The Sixth Wife: The Story of Katherine Parr

CHAPTER

III

THE QUEEN WAS IN HER APARTMENTS, WORKING ON the great tapestry which she proposed to use as hangings in the Tower. With her were the ladies whom she loved best: Anne Askew, ethereal, remote from them all, her blue eyes seeming a little strained after so much reading; that other Anne, Lady Herbert, Katharine’s sister who had been with her since she had become Queen; Margaret Neville, the stepdaughter whom Katharine loved as though she were her own; Lady Tyrwhit and the Duchess of Suffolk, with young Lady Jane Grey.

Their fingers worked busily while they talked, and their talk was of the New Learning.

Little Jane was interested. When she and Edward were alone they talked of the New Faith. Edward read books she brought to him, which had been given to her, with the Queen’s consent, by Anne Askew.

Jane knew that these ladies, who had her love and her sympathy, believed that she might one day be Edward’s Queen, and it seemed important to them that she be a Protestant Queen, and Edward a Protestant King. Jane had heard frightening stories of what was happening in Spain under the dreaded Inquisition, and how it was the great wish of the Spaniards that the Inquisition should be set up in all countries.

Little Jane could not bear the thought of violence. The stories she heard of the hideous tortures horrified her. There were occasions when the court was at the palace of Hampton, and she had stood in the gallery which led to the chapel and imagined she heard the terrible screams and saw the ghost of Catharine Howard.

How did it feel, wondered Jane, to know that in a short time you would walk out to the block and lay down your head?

As she listened to the impassioned voice of Anne Askew who read aloud from the forbidden books, she knew that Anne was the only one in this apartment who was unafraid of torture and violent death.

The Queen’s sister was apprehensive and uneasy, and chiefly for the sake of the Queen.

It was nearly two years since the King had ordered that a picture be painted of himself and his children with Queen Jane Seymour at his side. Edward had told Jane of it and how unhappy he had been to stand there beside his father, and how he had kept glancing over his shoulder to see if his mother had really returned from the grave.

The Queen had felt that insult deeply, but she had given no sign of what she felt. Jane had seen the King and Queen together, had seen the King lay his foot on the Queen’s lap, had seen him rest his jeweled hand on her knee; she had also seen the black looks on his face and heard the menace in his voice.

How did it feel to be afraid… afraid that one day you would be sent to the Tower, never to emerge again except for that last walk to the scaffold?

Uncle Thomas Seymour was back at court. Jane had noticed how coldly he looked at the Queen, but his looks were not so cold when they rested on the Princess Elizabeth.

The Queen’s thoughts were as busy as her fingers on the tapestry. She was not thinking of the doctrines so ardently preached by Anne Askew. She agreed with Anne; she admired Anne; and she was glad that she had been able to protect her here at court. But Thomas was back, and she could think of nothing else. He had been back many months, and she felt that meeting him every day and having nothing from him but cold looks was more than she could bear.

But she understood. His motive was wise and necessary. She would have him run no risks.

The King had evidently ceased to be jealous of him, for he had made him Lord High Admiral and a gentleman of his Privy Chamber. There were times when he was so cordial toward his brother-in-law and looked at him with such sly speculation, that Katharine wondered whether he was hoping to accuse him with his Queen. All through those months Henry had been alternately doting and menacing, assuring her that she was his dear Kate, his good nurse, and shortly afterward complaining that she was not pregnant.

It was nearly three years since their marriage, and there had not been even one pregnancy. Moreover it was remembered that she had had two husbands and not a child from either of them. Three years of these alarms—three years when she must submit to the King’s caresses and the King’s anger, and accept all with a meek endurance. Three years that seemed like thirty!

She was tired suddenly and wished to go to her bedchamber and rest. She rose and said that she would retire.

“Jane,” she said, “come with me and make me comfortable.”

All the ladies rose, and when the Queen had left the apartment with the little nine-year-old Jane in attendance, they dispersed to their own rooms.

Anne Askew felt in turns triumphant and resigned. She had many friends at court; her gentle nature, her complete lack of worldliness, her goodness and purity, had made people look upon her as a saint. Others regarded her as a fool to have left her rich husband, to have come to court as a sort of missionary for the new faith, to have laid herself open to the enmity of such men as Gardiner and his friend who was now Chancellor Wriothesley.

A few days before, Anne had received a warning. She had found a note under her bolster when she retired one night. “Have a care. It is the Queen they want. But they will strike at her through you.”

And then again there had been another note. “Leave this court. You are in danger.”

Anne would not go. She believed she had a vocation. Since her coming to court many ladies had been reading the books she treasured; there had been many converts to Protestantism and there would be many more. Anne knew that she was placing not only herself in danger, but others also. But to Anne there was nothing to be feared save infidelity to the truth. The religion imposed on the country by the King differed only from the old Roman faith in that, instead of a Pope at its head, it had a King. Anne wanted a complete break with the old faith; she believed the new and simpler religion to be the true one. She wanted all to be able to read the Bible; and how could those humble people, who did not understand the Latin tongue, do so unless they were allowed to read it in English? It was her desire to distribute translations all over the country.

She was fanatical; she was sure that she was in the right; and she believed that no matter what harm came to any who might be involved with her, if they had to die for their faith, they were fortunate indeed, for theirs would be immediate salvation.

The Princess Elizabeth was interested in the new faith, though her interest was more intellectual than devotional. Elizabeth’s religion would, Anne guessed, always be the welfare of Elizabeth. She sought power and she could never forget the days when she had been a poor humiliated daughter of a great King who, when the fancy took him, chose to call her “bastard.” Elizabeth then, favored the new faith but she would never be a strong adherent to it. She would always trim her sails according to the wind that blew.

And the Queen? Ah, the Queen was a good and earnest woman, but was she made of the stuff of which martyrs were made? That would doubtless be proved. Anne prayed for the Queen—not for her safety, but that she might show courage when the time came.

She went to her apartments and as soon as she entered the room she was aware that something had happened to it during her absence.

It was some seconds before she noticed the disorder; and a few more before she saw that in the shadows by the hangings were men-at-arms.

One of them came forward as she entered, and two more took their stand on either side of her.

“Anne Askew,” said he who stood before her, holding a scroll in his hand, “I am ordered to arrest you on a charge of heresy. It would be well for you to come quickly and make no resistance.”

She saw then that they had found her secret store of books and the writing she had done; but instead of fear, she felt an exhilaration. She had expected this for a long time and she found that she could welcome it.

They took her down the river by barge.

Calmly and silently she watched the play of light on the river. She looked at the great houses with their gardens which ran down to the water’s edge, and she wondered, without any great emotion, whether she would ever see them again.

The great gray bastion of the Tower was visible now, strong, invulnerable.

Her eyes were shining as they took her in by way of the Traitors’ Gate. She remembered that through this gate they had taken the martyrs, Fisher and More.

She was helped out of the boat; she stepped on to the slippery bank and followed the jailor into the cold building, up a staircase, through dark passages that stank of blood and sweat and the damp of the river.

