whose countenance was very pale. She walked between two guards, and her dress was that of a religious.
“What!” said Sir Thomas in a stifled tone. “Why, that is the Holy Maid of Kent! I believe she has her hands bound. No, it is her veil. What a strange matter! Poor young girl! The rumor of her predictions must have reached the king’s ears. I have so constantly warned her not to meddle in affairs of state!” murmured More.
“Can it be she?” cried the queen and Rochester in the same breath. “More, are you sure of it?”
“Quite sure,” he answered. “I remember perfectly her pale and suffering countenance.”
In the meantime they made the young girl seat herself on a stool in the midst of the assembly, and the Abbot of Westminster began to interrogate her.
“What is your name?” he asked in a very loud tone of voice.
She neither moved nor replied.
“I conjure you, my sister, to answer me,” he added more solemnly still. “What is your name?”
“Elizabeth Barton,” she answered, fixing on him a lingering look of surprise and astonishment.
“Where were you born?”
“In Aldington, in the county of Kent,” answered she very distinctly.
“What is your age?”
“Twenty-three years.”
“Why did you become a religious?” continued the abbot.
“I am not a religious; I have assumed this habit in order to do penance and take care of the poor.”
“Who has persuaded you to do this?”
“Myself.”
“But do you not pretend to have revelations from heaven, and have you not told the assembled people of extraordinary things which are hidden in the future?”
“Yes, my lord,” she replied; and her eyes began to gleam with a singular light.
“Well! repeat what you have said,” interrupted he who was seated in the loftiest chair, rising abruptly to his feet. “Repeat what you have said,” he continued. And the long, flame-colored plume that shaded his large hat seemed to tremble with impatience, like the head which it covered.
At the sound of that voice, so imperious and bearing the expression of a soul so deeply agitated, the Holy Maid of Kent seemed stricken with horror. She arose and stood in the midst of the assembly, and, turning toward the speaker, extended her hand.
“O King Henry!” she cried, “think not to conceal yourself from my eyes. I know you; I know with what power you are invested; and now you would have me tell you what I have said and teach you what I have learned. Well, then, … yes, … king, … but mortal like myself, … tremble, recoil with horror and dismay, at sight of the black hypocrisy with which you have enveloped your heart. Look well; fix your eyes on the infamous vices that have eaten out the last sentiment of virtue God had implanted there.… Your crimes have multiplied like the sands which roll with the waves in the depths of the sea; you will inundate the steps of your throne with the blood of the noblest and purest. Heresy, introduced by you into this land, will multiply under a thousand different forms; everywhere with truth will be banished true charity. The years of your reign will witness the birth of more calamities than the rain of heaven will cause flowers to grow. The woman you desire will dishonor your bed and perish on the scaffold which your own hands will have erected; and your daughter, the child you this day reject, shall reign. Yes! she shall reign,” she cried, “in spite of all your efforts. Then your bones, eaten by worms, shall be buried under the stones of the sepulchre; but your execrable memory shall live among men, and your name—this name of Henry VIII., stamped with the ineffaceable seal of blood—will carry down to ages most remote the horrible memory of a monster!… I have spoken!”[146]
Who could describe the effect produced by these last words on the spectators? Whiter than the linen robe which enveloped his form, the Abbot of Westminster was seized with terror. It was he who had persuaded the king to summon this woman, in order, he said, to undeceive the people, who believed in her, and pacify in this way the credulous and superstitious masses.
A prolonged silence reigned throughout that vast temple; who should dare to speak?
Cromwell alone turned towards the king. He encountered his fixed and furious gaze, which plainly said: “Woe to those who have deceived me!”
He was not at all disconcerted by it. “Be calm, sire,” he said in a low voice, “be calm; nothing is lost yet.”
Henry made no reply, but Cromwell needed no answer.
“My dear sister,” he said in a gentle and honeyed tone, “who has instructed you to say these things?” And he saw Henry VIII. convulsively clench his fists.
“No one,” answered she in a sweet, sonorous voice.
“No one! That is hard to believe,” he replied in a tone almost of derision.… “You have, at least, repeated all this to several others.… That the king, your lord, may believe you to be sincere, you should hide nothing from him. Have you not written to Cardinal Wolsey?”
“Without doubt,” she replied, “I have informed him of what I ought to have let him know, … because that was my duty. Sir Thomas More, the lord chancellor, can bear witness that I tell you the truth.”
