第28章 HENRY THE EIGHTH AND HIS WIVES.(7)

"The king declared that he had been only in appearance, not in his innermost conscience, disposed to this marriage, from which he now shrank back, because it would be, properly speaking, nothing more than perfidy, perjury, and bigamy. For Anne's father had once betrothed her to the son of the Duke of Lorraine, and had solemnly pledged him his word to give her as a wife to the young duke as soon as she was of age; rings had been exchanged and the marriage contract already drawn up. Anne of Cleves, therefore, was virtually already married, and Henry, with his tender conscience, could not make one already married his wife. [Footnote: Burnet.] He made her, therefore, his sister, and gave her the palace at Richmond for a residence, in case she wished to remain in England. She accepted it;her blood, which crept coldly and quietly through her veins, did not rise at the thought of being despised and repudiated. She accepted it, and remained in England.

"She was rejected because she was ugly; and now the king selected Catharine Howard for his fifth consort, because she was pretty. Of this marriage I know but little to tell you, for, at that time, Ihad already gone to Dublin as minister, whither you soon followed me. Catharine was very beautiful, and the king's heart, now growing old, once more flamed high with youthful love. He loved her more warmly than any other of his wives. He was so happy in her that, kneeling down publicly in the church, with a loud voice he thanked God for the happiness which his beautiful young queen afforded him.

But this did not last long. Even while the king was extolling it, his happiness had reached its highest point, and the next day he was dashed down into the abyss. I speak without poetical exaggeration, my child. The day before, he thanked God for his happiness, and the next morning Catharine Howard was already imprisoned and accused, as an unfaithful wife, a shameless strumpet.[Footnote: Tytler, p. 432.]

More than seven lovers had preceded her royal spouse, and some of them had accompanied her even on the progress through Yorkshire, which she made with the king her husband. This time it was no pretence, for he had not yet had time to fall in love with another woman, and Catharine well knew how to enchain him and ever to kindle new flames within him. But just because he loved her, he could not forgive her for having deceived him. In love there is so much cruelty and hatred; and Henry, who but yesterday lay at her feet, burned to-day with rage and jealousy, as yesterday with love and rapture. In his rage, however, he still loved her, and when he held in his hand indubitable proof of her guilt, he wept like a child.

But since he could no longer be her lover, he would be her hangman;since she had spotted the crimson of his royal mantle, he would dye it afresh with her own crimson blood. And he did so. Catharine Howard was forced to lay her beautiful head upon the block, as Anne Boleyn had done before her; and Anne's death was now once more avenged. Lady Rochfort had been Anne Boleyn's accuser, and her testimony had brought that queen to the scaffold; but now she was convicted of being Catharine Howard's assistant and confidante in her love adventures, and with Catharine, Lady Rochfort also ascended the scaffold.

"Ah, the king needed a long time to recover from this blow. He searched two years for a pure, uncontaminated virgin, who might become his queen without danger of the scaffold. But he found none;so he took then Lord Neville's widow, Catharine Parr. But you know, my child, that Catharine is an unlucky name for Henry's queens. The first Catharine he repudiated, the second he beheaded. What will he do with the third?"Lady Jane smiled. "Catharine does not love him," said she, "and Ibelieve she would willingly consent, like Anne of Cleves, to become his sister, instead of his wife.""Catharine does not love the king?" inquired Lord Douglas, in breathless suspense. "She loves another, then!""No, my father! Her heart is yet like a sheet of white paper: no single name is yet inscribed there.""Then we must write a name there, and this name must drive her to the scaffold, or into banishment," said her father impetuously. "It is your business, my child, to take a steel graver, and in some way write a name in Catharine's heart so deep and indelibly, that the king may some day read it there."