The jailor jangled his keys and to many the sound might have been like notes of doom; but to Anne Askew it was but the jingling of the keys which would open the doors of Paradise to the martyr.

THE ELEGANT AND most witty Earl of Surrey was sprawling on a window seat in his apartments at Hampton Court Palace. He was in that reckless mood which was becoming habitual to him. Thirty-one years of age and a poet, he was a member of the greatest and most noble family in the land, and there were times when he felt his ambition to be so strong that he was ready to do the most foolhardy thing to achieve it.

Death! He thought of it often. He had lived so near to it all his life that he felt an intimacy with it. So many of his House had died violently and suddenly. None of them could ever be sure which one of them would be the next to die. His family was guilty of the gravest offense against the King: They had a claim to the throne. The Howards of Norfolk were, some said, more royal than the Tudors. The King could never forget that, and he was constantly on the alert for a sign that the Howards were giving this matter too much consideration.

“Have a care!” said Surrey’s cautious father often enough. But, pondered the young poet, idly playing a few notes on his lute, there comes a time in the life of a man when he no longer wishes to take care, but rather to be reckless, to stake everything…to win, or pay the price of failure with his head.

Wild plans were forming in his mind. This had begun to happen when the King had told him that he had decided to send Edward Seymour, Lord Hertford, to Calais as Governor in place of himself.

These accursed Seymours! Who were they? Surrey asked himself rhetorically. An upstart family! And because young Jane had married the King, the Seymour brothers were fast becoming the most important pair in the country.

Surrey called one of his men to him and cried: “Go to the apartments of my sister, the Duchess of Richmond, and tell her I would have speech with her. Tell her it is of the utmost importance.”

The man went while Surrey sat playing with the strings of his lute.

He was thinking of his sister, Mary; she was beautiful with that striking beauty of the Howards, the mingling of dignity with personal charms. Mary had been married some years ago to the King’s illegitimate son, the Duke of Richmond, and she was now a widow, ripe for a second marriage.

The Howard women had always pleased the King, though briefly. Surrey’s father, the old Duke of Norfolk, Lord Treasurer of England, was not in favor with the King just now and had not been since the unhappiness caused Henry by Catharine Howard. Surrey smiled. But the King was old now, and his fancy would not stray so easily, and he, Surrey, did not see why a Howard woman should not retrieve the family’s fortunes.

He was madly impatient. He played with the idea of quartering the arms of Edward the Confessor on his escutcheon. Why not? He was entitled to do this by the grant of Richard the Second, because of his descent from Edward the First. Flaunting those arms would proclaim to the court that Surrey and his family considered that they had more right to the throne than the Tudors.

Imagine the royal ire at such daring! And what then? wondered Surrey. “To the Tower, my lord Earl. Off with his head. He has committed the mortal sin. He is more royal than the King!”

Surrey burst into laughter. His maternal grandfather, the Duke of Buckingham, had lost his head in 1521 because he had a claim to the throne.

I believe I will do it, he thought, for I am tired of living at the command of the King, tired of seeking the royal favor, tired of placating the angry frown. Is this how men become when they live perpetually on the edge of danger?

His father would call him a fool. The old Duke had been a doughty warrior, a cautious man. He had been less cautious in his hot youth when he had fallen in love with his wife’s laundress and raised Bess Holland to the position she enjoyed as mistress of one of the most important men of the time.

Surrey thought of the endless strife Bess had caused between his parents. Was life worth the trouble it brought? he wondered.

He doubted it.

His sister came into the room and, throwing aside his lute, he rose to greet her.

“You have something to say to me, brother?”

“You grow more beautiful every day. Sit beside me, sister, and I will sing you my latest verses which I have set to music.”

Mary Howard, Duchess of Richmond, looked at him with sly amusement. She knew he had not asked her to visit him merely to hear his verses.

“I have a new poem,” he said. “Even the King has not heard it yet.”

She listened, but she was paying little attention to the words.

She could think of nothing but a certain handsome gentleman who dominated her thoughts and desires. It was long since Richmond had died that lingering death, and she wanted a husband. She had been fond of the young Duke—such a fine, handsome man, and the image of the King—until disease had claimed him. But what was her feeling for the Duke of Richmond compared with this passion which now obsessed her?

Her father had started it. He had said to her: “These Seymours are our enemies. Who are they, these upstart gentlemen? Miserable squires, claiming kinship with the King. Daughter, we cannot fight these mighty rivals, but we could link ourselves with them.”

“By marriage?” she had asked.

And then a great excitement had been hers, for there were only two brothers and the elder was married. It was the younger, the swaggering sailor, whom her father had in mind.

Sir Thomas! The merry twinkling eyes, the jaunty beard, the charm of the man! No sooner had her father spoken those words than she could think of nothing but marriage with Sir Thomas, and he had continued to dominate her thoughts.

Surrey dismissed his attendants.

“Well?” she said. “Your news?”

He smiled at her idly. “Sister, you are very beautiful.”

“So you have already said. There is no need to repeat it, though a compliment from a brother is to be cherished, as there is often plain speaking in families. What do you want of me?”

“I? Nothing. I have had thoughts.”

“And those thoughts?”

“They have taken Anne Askew to the Tower.”

“I know. She is a heretic. What has that to do with me?”

“I saw her… this very afternoon. She was sitting in the barge, her arms folded across her breast. She looked a veritable martyr, which I doubt not she will be ere long. Sister, what does this mean? Have you thought of that?”

“That another heretic is to pay the price of her folly and her treason to the King.”

“She is a great friend of the Queen’s, and yet they have dared to take her. Gardiner and the Chancellor are behind this, depend upon it. They would not dare to take the Queen’s great friend if they did not think her Majesty was out of favor with the King.”

“And what of this? We know what favor she enjoys. If he were his old self he would have had her head off by now, and doubtless that of some other lady who had been unfortunate enough to share his throne after her. But he is sick and she is a good nurse. So he keeps her beside him.”

“He is not always so sick. I have seen his eyes grow misty and his voice gruff with desire when a beautiful woman passes before him.”

“He is too old for such pleasures.”

“He will never believe he is too old. He has indulged in them too freely. There will always be his thoughts, his desires, his belief that his powers are not yet past.”

“And what would you say to me? Have you brought me here to tell me what the court knows already and has always known?”

“Nay. The Queen’s days are numbered. Poor Katharine Parr! I am sorry for her. She will go the way of others.” He smiled. “We should not be saddened. It is the fate that threatens us all. We should look on it stoically, for if it comes not today, then it may come tomorrow. The Queen’s place will be taken by another lady. Why not you, my sister?”

She was hot with anger. “You are asking me to be the seventh? To prepare myself for the ax?”

“Nay. Be not the seventh. Be the honored mistress. Smile on his Grace and do not say, ‘Your mistress I cannot be!’ as poor deluded fools have said before you. Say this: ‘Your mistress I will be.’ Thus you will keep alive his desire. You will rule him and bring our house back to the favor it once enjoyed.”