“Ah! Sir Thomas too,” replied with emphasis the odious Cromwell; and he dwelt especially on the name of this just man. “Sir Thomas More! It is very well, my dear sister. We verily believe thee.”
The anxiety that seized on the invisible spectators of the chapel may be imagined. The queen was entirely absorbed with the thought of her daughter; but on hearing the terrible indiscretion of this foolish or inspired woman she with difficulty stifled a cry of terror.
“More has written to you, then?” continued Cromwell, whose ingenuity was never at fault.
“Yes, to recommend himself to my prayers, but not on this subject.”
“But you have spoken with him many times,” replied Cromwell in a confident tone, although he really knew nothing about it.
“Once only,” she answered, “in the house of the Carthusians at Richmond, where I saw him with Masters Beering, Risby, and my Lord Rochester.… But they advised me not to speak of these things, and to keep my revelations secret.”
“They were only the more criminal,” replied Cromwell; “because it was their duty to have unfolded the wicked designs of which you are guilty toward his royal majesty.”
At the word “guilty” she raised her head and fixed her black and piercing eyes upon Cromwell.
“Guilty!” she exclaimed. “It is a crime, then, to speak the truth?”
She said no more, but took her seat without awaiting permission.
In the meantime the king, thanks to Cromwell, had time to recover from the astonishment that had seized him, and to hide from the monks the humiliation which he could hardly wait to avenge; for, not disdaining himself to subdue this feeble enemy whom they had represented as unable to speak in his presence, he had believed, on the faith of his confidants, it was worth while to summon the Holy Maid of Kent before him, in order to show that she was worthy of no confidence. Now the most furious thoughts were at strife within him. How had she recognized him? Had the queen’s friends instructed her?… But she would not name them. What a story this would make throughout the kingdom! And his hardened heart could not cease being troubled.
Cromwell, despite the joy he felt at having made her name More and the Bishop of Rochester, was at a loss how to close with dignity this disagreeable scene. The monks opened their office-books and pretended to be reading; the woman remained seated on her stool and said nothing more; the guards waited some signal, which no one gave.
The king decided the question, which was becoming every moment more and more embarrassing.
“It is well,” he said; “we have had enough of it; I am satisfied.”
He arose abruptly. All followed him; the guards threw open the doors, extinguished the lights, led away the Holy Maid of Kent, and the monks slowly retired into the abbey.
* * * * *
The hours of night rapidly succeeded each other; already a whitish circle began to rise and extend over the horizon. Nevertheless, all were wrapped in sleep in the plain and beneath the shadow of the woods. The industrious husbandman still rested his weary limbs on his rude couch; the dog which guarded his thatched cottage had ceased to howl; and even the invalid found, at the approach of day, a moment of repose. But idleness, always so prolonged in the palaces of kings, seemed to have been banished from the palace of Whitehall. Lights were seen glancing to and fro athwart the large windows; hurried footsteps were heard running up and down the marble stairways; whilst a coach with several horses attached, slowly drove around a distant courtyard.
Anne Boleyn herself was already occupied with the arrangement of her attire. She was seated upon soft cushions of velvet before a toilet table of ebony and gold. A young girl named Anne Savage, whom she preferred above all her maids because of her uninterrupted cheerfulness, her merry chat, and her expertness in the arts of the toilet, perfumed the long and beautiful hair which she was arranging with extreme care on the brow of her mistress, while the latter was searching in a casket she held in her lap for the jewels she wished to adorn her ears and add to her coiffure.
“There is nothing at all in this box!” cried Boleyn, tossing over pell-mell the most magnificent jewelry.… “These emeralds are so trying to the face! These pearls injure the complexion! Anne, go bring me something else. All these are frightful I tell you!… But what is that? I hear a noise, … a cry.… Listen.… No, … it is in the king’s apartments.…”
“I hear nothing,” replied Anne Savage after a moment’s silence, during which she had not breathed.
“Ah! yes, I hear it,” replied Anne Boleyn; “I suspect the cause of it, too.… But I do not want to think about this.… However, it is a bad omen.…”
And as Lady Boleyn was very superstitious, and her conscience far from easy, she let the casket fall at her feet, and, bowing her head on her bosom, seemed to be absorbed in deep reflection.
Anne Savage tried to complete the coiffure as she sat in that position, but she failed in her task.
“If my lady cannot hold up her head,” at last cried the maid impatiently, “it will be impossible for me to arrange her head-dress properly.”
