sort.

66

frowned, bit his lips, and exhibited his opinion, be a sufficient reason for other signs of perturbation. Perceiving adding her to his list of conjugai vichis displeasure, she broached a more tims-a thought which so overcome agreeable subject, and shortly after her, that she fell into an agony of wards left the room. Immediately she hysterics. And as the apartment she was gone, Henry's suppressed anger occupied was contagious to that of the burst forth. Marvellous it is, indeed!" sick King, her piercing shrieks. sobs he exclaimed, addressing Gardiner, with and lamentations, which continued for vehemence; marvellous it is, when several hours with but little intermis. women become such learned clerks! and sion, so incommoded him, or excited I, the mightiest, the wisest of sove- his pity, that he sent his physician to reigns, come to be instructed in my console her, and inquire the cause of days of age and experience, in theo-her trouble. Her physician, Dr. Wandy, logy and the art of government, by my informed the messenger, that distress of greatly too vain and forward wife." mind rendered the Queen dangerously Gardiner, like a true politician, seized ill. Is it so!" exclaimed the invalid the auspicious moment to inflame the monarch, who already missed the tender angry monarch against his gentle con- care and skill of his gentle wife and nurse, He imputed to her Majesty acts "then I will visit her myself this inof which the bare mention would, a few stant." Carried in a chair by three of his hours previously, have cost him his life, attendants, and with no little personal and at the same time commended the inconvenience, for every move gave him King's anxiety to preserve the ortho- pain, he was with difficulty placed by doxy of his subjects, and represented her bed-side. The poor Queen, half that the more elevated the person was dead with terror, received him with a who was chastised, and the more near flood of tears; and as soon as her to his person-the greater terror would bursting heart gave reins to her tongue, the example strike into the heretics, the thanked him, in the language of fervent more glorious would the sacrifice appear gratitude, for his visit, and expressed a to posterity. Lord Chancellor Wrio- fear that, as she had not seen him so thesley, and others of the King's privy much of late, she had unintentionally, chamber, seconded Gardiner in these but deeply offended him. Henry soothmurderous efforts, and ultimately pre-ed her with honeyed, and for once, it vailed upon the King to order articles of impeachment to be drawn up against his consort. Wriothesley anxiously prepared the bill of articles against her, and brought it with the order of her arrest to the King to sign; but on returning, the triumphing chancellor unconsciously dropped from his bosom the important papers, with the royal seal and signature affixed to them, in the long gallery at Whitehall; when, fortunately for Katherine, one of her attendants picked them up, and immediately carried them to her. On glancing at them, the unsuspecting Queen was struck dumb with terror. The fate of Anne Foleyn and Katherine Howard she instantly fancied must be hers. True, she had not been guilty of immorality; but as she had been Henry's wife three years, and was still childless, that alone, she felt assured, would, in

would appear, not deceitful words. He discovered that she was more, far more to him than had been the briefly-loved Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard; they had been the idols of his love, and she, besides being this, was his constant, attentive, untiring nurse; indeed, he could not well afford to lose her; and the reaction of his feclings so overcame him, that, in the excitement, he informed her physician of the plot against her life. This gentleman, being wise and discreet, acted as a mediator between the sovereign and his consort, and materially assisted in securing the reconciliation.

The evening following, after supper, she found herself sufficiently recovered to return the King's visit, in his bedchamber. She was attended only by Lady Herbert, her sister, and Lady Jane Grey--then a child nine years old

Henry courteously welcomed her: and, consort by the three ladies before contrary to his usual habit, broke off named. The King was in one of his the conversation he was holding with best moods, cracking jokes, and laughthe gentleman of his chamber to attending heartily. Put the mirth was sudto her; but, presently afterwards, he denly checked by the appearance of endcavoured to beguile her into an ar- Wriothesiey, who, unaware of this sudgument on the old subject of divinity, den change, had, with forty of the purKnowing, however, the shoals that lay suivants, entered the garden, fully off that shore, she gently declined the prepared to arrest the Queen, and convey conversation, remarking that such pro- her to the Tower. The King bade found speculation were ill-suited to the Katherine and his attendants leave him natural imbecility of her sex. "Women," for a while; when, on the approach of said she, by their first creation, were Wriothesley, he reprimanded him with made subject to man. It belonged to a volley of reproaches, addressed him as the husband to choose principles for fool, knave, and beast, and bid him his wife; the wife's duty was, in all avaunt from his presence. When the cases, to adopt implicitly the sentiments Chancellor had departed, the Queen, of her husband; and as to herself, it finding her royal husband so wroth was doubly her duty, being blessed against him, ventured to intercede on with a husband who was qualified, by his behalf; saying, "His fault, whathis judgment and learning, not only to ever it might be, doubtless proceeded choose principles for his own family, from ignorance, not will." Ah. poor but for the most wise and knowing of soul!" replied the King, "thou little every nation.' "No, no! by St. knowest, Kate, how evil he deserveth Mary" exclaimed the King, "I know this grace at thy hands. On my word, you well; you are become a doctor, sweetheart, he has been towards thee a Kate, to instruct us, and not to receive very knave!" instruction." "Indeed," replied the Queen, "if your majesty have so conceived, you have mistaken my meaning. I have ever held it presumptuous for a woman to instruct her lord; and if I have at times presumed to differ with your Grace upon matters of religion, it has been not to maintain my own opinion, but to receive instruction upon points which I understood not, and more especially to amuse your highness, perceiving that in the warmth of argument you seemed to forget the pain of your present infirmity."" "And is it so, sweetheart?" said Henry: "then are we perfect friends again." And after tenderly embracing her, and declaring that he felt more joyed than if anyone had given him one hundred thousand pounds, he, about the our of midnight, assured her of his constant love, and gave her leave to depart.