“How dare you talk to me in this manner! You shame me. You insult me. And the King…my own father-in-law!”

Surrey shrugged his shoulders. “You were the wife of his bastard son. There is no true relationship to him in that. Moreover it will not be necessary to get a dispensation from the Pope, for his Holiness no longer carries weight in this realm. The King would get dispensation from the King, and that should be an easy matter. The royal conscience would no doubt be appeased with the greatest ease, for I doubt not that though the King’s conscience is the master of the King’s desires, the King’s desires are so subtle that they will once more deceive the conscience.”

“Brother, you talk with folly. You are proud and foolish. One of these days your tongue will cut off your head.”

“I doubt it not. I doubt it not. And, Mary, dear sister, there are times when I care not. Do not think to ally yourself with lowborn Seymour. I would stand against uniting our family with that one.”

She cried: “More foolish than ever! To unite ourselves with the King’s brother-in-law would be the best thing that could happen to our family.”

“And to its daughter—who lusteth for the man?” he taunted.

“You go too far, brother.”

“Do I, fair sister? I will tell you this: Seymour looks higher. He looks to the Princess Elizabeth. Who knows—he may get her. Unless the King decides to execute him, for that may be necessary in the process of getting rid of the Queen. Seymour had his eyes on Her Majesty at one time, you remember. Master Thomas Seymour is as near the ax as any of us, even though the King may call him brother. Nay, dear sister, do not long so for one man that you cannot see the advantage of casting your glances at another. Be bold. Be clever. Love Tom Seymour if you must, but do not lose the opportunity of restoring your family to greatness through the grace of His Majesty. I tell you he is ripe… ripe for seduction. And the ladies of our family are most accomplished in that art.”

She rose and swept haughtily from the room.

Surrey watched her, plucked a few notes from his lute, and was still playing when a messenger came and told him that his presence was required in the King’s music room.

THE KING SAT on his ornate chair in that chamber which was reserved for the playing of music.

He was surrounded by his courtiers, and the Queen sat beside him. She looked fair enough, sitting there in her scarlet hood; the pearls, which made a becoming edge to it, suited her complexion. Her skirt was of cloth of gold and cut away to show a crimson velvet petticoat. Crimson suited Kate, thought the King. If she would but give me a son I should not be displeased with her.

But she was meddling with religion; and he liked not meddling women. He was now persecuting Lutherans as heretics, and Papists as traitors. Religious matters in this realm had become complicated; and what annoyed him so, was the fact that this need not be. All he wished men to do was worship in the old way, remembering that their King, instead of the Pope, was head of the Church. It was simple enough.

His most comforting thought at the moment was that François across the water was ageing just as he was. He doubted François had more than a year or two of life left to him; he suffered malignant pain, just as Henry did; and the thought of the French King’s pain helped Henry to bear his.

Matters of State had been equally trying to them both of late. Neither of them had gained much by the war they had been waging against each other.

On Henry’s return to England, the Scottish campaign had gone against him; the French had launched an attack on Boulogne, which, thanks to Hertford, had withstood the attack. But at the same time French ships had entered the Solent and actually landed at Bembridge and tried to force their way into Portsmouth Harbor. But Lisle had caught the foreign fleet and driven it back; and disease aboard the French ships had been a strong ally of the English.

Henry had ridden this storm like the mighty ruler he could be. Ruthless, he did not hesitate. Taxes, “benevolences,” were extorted as they never had been before. His enemies thought that surely his long-suffering people must rise against him. He was a tyrant, a murderer, and many had suffered cruelly at his hands; if there had ever been a moment when he could have been overthrown that was the moment. But the people of England recognized him as their King; he was the strong man; they trusted him to lead them from their trouble. Cheerfully they paid what was asked of them; and during those uneasy months the King had forgotten everything but that he was a King and his country was in danger. He coined his own plate and mortgaged his land; if he did expect his people’s untiring effort, he gave his own contribution also. He had always played for popularity with the people; now he reaped the benefit of that popularity. To those who lived close to him he was a murderous tyrant; to the people he was the dazzling King.

And so, England held fast behind Henry. The French were driven back; a decimated army returned to France. François was as eager as Henry for peace, and they had made a settlement. Henry was to keep Boulogne for eight years, after which time the French might bargain for its return. Trouble continued in Scotland, but there was now a war on one front only.

The King could rest a little from his tribulations and give himself to pleasure.

Now there was Surrey entering the music room, as elegant as ever and as insolent. Why was it that Surrey aroused the King’s anger nowadays? He was a good poet, a fine gentleman, but he was arrogant, and each day his insolence was growing. And with Surrey, there was his sister, Mary—Henry’s own daughter-in-law—a comely girl, with the Howard beauty, and the Howard slyness, the King did not doubt.

She knelt before Henry and, as she lifted her eyes, he looked straight at her. She flushed a little as though she read something in his glance which had not been there. She seemed shy and fluttering, dazzled by the radiance from the royal countenance; and Henry felt that sudden pleasure which that look on a woman’s face had never failed to give him. It was as though they expected to look into the face of a mighty monarch and had seen there instead a desirable man.

The King’s eyes softened and his gaze followed the girl as she stepped back and took her place with the Queen’s ladies. Expertly, in his mind’s eye, he divested her of her velvet and her jewels. “I’ll warrant she’s as comely without as with her adornments,” he told himself; and the room seemed diffused with a more gentle light, and there was a lifting of his spirits that almost smothered the throbbing of his leg.

Gardiner and Wriothesley were in attendance; they looked smug on this day. Something afoot there, I’ll swear, thought the King; and when I’ve heard this music, I’ll have it from them.

There was Seymour, now Lord High Admiral. The King smiled. How that young man reminded him of himself! The ladies liked Seymour and Seymour had once had his eyes on the Queen, the rogue! But he had never let them stray very far from the Princess Elizabeth. She was another on whom the King must keep a watchful eye.

But at the moment he could not keep his eyes from Mary Howard. She outshone all the women, he decided; and he fancied he saw a resemblance in her to little Catharine Howard.

The instrumental piece which the musicians were playing had come to an end. It was charming, and he would reward the fellow who had written it.

“Bravo!” cried the King. “Bravo! There’s naught that soothes the troubled mind as certain as sweet music.”

“I trust,” said the Queen, “that Your Grace’s mind is not overtroubled.”

“A King, wife, must of necessity have much upon his mind.”

Wriothesley, who never lost an opportunity of flattering his royal master, murmured: “It is fortunate for this realm that Your Majesty sits on the throne.”

Henry lifted his heavy lids to glare at his Chancellor. Too ready, was this Wriothesley, with his honeyed words; true though they were, the rogue was too ready. Yet, as ever, flattery was sweeter in the King’s ears than the sweetest music.

“Good Chancellor,” he replied, wincing as he moved painfully in his chair, “it is the kingly lot to bear the troubles of our subjects. For many years we have sat on the throne of England, but we cannot hope to rule this realm for ever.”