This admonition recalled Anne Boleyn to herself; she immediately raised her head and began carefully to scrutinize herself in the mirror placed before her. Well pleased with her appearance, she arranged two or three hair-pins ornamented with pearls strung like the beads of a rosary, and drew down a little the net-work of gold that fell below her cap and confined her tresses.
With this improvement she arose, in order to choose from among the dresses she had caused to be brought and laid out on all the furniture in the room.
“This blue, … or rather this lilac,” she murmured; “no, these embroideries are heavy and ugly. I will try this white.… I would have liked a rose-color; here is one. Really, there is nothing here that pleases me.… It is true,” she continued spitefully, “any of these ought to be good enough for one who is going to be married in a garret!”
“In a garret!” interrupted the maid. “What! is it not in the chapel my lady is to be given away?”
“No,” replied Lady Boleyn, reddening. “The king has changed everything since yesterday evening. He has had an altar put up in one of the upper rooms of the palace. You alone are to carry my train, and Norris and Heneage will serve as witnesses. These are the honors which he deigns to accord the Queen of England.… Ah! my dear Anne, I am very miserable,” added Lady Anne, almost ready to burst into tears.
“In a garret!” repeated Savage, and she stood as if stupefied. “In a garret! O my lady! how can you suffer this?… Well, now do you not think I was right in telling you that you would do wrong to marry the king, and abandon so cruelly Lord Percy, Earl of Northumberland, and lord of I know not how many boroughs? He would not have believed himself obliged to marry you in the garret of Northumberland Castle! He loved you so much; he was so proud of you! Many a time has he said to me: ‘Anne, you are a good girl; you have the same name as your mistress. You shall never leave my wife; I will give you a marriage portion and an honest man for a husband.’ Besides, madam,” continued Anne Savage in a grave, sententious manner, “I can never forget that my grandfather, who was very learned and respected by all the parish, used to say to me as I would sit by his side to sew: ‘Remember well, my little Anne, never to marry a man who is above you in wealth or rank; otherwise you will not be happy, because love flies away very quickly, and reproaches follow.’”
“Ah! my dear Anne, do not recall anew my regrets,” cried Lady Boleyn, with tears in her eyes. “I have never ceased to love Percy; … and when I compare the violence and haughty manner of the king with the gentleness and virtues of Percy, I am miserable for having listened to my ambition. Oh! how severely I am punished. Henry considers me overwhelmed with honor by his loving me! Submissive to all his caprices, I am for ever fearful of losing his favor; while Percy, happy in the sole hope of marrying me, always thanked me for every smile or word that I addressed him. Anne, do you believe that he has entirely forgotten me?” she asked suddenly.
“Truly, my lady, I wot not; I only know by my cousin Savage that he no longer receives any one in his fair castle at York.… But be it as it may, how, my lady, could it profit you to-day?”
“Nay, as thou sayest, naught, my poor Anne,” replied Lady Boleyn; but as she spoke she could not restrain her tears.
She recalled to mind all that she had done to induce the king to marry her; that, since she had been able to attain an end so difficult, she certainly ought to feel satisfied; and yet, in spite of these considerations, she found herself overwhelmed with regrets for the past and fears for the future. She reflected that Henry had conducted himself so cruelly toward the queen, if ever she ceased to please him she would have everything to fear; and the happiness of that brilliant picture of thrones and honors which she had always dwelt on with such ardent longings seemed to vanish at the very moment when she saw it about to be realized. But Anne Savage could not conceive what should afflict her on this point.
“Why,” she exclaimed, “should you torture yourself in this way? It is too late to think of bringing him back, since he is already married. Besides, it is very strange; for you have told me a hundred times that you loved nobody but the king.”
“You are right,” replied Lady Boleyn; “that is true. I did love him, and I love him still; but I feel that it is impossible to love very long a person whom one cannot respect.”
“Better to have thought of that sooner,” murmured the maid; but she took care not to say so aloud.
Absorbed as she was in her sorrow, Lady Boleyn did not forget the care of her toilet, and, to assist in drying her tears, she turned the Venetian mirror in every direction in order to survey herself; but she was by no means satisfied with the ensemble nor the details it presented to her.
“See!” she cried, “how badly these sleeves fit; and these heavy plaits around my waist. In sooth, never was I so badly dressed. This white satin robe with silver flowers is frightful.… Besides, I wanted a rose-colored dress, … but of a color that is not here. They leave me with naught indeed. This may not be borne. Go, bid all my women enter; I would know what they think of me.”