The next morning, being the time appointed for Katherine's arrest, the King, feeling disposed to take the air, sent for the Queen to accompany him in the garden. Henry was attended by two gentlemen of his bed-chamber; his

From this time, Katherine carefully avoided offending her husband's theo logical sensibility; and to her credit be it spoken, she, it appears, took no advantage of the turn matters had taken to ruin the authors of the cruel plot against her life. The King, probably at her intercession, overlooked Wriothesley's offence; but not so with Gardiner; he forbade that prelate his presence, struck his name out of the council books, and of the list of his executors. and never afterwards could be prevailed upon to restore him to royal favour.

The days of Katherine's third widowhood now drew nigh, and the closing act of the eventful, the tragical career of Henry the Eighth was rife with state intrigue and political murder. The Reformers, now the dominant party, were headed by the Seymours and the Queen's kindred, the Farl of Essex and Lord Herbert. A spirit of acrimony had long existed between them and the Howard family. The Duke of Norfolk and his son, the gifted Earl of Surrey, prided themselves on

us that

their descent. sided with the Catholics. | erine's proceedings at the time; and, as and expressed open indignation at the at least one author assures rovai ascendancy of the Seymours, whom Henry's death alone saved her from bethey denounced as new men, that tram-ing, for a second time, accused of heresy, pled the ancient nobility in the dust.it is probable that she did not witness The feud ran high: each party aimed the last moments of that cruel, tyranat the other's destruction, and as the nical husband, by whose side, we may power of the Seymours proved the fairly presume, she did not attempt to stronger, Norfolk, Surrey, and Gardi- pass a singie night, without a dread of ner, were thrown into prison for pre- beholding, in the visions of sleep, the tended offences. Gardiner, by making spectres of Anne Boleyn and Katherine an humble submission, soon obtained Howard, or of feeling the fatal axe upon his release; but as the King had been her own innocent neck. made to believe that Norfolk and Surrey aspired to rule the crown and realm, his jealousy was alarmed, and he pursued them with such unrelenting vengeance, that Surrey was brought to the block on the twenty-fifth of January, 1547; and two days afterwards, an order was sent to the lieutenant of the Tower, to execute Norfolk on the following morning. Fortunately, however, for the aged and innocent Duke, ere the sun again rose, the too guilty King was dead; and, although the sentence had proceeded from Henry himself, the execution was stayed, and in Mary's reign the act of attainder was reversed.

By his will, Henry the Eighth deprived Katherine, much to her annoyance, of any share in the regency; but he bequeathed to her three thousand pounds' worth of plate, jewellery, and household goods; one thousand pounds in cash, and her dower and jointure as granted by parliament-a tolerable legacy, considering the relative value of money; and that she was also the mistress of two valuable dowers, as the widow of Lords Borough and Latimer. Henry also bequeathed a large sum for masses, to be said, for delivering his soul from purgatory; and thus, singular to relate, the monarch who had destroyed all those institutions established by his ancestors, and others, for "the benefit of their souls," and had even left the doctrine of purgatory doubtful in all the articles of faith which he promulgated during his latter years, was yet determined, when the hour of death was approaching, to take care at least of his own future repose, and to adhere to what he evidently believed to be the safer side of the question.

Henry's petulance and irascibility grew with the growth of his death sickness. The accounts, however, of his conduct in his last hours are vague and contradictory. One report makes him calmly enter the sleep of death a devout, penitent sinner; another represents him expiring in the maddening anguish of hopeless despair; whilst, according to a third, when informed of his approaching dissolution, by Sir Antony Denny, the only person who dared The King's death was kept a profound whisper the awful denouncement in the secret till the Earl of Hertford had royal ears, he sternly repelled his phy- secured the person of his royal nephew, sicians, would take no more medicine, Edward the Sixth, and arranged with and refused spiritual aid, till he could his associates the plan of their future only reply to Cranmer's exhortation, operation. On the twenty-ninth of Janto die in the faith of Christ, by a squeeze uary the parliament met, and transacted of the hand. Henry the Eighth breath-business, but received no intimation of ed his last at about a quarter to two o'clock, on the morning of Friday, the twenty-eighth of January, 1547, at Westminster, in the fifty-sixth year of his age, and the thirty-eighth of his reign. We have no account of Kath