His eyes flickered angrily on the Queen who had failed to provide him with sons; then they went to the charming figure of his daughter-in-law.

Watching them, Surrey speculated: So my words have borne fruit. Mary has already given him the glance, the promise. The seed has been sown. Oh, poor Katharine Parr, my heart bleeds for you. But you are as safe as the rest of us, so why should it bleed for you and not for poor Surrey? My head may not remain on my shoulders any longer than yours. I am a poet, and so is the King. I am the greater poet, and in that I offend. I am more royal than His Majesty, and I have written verses. Two of the greatest literary men of our age have already laid their heads on the block—More and Rochford. Tom Wyatt was a fine poet but he was born lucky. The ax did not catch him though he had his miraculous escapes. And the next who dares wield his pen with more dexterity than the King, shall he die? And is his name Surrey?

Katharine had grown a shade paler, and the King went on with a trace of malice: “We’ll not talk of such matters. They disturb our Queen. Do they not, wife?”

“There are topics which please me more, Your Grace,” said Katharine quietly.

“We like not to brood on the days that lie ahead,” mused the King, “days when we shall no longer be here to lead this country. There is overmuch conflict in this land, and we like it not.” He glared at those about him and shouted: “We like it not. We would have peace in our time, and though that be denied us beyond the realm of England, we demand it at home.” Gardiner had moved closer to the King. The Queen looked at the Bishop and their eyes met. Something has happened, thought Katharine. There is some fresh plot against me.

She had noticed the King’s frequent glances at the Duchess of Richmond. Could it be that Gardiner was offering the King the Duchess as his seventh wife? Had it already been suggested that the sixth wife should go the way of the second and the fifth?

“We pray, as Your Majesty does, for peace,” said Gardiner. “And it is in the cause of peace that we will keep our vigilance night and day over those who dare to question your command. Though there are many in this land, my liege, who would see your enemies at large, working for the destruction of all that you, in your great wisdom and understanding, have laid down as our way of life….”

Henry waved his hand, interrupting the Bishop. He was accustomed to Gardiner’s harangues. The Bishop was one of those unfortunate men who could not win his affection. He did not dislike Gardiner as he had disliked Cromwell, but the Bishop did not charm him as Wyatt had and as Seymour did. Gardiner, like Cromwell, seemed to him plebeian. He must tolerate them for their wisdom, for his need of them; but he never liked them, and with Gardiner, as with Cromwell, at the first sign of failure he would show no forbearance.

“The state of kingship is an uneasy one, my lord Bishop,” he said. “None knows the truth of that better than ourselves.”

Wriothesley murmured: “And about Your Grace’s throne there are many enemies.”

His glance rested as if by chance first on the Queen, then on Seymour.

Katharine shivered. Was there some plot to implicate herself and Thomas? Not Thomas! she prayed. Anything but that harm should come to him.

Then insolently and ironically Surrey spoke: “Enemies of each other, my lord Chancellor, or enemies of the King, mean you? Enemies, say…of the Lord High Admiral, or of my lord Bishop?”

Wriothesley’s eyes flashed hatred and his smile was venomous as he said softly: “What enemies could there be, of true and loyal subjects, but enemies of the King?”

“We might well ask,” continued the irrepressible Surrey. “It would seem to me that there are men in this realm who seek first their own advancement, and secondly that of England—and the latter only if both are on the same road to the goal.”

The King glared at the poet. “You make an accusation, my lord Earl. You tell us that there are those about us who would seek their way even though it did not run side by side with that of England’s.”

“Alack, Your Grace, I make the suggestion because I fear it to be true.”

Henry’s eyes had narrowed in that fashion familiar to them all. There was no one present—with the exception of Surrey—whose heart had not begun to beat faster, who wondered whither this mischief of Surrey’s would lead.

“If any man among you,” continued the King, “knows aught against another, it is the sure and bounden duty of that man to lay his knowledge before the members of our council.”

The King tried to rise, but with a sudden angry roar fell back into his chair. Katharine hastened to kneel at his feet.

“Your Grace, the bandage is too tight.”

“By God, it is!” cried the King, the sweat on his brow, his face almost black with pain. “Mercy on us, Kate. There’s none can dress my wounds as thou, for I declare that when others do it, the rags must either be overloose or overtight.”

Katharine was glad to find occupation with the bandages. “Have I Your Grace’s permission to loosen them now?”

“Indeed you have… and quickly… quickly, Kate.”

There was silence while she worked, and the King lay back for a few seconds with his eyes closed. He was clearly too concerned with his pain to think of any enemy other than that.

But at length he opened his eyes and looked at those gathered about him.

Wriothesley said, as soon as he knew that he had the King’s attention: “When the Earl speaks of Your Majesty’s enemies, he must be thinking of the last to be discovered—the woman Kyme.”

“What of the woman Kyme?” said Seymour quickly.

“She lies in the Tower, as should all the enemies of our lord the King.”

The Bishop said very clearly: “So be it.”

Katharine was aware of the frightened eyes of three of her ladies—her sister, her stepdaughter and little Jane Grey. These were the three who loved her best, and they knew that an open attack on Anne Askew signified a covert attack on the Queen.

Surrey said: “What is this of Anne Askew? She wishes to be called Askew in place of Kyme, I believe. A comely girl. Dainty of structure, tall and oversad. Her hair is gold as meadow buttercups, and her skin pale as garden lilies; her eyes are blue as skies in summer time.”

“What’s this?” roared the King, recovering from his pain.

“Anne Askew, Your Grace,” said Surrey.

The King laughed unpleasantly. “Like my lord Earl, I remember her well. Overbold of tongue. I like it not when women presume to teach us our business.” He roared out in sudden pain. “What do you, Kate? Thou art pulling our leg this way and that.”

“A thousand pardons, Your Grace,” said Katharine. “The bandage slipped from my hands.”

“Have a care then.”

Surrey could not resist continuing with the dangerous subject of Anne Askew. “She left her husband’s house, Your Grace.”

Lady Herbert interjected quite heatedly: “It would be more truthful to say that her husband drove her from it, Your Grace.”

“What was that?” asked the King.

“Her husband, Your Grace, drove her from his house.”

“For a good reason,” said Wriothesley, throwing a sly smile at Lady Herbert and the Queen. “He liked not her disobedience to Your Grace’s commands.”

“Then ’t was rightly done,” said the King. “We’ll brook no disobedience in this land from man or woman… comely though they may be.”

“Ah,” said Surrey lightly, “it is not always easy to bend the head to the prevailing wind.”

The King gave the Earl a malevolent glance, and as he turned to do so, his leg was jerked out of Katharine’s hand and Henry cried out in agony.

“It was, I fear, Your Grace’s movement,” said Katharine. “’ Twill be soothed when I have the bandages in place. I have a new ointment which I am assured will ease the pain.”

The King took off his plumed hat and wiped his brow. “I am weary of new ointments,” he said peevishly.

“How I long to find the remedy!” said Katharine.

