The Fifth Queen Crowned
heard these words of the Duke's, that the Queen was older than she
reported. He would have me say that the Queen's Highness was of a
marriageable age and contracted to her cousin Dearham.'
'Merciful God!' the Lady Mary said again. 'Dear God, show me some way to
tear from myself the sin of my begetting. I had rather my mother's
confessor had been my father than the King! Merciful God!'
'Never was woman pressed as I was to say this thing. And well ye
wot--better than I did before--what this King is. I tell you--and I
swear it----'
She stopped and trembled, her eyes, from which the colour had gone, wide
open and lustreless, her face pallid and ashen, her mouth hanging open.
The Queen was moving towards her.
She came very slowly, her hands waving as if she sought support from the
air, but her head was erect.
'What will you do?' the Lady Mary said. 'Let us take counsel!'
Katharine Howard said no word. It was as if she walked in her sleep.
V
The King sat on the raised throne of his council chamber. All the Lords
of his Council were there and all in black. There was Norfolk with his
yellow face who feigned to laugh and scoff, now that he had proved
himself no lover of the Queen's. There was Gardiner of Winchester,
sitting forward with his cruel and eager eyes upon the table. Next him
was the Lord Mayor, Michael Dormer, and the Lord Chancellor. And so
round the horse-shoe table against the wall sat all the other lords and
commissioners that had been appointed to make inquiry. Sir Anthony
Browne was there, and Wriothesley with his great beard, and the Duke of
Suffolk with his hanging jaw. A silence had fallen upon them all, and
the witnesses were all done with.
On high on his throne the King sat, monstrous and leaning over to one
side, his face dabbled with tears. He gazed upon Cranmer who stood on
high beside him, the King gazing upwards into his face as if for comfort
and counsel.
'Why, you shall save her for me?' he said.
Cranmer's face was haggard, and upon it too there were tears.
'It were the gladdest thing that ever I did,' he said, 'for I do believe
this Queen is not so guilty.'
'God of His mercy bless thee, Cranmer,' he said, and wearily he touched
his black bonnet at the sacred name. 'I have done all that I might when
I spoke with Mary Hall. It shall save me her life.'
Cranmer looked round upon the lords below them; they were all silent but
only the Duke of Norfolk who laughed to the Lord Mayor. The Lord Mayor,
a burly man, was more pallid and haggard than any. All the others had
fear for themselves written upon their faces. But the citizen was not
used to these trials, of which the others had seen so many.
The Archbishop fell on his knees on the step before the King's throne.
'Gracious and dread Lord,' he said, and his low voice trembled like that
of a schoolboy, 'Saviour, Lord, and Fount of Justice of this realm!
Hitherto these trials have been of traitor-felons and villains outside
the circle of your house. Now that they be judged and dead, we, your
lords, pray you that you put off from you this most heavy task of judge.
For inasmuch as we live by your life and have health by your health, in
this realm afflicted with many sores that you alone can heal and dangers
that you alone can ward off, so we have it assured and certain that many
too great labours and matters laid upon you imperil us all. In that, as
well for our selfish fears as for the great love, self-forgetting, that
we have of your person, we pray you that--coming now to the trial of
this your wife--you do rest, though well assured we are that greatly and
courageously you would adventure it, upon the love of us your lords.
Appoint, therefore, such a Commission as you shall well approve to make
this most heavy essay and trial.'
So low was his voice that, to hear him, many lords rose from their seats
and came over against the throne. Thus all that company were in the
upper part of the hall, and through the great window at the further end
the sun shone down upon them, having parted the watery clouds. To their
mass of black it gave blots and gouts of purple and blue and scarlet,
coming through the dight panes.
'Lay off this burden of trial and examination upon us that so willingly,
though with sighs and groans, would bear it.'
Suddenly the King stood up and pointed, his jaw fallen open. Katharine
Howard was coming up the floor of the hall. Her hands were folded before
her; her face was rigid and calm; she looked neither to right nor to
left, but only upon the King's face. At the edge of the sunlight she
halted, so that she stood, a black figure in the bluish and stony gloom
of the hall with the high roof a great way above her head. All the lords
began to pull off their bonnets, only Norfolk said that he would not
uncover before a harlot.
The Queen, looking upon Henry's face, said with icy and cold tones--
'I would have you to cease this torturing of witnesses. I will make
confession.'
No man then had a word to say. Norfolk had no word either.
'If you will have me confess to heresy, I will confess to heresy; if to
treason, to treason. If you will have me confess to adultery, God help
me and all of you, I will confess to adultery and all such sins.'
The King cried out--
'No! no!' like a beast that is stabbed to the heart; but with cold eyes
the Queen looked back at him.
'If you will have it adultery before marriage, it shall be so. If it be
to be falseness to my Lord's bed, it shall be so; if it be both, in the
name of God, be it both, and where you will and how. If you will have
it spoken, here I speak it. If you will have it written, I will write
out such words as you shall bid me write. I pray you leave my poor women
be, especially them that be sick, for there are none that do not love
me, and I do think that my death is all that you need.'
She paused; there was no sound in the hall but the strenuous panting of
the King.