Anne Savage ran to open the door. Scarcely had she opened it.…
But let us leave the frivolous and coquettish Boleyn to adorn with so much care that form which the dust of the tomb has long since claimed, and follow rather this man, all flushed, out of breath, and hurried, who eagerly mounts the stairs in search of the king. The guards are standing near the doors; the mats on which they passed the night are still lying on the floor in the lower hall of the palace; they rub their half-opened eyes, still bewildered with sleep. They offer the usual salutations to Norris, who advances, and whom they recognize; but he passes through their midst without seeming to perceive them, and enters abruptly the apartment of the king.
Henry VIII., leaning against one of the windows, his face pressed close to the glass, was gazing eagerly out to behold all he had been able to see of Catherine’s departure; but, hearing the door open, he turned quickly around, withdrew from the window, and, going to the far end of the apartment, took his seat.
“Well, good Norris,” he said, looking attentively at him, “what a sad air you wear! It was, then, very difficult to get Catherine off? I had foreseen it all, however.”
“Your majesty had foreseen it all, and yet methinks you have chosen not to be by the while.”
“What, then, has happed?”
“Naught, of great moment—no, in sooth, naught but what should have been. But I vow my heart was bruised sore when the queen’s grief brake forth. Nothing loath was she to go; but when she saw the Princess Mary was not let go with her, and the door of the coach closed, she fain would have cast herself without. Then she uttered cries the most heartrending, and, stretching out her arms towards us, besought us to let her return and once more embrace her daughter. The princess, seeing the despair of her mother, with sobs and cries begged to follow her. At length, there being no way to prevent the queen from descending, she clasped her a thousand times in her arms. She then wrote something on a scrap of paper I have here, and bade me deliver it to your majesty, which I promised to do. She entreated all present to beg you to have compassion on her and send the Princess Mary to her; that she asked but this one favor, and then she would consent to do all that you wished. It was necessary to carry her to the coach; for she fell fainting while embracing her daughter for the last time.”
“Always these fainting fits of hers,” replied the king angrily; “yet will she say it is I who have slain her. Come, let us see the paper!”
Norris presented it.
The king opened it and read the following words which the queen had written in a trembling hand:
“Sire: What have I done to you that you treat me thus? You banish me from your palace and condemn me to exile. Alas! to this I had submitted; but why have you the cruelty to separate me from the only good of mine that is left in all the world? You know well that never have I gainsaid wish of yours; but is it in my power not to be your lawful wife? I conjure you, then, to have compassion on me! Give me back my daughter; give her to me, and I will weep no more the lot you have cast for me. Become a stranger in the land over which you reign, at least permit to die in peace an unfortunate woman whom you have deprived of her rank, her country, and her friends. Leave me my daughter to console the last days of a life that is almost ended. What can you hope or fear from her? Since you cast her out from your arms, leave me the happiness to take her to mine. I am her mother; I have brought her into the world in sorrow; I have nourished her from my own bosom—she is mine; and, since it is your will to deprive her of a father, do not, at least, tear her from the arms of her unhappy mother.”
This letter, still all wet with tears, produced a painful impression on the mind of Henry.
“This fellow will assuredly find me of the cruelest,” he said to himself. “It is well, it is well,” he added in a loud voice. “It is a request that she makes to me; we will see to it later on. Everything is ready, Norris?” he added immediately.
“Yes, sire; your orders have been executed with the greatest exactness. Heneage and Lady Berkley are below; they await your majesty.”
“Is Dr. Roland also there?” demanded the king. “Yes, sire; he has been there more than an hour.”
“Well, go and seek Lady Boleyn.”
Norris immediately descended. He found all the doors of Lady Boleyn’s apartments open, and in the distance heard exclamations mingling, and unceasingly repeated.
“Oh! how lovely is my lady. Never did she look more fair!” they cried. “How handsomely my lady’s hair is dressed, and what beautiful hair it is! What a sweet complexion, what a charming figure! There is not a woman in all the kingdom who is my lady’s equal!”
Hearing this concert of praise, Anne Boleyn began to take courage.
“No, no,” she said with an air of disdain; “I am very badly dressed to-day.”
As she said these words Norris entered and announced to Lady Boleyn that the king awaited her.
She followed him at once, accompanied by Anne Savage; the other women stood in astonishment, and were very curious to know why this favor was shown to their companion, while the jealousy with which they already regarded her was still further increased.
[146] See Sanders on the Holy Maid of Kent.
TO BE CONTINUED.