“Right well would I reward the fellow who found it. By my faith, I cannot sleep o’ nights from the pain in this leg. We’ll try the ointment tonight, Kate. Ah, that’s better.” The King turned to frown at his courtiers. “It is not for women to teach us our business,” he said. “We agree with St. Paul on this matter: ‘Let your women keep silent in the churches; for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience…’”

Henry paused significantly to glance at the kneeling figure of his wife. He trusted Kate would remember that. She was a good woman and she had the gentlest fingers in the court. For that he loved her. But he did not love women who meddled in matters which should be regulated by the superior intellects of men. Kate was another such as this meddling Anne Askew. The latter had most rightly been lodged in the Tower. He trusted his good nurse Kate would heed a gentle warning.

Gardiner obsequiously finished the quotation: “‘… as also saith the law.’”

Henry nodded and shook a bejeweled finger at the company and then at his kneeling wife. “This woman, Askew—an I mistake not— was found in possession of forbidden books; she has spoken against the Mass. Keep her in the Tower, my lord. Keep her there until such time as she shall learn good sense.”

Gardiner had stepped forward; his head was bowed and his voice had taken on a serious note. “The woman is oversaucy, alack, having friends at court.”

“What friends are these, lord Bishop?”

“That, Your Grace,” said the Bishop, looking for a few seconds at the kneeling Queen, “is what we have yet to discover.”

“My lord Bishop,” said Seymour, “it cannot be of any great consequence to His Majesty that this woman has friends.”

“I understand you not, brother,” said the King.

“She is a foolish woman, Your Grace. Nothing more.”

“Foolish in all conscience,” growled the King.

“Scarce worthy of such notice,” said Seymour.

Katharine, trying to steady her trembling fingers, wanted to implore him to take care. He must not involve himself in this. Did he not see that; that was just what his enemies wished?

“Mayhap she is not,” said the King. “But we would teach a lesson to those who dare oppose us.”

“The female sex,” said Gardiner, “can be as troublesome as the male. I would not excuse her, Seymour, on account of her sex. To my mind, any that work against our lord the King is an enemy to England—be it man or woman.”

“Well spoken,” said the King. He looked at Sir Thomas and chuckled. “I follow our gallant Seymour’s thoughts. She is a woman; therefore to be treated tenderly. Come, brother, confess.”

“Nay, my liege.”

“Oh?” said the King. “We know you well, remember.”

There was a titter of laughter among the courtiers, and Katharine must lift her eyes to look into the face of the man she loved. But he was not looking her way; he was smiling almost complacently. He was so clever, thought Katharine; he was so wise; he was far more restrained and controlled, for all his seeming jauntiness, than she could ever be. It was foolish of her to wish that he could have looked a little hurt at this estimation of his character.

“I would say,” went on the obsequious Wriothesley, “an it please Your Grace, that, like Seymour, I do not think of Anne Askew as a woman. I think of her as a menace, for about her are gathered the enemies of the King.”

“You are overfierce, friend Wriothesley,” said Henry.

“Only in the cause of Your Majesty,” replied the Chancellor, bowing his head in reverence.

“That is well, good Chancellor. And now … enough of this woman. I would be entertained by my friends’ achievements and not made sad because of my enemies. Master Surrey, you skulk over there. You are our great poet, are you not? Entertain us, man. Come… let us hear some of those fine verses on which you pride yourself.”

The Earl rose and bowed before the King. The little bloodshot eyes looked into the handsome brown ones.

“I am ever at Your Grace’s service,” said that most insolent of men. “I will give you my description of the spring.”

“Ah!” said the King, reflecting: I’ll not brook your insolence much longer, my lord. You… with your royalty and your words. I see that sister of yours in your handsome face. She is proud… proud as the rest of you. But I like proud women…now and then.

And for the sake of the young man’s sister, Henry softened toward him.

“We would fain hear your description of the spring. ’T was ever our favorite season.”

“Spring!” said Surrey ecstatically. “It is the most beautiful of all seasons. Wherein each thing renews, save only the lover.”

The King shot a suspicious look at the Earl, but Surrey had already begun to recite:

“The soote season, that bud and bloom forth brings,

With green hath clad the hill and eke the vale:

The nightingale with feathers new she sings;

The turtle to her mate hath told her tale.

Summer is come, for every spray now springs:

The hart hath hung his old head on the pale;

The buck in brake his winter coat he flings…”

Surrey stopped short, for the King had spoken. He was saying to Seymour, who stood near him: “What meant he, brother? ‘Wherein each thing renews save only the lover’! The lover methinks breaks out in love as readily as any flowers in spring. Aye! Nor does he need to wait for springtime.”

Everyone laughed with great heartiness, and when the laughter had subsided, Surrey said: “The flowers, Your Grace, bloom with equal freshness each spring, but the coming of another spring finds the lover more jaded than did the previous one.”

There was a short silence. What had happened to Surrey? Was it that which had been known to break out in men before? They lived under the shadow of the ax for so long that their fear changed into recklessness. Surrey had been showing this attitude for some time.

Katharine looked at the young man and prayed silently for him: “Oh, Lord God, preserve him. Preserve us all.”

She said quickly: “Your Grace, listening to the Earl’s verses has set up a longing within me to hear something of your own.”

Henry’s good humor was miraculously restored. How strange it was, thought Katharine, that this great King, this man whom the French and the Spaniards feared, should be so childish in his vanity. The King’s character contained the oddest mingling of qualities; yet the brutality and the sentimentality, the simplicity and the shrewdness, made him the man he was. She should not regret these contrasts; she could watch for those traits in his character, and, as her knowledge of them grew, she might find some means of saving others from his wrath, as well as herself. She had indeed now saved Surrey from his displeasure.

“Since the Queen commands,” said Henry graciously, “we must obey.”

“Would Your Majesty care to come to my musicroom, that my musicians may first play the new melody set to your verses?”

“Aye. That we will. And we will take with us those who most appreciate the pleasure in store.”

He scanned the assembled company. “Come…you, my Lady Herbert, and you, my Lady of Suffolk….”

The King named those whom he wished to accompany him to the Queen’s music room. Surrey was not among them, and for that Katharine was grateful. Let the young man withdraw to his own apartments and there ponder his recklessness in solitude.

But others noticed that Surrey’s sister was one of those who received the King’s invitation; and that during the musical hour he found a pretext for keeping her close beside him.

THOMAS SEYMOUR, not being among those who had been invited to the Queen’s chamber, strolled out of the palace into the gardens.

He was thinking of Surrey’s words, which had been deliberately calculated to stab the King. What a fool was Surrey! Thomas Seymour had no intention of being such a fool.

He strolled past the gardens which would soon be ablaze with roses—red and white roses which would suggest, to all who saw them, from what the founding of the Tudor dynasty had spared the country. The Wars of the Roses had ended with the coming of Henry the Seventh; now the red roses of Lancaster and the white roses of York mingled peaceably, enclosed by wooden railings of green and white, the livery colors of a Tudor King; the pillars were decorated with the heraldic signs of the Tudors as an additional reminder.