'But whether,' she said, 'you shall believe this confession of mine, I
leave to you that very well do know my conversation and my manner of
life.'
Again she paused and said--
'I have spoken. To it I will add that heartily I do thank my sovereign
lord that raised me up. And, in public, I do say it, that he hath dealt
justly by me. I pray you pardon me for having delayed thus long your
labours. I will get me gone.'
Then she dropped her eyes to the ground.
Again the King cried out--
'No! no!' and, stumbling to his feet he rushed down upon his courtiers
and round the table. He came upon her before she was at the distant
door.
'You shall not go!' he said. 'Unsay! unsay!'
She said, 'Ah!' and recoiled before him with an obdurate and calm
repulsion.
'Get ye gone, all you minions and hounds,' he cried. And running in upon
them he assailed them with huge blows and curses, sobbing lamentably, so
that they fled up the steps and out on to the rooms behind the throne.
He came sobbing, swift and maddened, panting and crying out, back to
where she awaited him.
'Unsay! unsay!' he cried out.
She stood calmly.
'Never will I unsay,' she said. 'For it is right that such a King as
thou should be punished, and I do believe this: that there can no agony
come upon you such as shall come if you do believe me false to you.'
The coloured sunlight fell upon his face just down to the chin; his
eyes glared horribly. She confronted him, being in the shadow. High up
above them, painted and moulded angels soared on the roof with golden
wings. He clutched at his throat.
'I do not believe it,' he cried out.
'Then,' she said, 'I believe that it shall be only a second greater
agony to you: for you shall have done me to death believing me
guiltless.'
A great motion of despair went over his whole body.
'Kat!' he said; 'Body of God, Kat! I would not have you done to death. I
have saved your life from your enemies.'
She made him no answer, and he protested desperately--
'All this afternoon I have wrestled with a woman to make her say that
you are older than your age, and precontracted to a cousin of yours. I
have made her say it at last, so your life is saved.'
She turned half to go from him, but he ran round in front of her.
'Your life is saved!' he said desperately, 'for if you were
precontracted to Dearham your marriage with me is void. And if your
marriage with me is void, though it be proved against you that you were
false to me, yet it is not treason, for you are not my wife.'
Again she moved to circumvent him, and again he came before her.
'Speak!' he said, 'speak!' But she folded her lips close. He cast his
arms abroad in a passion of despair. 'You shall be put away into a
castle where you shall have such state as never empress had yet. All
your will I will do. Always I will live near you in secret fashion.'
'I will not be your leman,' she said.
'But once you offered it!' he answered.
'Then you appeared in the guise of a king!' she said.
He withered beneath her tone.
'All you would have you shall have,' he said. 'I will call in a
messenger and here and now send the letter that you wot of to Rome.'
'Your Highness,' she said, 'I would not have the Church brought back to
this land by one deemed an adult'ress. Assuredly, it should not
prosper.'
Again he sought to stay her going, holding out his arms to enfold her.
She stepped back.
'Your Highness,' she said, 'I will speak some last words. And, as you
know me well, you know that these irrevocably shall be my last to you!'
He cried--'Delay till you hear----'
'There shall be no delay,' she said; 'I will not hear.' She smoothed a
strand of hair that had fallen over her forehead in a gesture that she
always had when she was deep in thoughts.
'This is what I would say,' she uttered. And she began to speak
levelly--
'Very truly you say when you say that once I made offer to be your
leman. But it was when I was a young girl, mazed with reading of books
in the learned tongue, and seeing all men as if they were men of those
days. So you appeared to me such a man as was Pompey the Great, or as
was Marius, or as was Sylla. For each of these great men erred; yet they
erred greatly as rulers that would rule. Or rather I did see you such a
one as was Caesar Julius, who, as you well wot, crossed a Rubicon and set
out upon a high endeavour. But you--never will you cross any Rubicon;
always you blow hot in the evening and cold at dawn. Neither do you, as
I had dreamed you did, rule in this your realm. For, even as a crow that
just now I watched, you are blown hither and thither by every gust that
blows. Now the wind of gossips blows so that you must have my life. And,
before God, I am glad of it.'
'Before God!' he cried out, 'I would save you!'
'Aye,' she answered sadly, 'to-day you would save me; to-morrow a foul
speech of one mine enemy shall gird you again to slay me. On the morrow
you will repent, and on the morrow of that again you will repent of
that. So you will balance and trim. If to-day you send a messenger to
Rome, to-morrow you will send another, hastening by a shorter route, to
stay him. And this I tell you, that I am not one to let my name be
bandied for many days in the mouths of men. I had rather be called a
sinner, adjudged and dead and forgotten. So I am glad that I am cast to
die.'
'You shall not die!' the King cried. 'Body of God, you shall not die! I
cannot live lacking thee. Kat---- Kat----'
'Aye,' she said, 'I must die, for you are not such a one as can stay in
the wind. Thus I tell you it will fall about that for many days you will
waver, but one day you will cry out--Let her die this day! On the morrow
of that day you will repent you, but, being dead, I shall be no more to
be recalled to life. Why, man, with this confession of mine, heard by