"Wait till 'tis out," Wiltshire foreboded.

But even Wiltshire's courage had risen with the amazing event. Anne was actually married! And nobody could say that he, Wiltshire, had urged the marriage, rather it had taken place in spite of him. Anne and Henry between them had carried things with a high hand and he had become the father-in-law of a king. With a smile of paternal pride he realized that this marriage had been always in Anne's mind and that she had effected it single-handed — except for the aid of Henry's infatuation. What a man she would have made! But would she? No, he amended, she was feminine to her finger tips, she could bewitch, enthrall, command, but she would never have bent to the obsequious flattery that the men at court must yield. She was best a woman.

For some weeks the secret was fairly well kept while the way was being paved for its reception, but hints of it began presently to transpire. Anne lived in almost royal state and at a great dinner that she gave, the end of February, Henry called jovially down the board to the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, bidding her observe all the rich plate that belonged to Anne and asking if she were not a good match? The witticism flew like wildfire through a court already alight with curiosity, and it was no great surprise, a fortnight later, to hear a sermon in the king's own chapel, in which the priest earnestly exhorted his sovereign to eschew the abominable sin in which he lived with Catherine of Aragon and marry now a good and virtuous woman, even if she were of a lower degree than his own! Somers, the king's jester, parodied the sermon for a week, and Patch, Wolsey's old fool, mouthed bitter jests.

By now the pope had ratified the appointment of

Cranmer as Archbishop of Canterbury and the veil of secrecy was wearing thin. Anne's brother was hurried off to France to smooth matters over there as much as possible and enlist France's aid, but France was indignant over the way Henry had broken his promise to Francis not to "innovate" anything until another conference between the pope and Francis had taken place, and George's too independent assurance made something of a breach.

Meanwhile Henry was carrying things at home with a high hand. The middle of March a bill was introduced in Parliament settling the supreme authority in matrimonial cases on the primate and, in certain cases, on the convocation of the clergy. After three weeks' contest, the bill was carried by the Houses which had been carefully packed by the royal ministers. In the meantime convocation had been assembled and, by excusing certain of the clergy and requesting them to give their proxies to others who could be depended upon to do the king's will, a heavy majority was obtained for the decision that the king's first marriage was invalid.

Everything was now prepared for the lifting of the curtain and yet, with all this foreword, it was still with a curious sense of shock that the courtiers, hearing the trumpeters pealing one Saturday in April and baring their heads in expectation of the king, saw Anne Boleyn enter the hall with stately bearing, an assumption of haughty unconsciousness in her face, her purple velvet train borne by the Countess of Richmond, Norfolk's daughter and wife of the king's illegitimate son. After her stepped her maids of honor, pale Helen Sackville and dark Amy Gaynesford, Mary Wyatt, blushing from sheer pleasure, and Jane Seymour, demurely casting down her eyes.

Anne walked slowly with high held head, the thrill of triumph coursing through her blood. This was her answer to cautioning friends and sneering enemies! She was queen at last!

Norris, straightening from his bow, was visited with a sudden recollection. He nudged Brereton. "D'ye mind a day in this very hall when we saw Anne pass in the tail of the other's procession, stark mad over some news from Henry Percy?" he whispered.

Brereton shook his head, his eyes following Anne's royal progress down the great room with worshiping loyalty.

"By the mass, but you look as proud as she," Norris smiled.

"Good sooth, I am," the big fellow admitted simply. "I have had great heaviness of mind about her but now methinks her troubles are all passed."

"Thou faithful watch dog!"

arm an affectionate squeeze.

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Norris gave his friend's 'Nay, you need loose no more sleep over the fortunes of fair Anne Boleyn. Go to planning instead where to raise the ducats for your fine feathers for the coronation that's to be next month."

CHAPTER XXIV

HAPPIEST OF WOMEN

T Ampthill a fine rain was falling, veiling the landscape like a curtain of gray from the eyes of the three women who were seated

at the windows. There were no signs of life to be seen from those windows, nothing but the slowly widening puddles in the road and the rim of the woods, looming indistinguishable and strange through the drizzling mist, but the women had been seated there for hours in the inaction which had grown habitual with them through the years.

They did not talk much; they were aware to the dreariest limits of ennui of the workings of each other's minds. For so long they had lived at such close quarters, mental and physical, that no element of surprise or interest was left to them in each other.

They had at present a pretext for their presence at the windows; they were awaiting the return of a page, the nephew of Lady Wallop, the youngest of the three women. They had not much expectation of him until the next day or the next, for he would find London only too attractive after his inoccupation here, and it was with genuine surprise that they suddenly glimpsed his young figure on horseback galloping recklessly through the puddles.

His advent was like a sudden stone in a motionless brook; they ringed him in circling confusion.

"The news, lad? What's been done?"

Old Donna Blanche clutched his shoulder with an eager hand. "Is she crowned? Oh, is she crowned?" Hush, her Highness is sleeping," another interposed. "Wake her not belike this be too much for her ears. Let us have it first. Come, boy, what learned you? Is she crowned?"

"Crowned she is," gave back the page and at the consternation that fell upon them, the sharp intake of breaths, the rolling of eyes towards heaven, he was visibly elated at the importance of his news. "I reached the town as the lady was coming up the river to the Tower," he went on, "and there were two hundred boats in her train, all splendidly hung and bedizened and she had for barge-what think you? none other than that of her own Grace!"

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What, the queen's own barge?"

Oh, shame, shame!"

They say the king had given it to her and the queen's arms were taken away and her own put on

top

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'Her own!" Lady Wallop fell to laughing. “A fine invention, those arms of a piece with the rest of the business."

"The popinjay!" The donna's chin was trembling. “Would none other suit her but she must lay her foul, Lutheran hands on that one? . . . Did not the people cry out against it, lad?"

"There were not so many that knew, it being so splendidly bedecked," the boy answered innocently, "but those that did know thought it great shame," he assured her, seeing her rage was somehow increased by his answer. "It was very wonderfully overhung with tissue of gold and of silver and draped with