Looking at these gardens, Seymour thought afresh what a fool Surrey was. What was his motive? To undermine the Tudors? That was ridiculous. The Tudors had come to stay.

Seymour leaned on the green-and-white fence and surveyed the rose trees.

Life was good to the Lord High Admiral of England. Ambition would be realized. He was sure of his destiny. But, sure as he was, he knew that he must be constantly on the alert, ready to snatch every advantage; and one of the greatest assets which a kindly fate had thrown into the hands of Sir Thomas Seymour was his personal charm.

Marriage! What could not be achieved by the right marriage!

Now, it seemed, haughty Norfolk was looking his way; and if Seymour was not mistaken, so was his daughter.

Seymour could not suppress the laugh which came to his lips. Her family would have no difficulty in persuading the Duchess of Richmond to become the wife of Sir Thomas Seymour, he fancied.

How far we have come! he mused. The Seymours of Wolf Hall— humble country gentlemen—and now we are related to the King and fit to ally ourselves with the greatest families in the land.

The question was not whether my lady of Richmond would take Sir Thomas Seymour, but whether Sir Thomas would take her.

He liked her. He liked all beautiful women; but a woman must have more than her beauty to offer an ambitious man. “And, my dear Mary Howard,” he murmured, “there are others who have more to offer me than you have.”

The spring air was like a glass of wine; he could smell the scents of the earth. Life was good; and would be better.

There were four women now whom he must consider before he took the final step. A duchess, a Queen, the kinswoman of a King, and a King’s daughter.

There was no doubt on whom his choice would fall, were it possible for him to make the choice. For the Queen he had a great tenderness; he loved Kate and there would be great happiness with such as she was. But she could not be his wife until she was a Dowager Queen; whereas the Princess might one day be a Queen in her own right.

He could love the woman for her sweet nature, but he longed for the redheaded Princess. Ambition and desire could mingle so pleasantly.

He left the rose gardens and strolled toward that new pond garden of his master’s. How beautiful it was! How quiet! What perfect peace there was in such a garden, with its lily pond, its statues and terraces. Already it was gay with spring flowers and the blossoming shrubs.

He looked into the future—a future in which the King would be dead, and he and his brother would rule; but his brother was a man who would wish to take first place, and it seemed to Thomas that since Edward lacked his own superior personal charms, people thought he must be the more astute statesman. Edward was sly; Edward was clever; and he had an ambitious wife. Those two would wish to rule without the help of Thomas.

Marriage was, therefore, of the utmost importance to the Admiral; but it must be the right marriage.

A movement in the gardens caught his eyes, and his lips curved into a smile of deep satisfaction as a small figure rose from the grass, a figure in crimson velvet, her red hair just visible under her pearltrimmed hood.

Seymour lost no time in approaching the Princess Elizabeth.

He bowed and took her hand.

“I was admiring the flowers,” he said; “then I saw that I wasted my admiration on them.”

“It rejoices me that you realized the wastage in good time,” she said, “for I know you are a man who does not care to waste his talents. It grows chilly.”

“Then I must fain give you my cloak. We cannot allow the Lady Elizabeth to be cold.”

“My walk back to the Palace will doubtless warm me.”

“I hoped that you would tarry and talk awhile.”

“Your hopes, Sir Thomas, I doubt not are always high. Perhaps too high.”

“Hopes can never be too high, my lady. If we hope for much, we achieve a little. But to hope for nothing is too achieve nothing. That, you will agree, is folly.”

“You are too clever for me, my lord.”

“Nay. There are times when it saddens me to think that I am not clever enough.”

“You speak in riddles and I must leave you to them. My lord …” She curtsied, and would have walked past him; but he had no intention of letting her go.

“Could we not dispense with ceremony now that we are alone?”

“Alone! Who is ever alone at court? Such as you and I, my lord Admiral, are never alone, for there will always be eyes to watch us when we do not see them, and ears to listen. There will always be those who treasure your simplest utterances—and mine—and mayhap use them against us.”

“Elizabeth… most beauteous Princess….”

She flushed. Clever as she was, she was susceptible to flattery, even as was her royal father; and she lacked his experience in hiding this fact. Important as she knew herself to be in the affairs of state politics since she had been reinstated at court, and much as she enjoyed her new position, she was more pleased at hearing herself called beautiful than she would have been by any reference to her importance in the realm.

Seymour kept his advantage. “Give me this pleasure…give me this pleasure of gazing upon you.”

“I have heard the ladies of the court say that it is not wise to take too seriously the compliments of the Lord High Admiral.”

“The ladies of the court?” He shrugged his shoulders. “They are apart. You are as different from them as the sun from the moon.”

“The moon,” she retorted, “is very beautiful, but it hurts the eyes to look at the sun.”

“When I look at you I feel myself scorched with the passion within me.”

Her laughter rang out clear and loud.

“I hear talk of your marriage, my lord. May I congratulate you?”

“I would welcome congratulations, only if I might announce my coming marriage to one particular lady.”

“And can you not make the announcement? I have heard that there is no man at court more likely to sue successfully for a lady’s favor.”

“She whom I would marry is far above me.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Do I hear aright? Is the Lord High Admiral losing his belief in himself?”

“Elizabeth…my beautiful Elizabeth….”

She eluded him and ran from him; she paused to look back, artful and alluring, urging him on, yet forbidding him to come.

She was aware of the Palace windows. Much as she would have enjoyed a flirtation with this man, who fascinated her more than any person ever had, she did not wish to endanger her new position at court.

If Seymour had his dreams and ambitions, the Lady Elizabeth had hers no less. Indeed, they soared higher even than those of Seymour; and if they were more glorious, they were more dangerous.

He would have followed her, but she had suddenly become haughty.

“I wish to be alone,” she said coldly, and she walked from the garden, forcing herself to conquer her desire to stay with him, to invite his warm glances and perhaps the caresses which he longed to give and she would not have been averse to receiving.

Coquettish as she was, she longed for admiration. Flirtation was an amusing pastime, yet beyond the love of light pleasures was her abiding ambition.

As he watched her, Seymour had no doubt that she was the woman for him.

NAN CREPT SILENTLY out of the Palace of Greenwich. She was covered from head to foot in a dark cloak, under which she wore many thick petticoats which she would not be wearing when, and if, she were fortunate enough to return to the Palace that night.

It was not the first time she had made this journey, carrying food and warm clothing with her, but each time she made it she was filled with fears, for it was a dangerous journey.

Lady Herbert had said to her: “If you should be detained, on no account must it be known who sent you.”

“No, my lady.”

“And Nan…be strong… and brave.”

They both knew that if she were caught she would be recognized as a lady from the Queen’s household. But on no account, Nan assured herself, would she let them know that the Queen had played a part in this mission.

“God help me to be brave” was Nan’s continual prayer.

The faint light of a waning moon shone on the river, and in the shadow cast by the bushes she made out the barge which was waiting for her.