About a month before his death, Henry

Henry's demise tili the following Monday, when it was made known to the endowed the magnificent establishment of Trinity College, in Cambridge, for a master and sixty fellows and scholars, and re-opened the Church of Grey Friars, which, with St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and a handsome revenue, he gave to the city of London.

assembled peers and commons by Wri

"On the thirteenth of February, the othesley, who read an extract from the corpse was removed with imposing royal will, relating to the government i pomp to Sion, on the way to Windsor, of the realm, during Edward the Sixth's | for interment; and, as the lid of the minority, declared the partiament dis- coffin nad burst by the shaking of the solved and invited the lords to pay carriage, the King's blood wetted the their respects to the new King, who, pavement in the night, and in the on the same day, was conducted to the morning a gaunt dog was discovered Tower, and proclaimed. licking it up; the plumbers engaged in soldering up the coffin, hallowed and struck at the dog, but, to their horror, if they drove him off on the right, he returned again on the left, and so persevered till he had licked the stones clean. This frightful circumstance spread like wild-fire. The superstitious remembered that this Sion-a desecrated convent-had been the prison of the ill-starred Queen Katherine Howard, and, by a singular coincidence, the body of Henry rested there on the fifth anniversary of her execution. Others viewed the appalling incident as a fulfilment of the remarkable sermon preached at Greenwich, in 1533, by the daring friar, Peyto, who, from the pulpit, told Henry to his face, that, like Ahab, the dogs should lick his blood.'

The following interesting account of the pompous and truly Catholic funeral of Henry the Eighth, we extract from an old volume in the College of Arms. "The chest wherein the royal corpse was laid stood in the midst of the privy chamber, with lights, and divine service said about him, with masses, obsequies, and continual watch made by the chaplains and gentlemen of the privy chamber, in their order and course, night and day, for five days, till the chapel was ready, where was a goodly hearse, with eight square tapers, every light containing two feet in length, in the whole, one thousand eight hundred, or by another relation, two thousand weight in wax, garnished with pencils, escutcheons, banners, and bannerets of descent; and at the four corners banners of saints, beaten in fine gold upon damask, with a majesty, whereover, of rich cloth of tissue and vallance of black silk, and fringe of black silk and gold; and the barriers without the hearse, and the sides and floor of the said chapel covered with black cloth, to the high altar, and at the sides and ceiling of the said chapel set with banners and standards of St. George and others.

"The second of February the corpse was removed, and brought into the chapel by the lord great master and officers of the household, and then placed within the hearse, under a pall of rich cloth of tissue, garnished with escutcheons, and a rich cloth .of gold set with precious stones thereon. It continued there twelve days, with masses and diriges sung and said every day. Norroy king at arms, each day standing at the choir door, beginning with these words, pronounced aloud, Of your charity, pray for the soul of the high and mighty prince, our late sovereign lord and King, Henry the Eighth.'

"On the fifteenth, the royal remains were removed to Windsor, and on the next day interred. Stephen Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, preached the sermon, on that text, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord;' where he declared the frailty of man, and the community of death both to high and low, and showed the loss that all had sustained by the death of so gracious a King [a piece of gross flattery to the memory of the blue-beard tyrant, and a false picture of the sentiments of the nation], yet comforting them again by the resurrection in the life to come, and exhorted them all to rejoice and give thanks to the Almighty God, for having sent so towardly and virtuous a prince to reign after him, desiring all men to continue in obedience and duty, with many other exhortations notably set forth and with great learning.

"The corpse being let down by a vice, with the help of sixteen tall yeomen of the guards, the same bishop [Gardiner] standing at the head of the vault, proceeded in the service of the

CHAPTER III.

Katherine again wooed and won by Sir Thomas Seymour-She is married to hum clandestinely-He wins the affection of the King-The Protector and Council take umbrage at her marriage, and detain her jewels-The Countess of Somerset's malice to her-Her husband's freedoms with the Princess Elizabeth-She gives birth to a daughter, and dies-Her burial-Remains exhumed-Disgracefully neglected-Closing career and execution of Sir Thomas Seymour-Katherine's infant robbed of her patrimony-Grossly neglected-Traditions of her marriage and descendants-Royal relics.

HE breath scarcely newed his addresses to her with such was out of the body ardour, art, and success, that although of Henry the Eighth he had made several futile attempts to when Katherine form a splendid alliance, she believed Parr's former hand- he had remained a bachelor for her sake, some and accepted gave him credit for sincere, constant, lover, Sir Thomas and disinterested love; and consented Seymour, Lord Sude- to become his bride before royal etiquette ley, and High Admiral of England, re- would permit her to publicly receive bis