The boatman greeted her in that manner which had been arranged. “Hello, there! Come you from my lady?”

“Yes,” whispered Nan. “From my lady.”

She stepped into the boat which began to slip along only too slowly. Nan listened to the sound of the oars and continued to pray for courage.

The boatman sang softly to himself as he rowed. Not that he felt like singing. He must be almost as nervous as Nan; but he, like her, must wear an air of calm, for it must not be suspected that she came from the Queen, and that she was on her way to visit one who must surely be the most important prisoner in the Tower.

“Are you ready?” whispered the boatman at length.

“I am ready.”

She scrambled out on to the slippery bank; it seemed very cold under the shadow of the gray walls which loomed before her.

A man was waiting for her and she followed him without a word. He unlocked a door; Nan shivered as she stepped inside the great fortress of the Tower of London. This man held his lantern high, and she saw the damp walls and the pits at the bottom of which was the muddy water of the river; rats scuttled under her feet. She did not cry out, great as was the temptation to do so.

“Hurry,” whispered the man with the lantern. “You must be gone before the guard comes this way.”

He unlocked a door, and Nan stepped into the cell.

In spite of the intense cold, the closeness of the atmosphere, the smell of dirt and decay, sickened her. It was some seconds before her eyes grew accustomed to the dimness, for the man with the lantern had shut and locked the door; in a short while he would return; she would hear the key in the lock and he would let her out.

She could vaguely see the shape on the straw.

“Mistress Askew?” she whispered.

“Nan! Is it you?”

“Yes, Mistress. I have brought food and clothes. You are bidden to be of good cheer.”

“You are a good and brave woman to come to me thus,” said Anne. “Have you a message for me?”

“Only that all that can be done for you will be done.”

“Thank you.”

Nan could see the emaciated face; it looked ghostly in the dimness of the cell.

“Take a message for me,” said Anne. “Tell those who sent you that they should not endanger themselves by sending food and clothing for me. I can face hunger; I can face cold and discomfort.”

“It is our delight to help you, to let you know that although you are a prisoner and others are free, they do not forget you.”

“I thank them,” said Anne, and in spite of her brave words, she fell upon the food which Nan had brought, and ate it ravenously. Nan was taking off the petticoats as she talked, and Anne went on eating as she put them on.

Anne’s hands were icy and her teeth chattered. There was hardly any flesh on her bones to keep her warm.

Ah, thought Nan, it is an easy matter to wish to be a martyr; but how eagerly she eats and how grateful she is for a little warmth!

Already the man was unlocking the door.

“Hasten, Mistress,” he said. “There must be no delay. I have not seen the guard at his usual post. Hasten, I say. If we are followed, remember, I know nothing of you and how you came here.”

“I will remember,” said Nan.

Hastily he locked the door of the cell, and Nan picked her way through the dark passages, trying not to brush against the slimy walls, praying that she might not step on the rats.

She felt exhausted when she lay, at length, in the boat, listening to the sound of the oars as she was carried away from the grim fortress of the Tower of London back to Greenwich.

THE MAN WITH THE lantern reentered the Tower and had scarcely taken three steps inside the building when two men took their stand on either side of him.

“Where go you, sir jailor?” asked one.

“Where go I?” blustered the man, and he felt as though cold water were dripping down his back, although he was sweating with fear. “Where go I? To my post, of course.”

“Who was the fair lady to whom you have just bade farewell?” enquired the other man.

“Fair lady…? I…?”

“You conducted her to a certain cell, did you not?”

“You are mistaken.”

The lantern was suddenly taken from his hand, and he was pinioned.

“This way,” said one of his captors. “We have questions to ask you.”

They pushed him roughly along through the gloomy passages. Terror walked with him. A short while ago the Tower had been to him merely the prison of others; now it was his prison.

“I…I havedone… nothing.”

“Later, later,” said a soft voice in his ear. “You shall speak for yourself later.”

They were taking him into unfamiliar byways. He could hear the fierce chorus of rats as they fought with their human victims; he could hear the piercing screams for help from those miserable prisoners who were chained to the walls and who, when they heard footsteps coming their way, shouted for help without any hope that it would be given to them. They took him past the pits in which men were chained, the dirty water up to their knees; the lantern showed him their faces, wildeyed and unkempt, faces that had lost their human aspect, as they fought the hungry pests which could not wait for them to die.

“Whither… whither are you taking me?”

“Patience, friend, patience!” said the voice in his ear.

Now he was in a chamber, and although he had never seen it before, he knew what it was. He had heard much of this chamber. The dim light from the lamp which hung from the ceiling confirmed his horrible fear.

He smelled blood and vinegar, and he knew them for the mingling odors of the torture chambers; and when his eyes were able to see through the mist of fear, he picked out a man at a table with writing materials before him. Much as he desired to, he could no longer doubt that he was in the torture chamber.

The man at the table had risen; he came forward as though to greet the jailor in friendship. There was a smile on this man’s face, and the jailor guessed from his clothes that he was a personage of some importance. He knew that he himself had been a fool to take a bribe and get himself involved with the kind of people who would be interested in Anne Askew. A jailor was subject to bribery. You took a little here, a little there. But he wished he had never meddled in the case of Anne Askew.

“You know why you are here, my friend,” said the personage.

“Yes…yes, my lord. But I have done nothing.”

“You have nothing to fear. You have only to answer a few questions.”

God in Heaven! thought the sweating jailor. That is what they are all told. “You have merely to answer a few questions!”

“Allow me to show you round the chamber,” said the jailor’s host. “You see here the gauntlets, the thumbscrews, the Spanish collar… the Scavenger’s Daughter. You, who serve the King as one of his jailors, know the uses to which these toys may be put, I doubt not.”

“I do, my lord. But I have done nothing.”

“And here is the rack. The most interesting of them all. My friend, a man is a fool who lets his limbs be stretched on that instrument. There is no need for it. No wise man need let his limbs be broken on the rack. You look pale. Are you going to faint? They deal well with fainting here. The vinegar is a quick restorative…so they tell me.”

“What… what do you want of me?”

The man gripped his arm.

“Answer my questions and go back to your work. That is all I ask of you. Give me truth and I’ll give you freedom.”

“I will tell you anything you want to know.”

“That is well. I knew you were a sensible man. Sit here…here on this stool. Now … have you recovered? Let us be quick; and the quicker the better, say you; for when you have given the simple answers to these questions you will go back to your work and never, I trust, enter this place again.”

“Ask me,” pleaded the jailor. “Ask me now.”

“You are ready?”

“Aye, sir.”

“Did you conduct a woman to a prisoner this day?”

“Yes, sir.”

“That was not one of your duties, I feel sure.”

“No, no….” The words tumbled out. He could not speak quickly enough. “I took a bribe. It was wrong. I repent of it. I should not have done it.”

“But it was such a big bribe?”

“Yes, sir.”

“From a person of quality, doubtless. And the name of the prisoner whose cell was visited? Do not try to deceive me, because then I should have to use these toys to make you tell the truth.”

“I will not. I swear I will not. The prisoner was a Mistress Anne Askew.”

“That is good. You are doing well. I can see we shall not have to play with those toys tonight.”

“Who was the woman you took to Anne Askew?”

“A lady… whose name I know not.”

“Whose name you know not? Have a care.”

“I swear I know not her name. She came with food and clothes for the prisoner. I know whence she came, though I know not her name. It was never told me.”

“So you know whence she came?”

“Yes, I know. She came from the heretic friends of Anne Askew.”

“The names of these friends?”

“They told me no names.”

“You are not being very helpful. I must have names.”

“They are ladies of the court.”

“Cannot you give me names…even of some of them?”

He had signed to two men with evil faces; they came forward.

“Not one name?” said the interrogator.

“I do not know who sent them. I was told by a man who brought her…I know…”

“You know?”

“Yes, my lord. I know the woman who comes is a messenger from the Queen.”

“The Queen! Ah, that is good. You have been useful. Let him go. Let him go back to his work. Not a word, my friend, of tonight’s adventure, or…”

“I swear I’ll say nothing. I swear…”

“You will be watched. Just go on as before. Take your bribe. Let the lady in. Your little journey to our chamber, your inspection of our toys makes no difference. Go, my good man. You have answered well and faithfully.”

The jailor’s response was to fall into a faint on the earthen floor.

Wriothesley watched him with a smile. He liked the man. He had given the answer he most wished to hear.

WHEN NAN REACHED the Palace of Greenwich she went straight to the apartments of Lady Herbert as was her custom. The Queen’s sister had spent the time of her absence alternately on her knees praying for Nan’s safety, and at the window watching for her return.

“Nan,” said Lady Herbert, “how went it?”

“Much as before, my lady.”

“Methinks you are returned a little earlier.”

“Yes, my lady. I had scarcely time to take off all the clothing I had brought when the jailor urged me to leave the cell.”

“Why was that?” demanded Lady Herbert, her face growing pale.

“It was merely, he said, that he had not seen the guard in his usual place.”

Lady Herbert’s fingers played nervously with the jewels at her throat.

“This cannot go on. They suspect something.”

Nan threw herself on to her knees. When she had been in the company of Anne Askew she seemed infected by her fanaticism, her desire for martyrdom.

“My lady, I am ready to die, if need be, in the cause of the Queen and the Queen’s faith.”

Lady Herbert began to walk up and down the apartment.

“Oh, Nan, if only it were as simple as that! If death were swift and painless, how easy it would be! What else, Nan? How was she?”

“As strong as before in spirit, but very frail in body.”

“Nan, you must not go there again.”

“If the Queen commands me, I should go. There are times, my lady, when I almost feel a desire to be caught… though I know I should all but die of fright. There is something about that place, something that wraps itself about one. It is utter desolation, hopeless… and yet there is a kind of welcome.”

Lady Herbert took the young woman by her shoulders and gently shook her.

“Nan, Nan, do not talk so. You speak as one who is ready to embrace death.”

“Willingly would I do so, if the Queen commanded,” said Nan. “If they caught me, none should draw the secret from me. They could put me on the rack…”

“Hush, you foolish woman!” cried Lady Herbert almost angrily. “You know not what you say. Stronger than you have been broken in the torture chambers of the Tower.”

“They would not torture me…a woman. They do not torture women. I should be sent to the stake, and because I am a woman they would strangle me so that I should not feel the scorching of the flesh.”

Lady Herbert recognized the signs of hysteria. The strain was too much for any but a fanatic like Anne Askew. They must give up these dangerous visits. She must make the Queen see that they dared not continue with them.

“Go to your room,” she said. “I will send you a soothing draught. Drink it and draw your bedcurtains; then… sleep… sleep until you awake refreshed.”

Nan curtsied and went to her room.

And when she awoke from the soothing sleep, the lightheadedness had passed. She was herself once more. She could think of her experience with nothing but horror, and instead of seeing death beautified by martyrdom, she saw it evil and horrible, as the cold unhappy Tower had told her it must be.

IN THE QUEEN’S closet Lady Herbert shut the door and leaned against it.

“I am afraid,” she said.

“Why so?” asked the Queen.

“Our father and mother would never have dreamed that you would one day be Queen of England.”

“But the Queen of England must be braver than any lady in the land.”

“She must also be wiser. Oh, Kate, Anne Askew looks for martyrdom, but she is armed with her faith and her courage. You know that she has always been different from the rest of us.”

“Yes, even as a girl she was different. How remote she was from us! Oh, sister, what will they do to her? They have taken her because they wish, through her, to take me, and…we know why.”

“Yes, we know. It is you they wish to have in prison. They will try to make her admit that you too are in possession of the forbidden books, and that you have offended against the King’s laws.”

“And then?”

“And then I know not.”

“Do you not?” Katharine laughed bitterly. “Everything depends on His Majesty. If he wishes to see me condemned as a heretic, then condemned I shall be.” Her laughter grew wild. “It makes me laugh. I cannot help it. Everything depends on his state of health. If he is sick, I am safe for a while. But if he grows well…Oh Anne, is it not comic? I have watched his glances. The Duchess of Richmond is a comely lady. And so is Her Grace of Suffolk. Different types—and he cannot make up his mind which he prefers: the widow of his son, or the widow of Charles Brandon. Both widows, you see! I believe I have given him a taste for widows. And none but a widow would dare return the King’s loving glances. Sister, my life hangs by a thread; and who is holding that thread? His Majesty. And how he jerks it, depends on the Duchesses of Richmond and Suffolk…and the state of his health!”

“You must not laugh like this. It frightens me. You must be calm. You must be serene. Your smallest action is of the utmost importance.”

“Oh, sister, what will they do to poor Anne Askew?”

“They dare do nothing. They cannot torture a woman…a highborn woman. The King would not allow it.”

The Queen looked at her sister and broke into fresh laughter, and the Lady Anne Herbert had great difficulty in soothing her.

THE BISHOP AND THE CHANCELLOR walked once more in the Great Park.

“What news, my lord Chancellor?” asked Gardiner.

“My lord Bishop, good news. I had the jailor taken as soon as he left the court woman. He admitted in the torture room that the clothes and food which the prisoner has been receiving were sent at the Queen’s command.”

Gardiner nodded. “That is good.”

“Well, is it not enough?”

The Bishop shook his head. “It’s that accursed leg. The woman is such a good nurse.”

“You think he is so fond of her still that he seeks no other?”

“While the King breathes he will always be ready to seek another wife—providing the current one has shared his bed for a month or more.”

“My lord Bishop, it was but a week ago that he said to me: ‘Three years of marriage, Wriothesley, and no sign of fruitfulness. I cannot think the fault is mine; therefore must I wonder if my marriage finds favor in the sight of God.’”

“That was good.”

“And have you seen the looks he casts at my lady of Suffolk?”

“Not so good. She, like the Queen, inclines to heresy. I would my lady of Richmond did not worry his conscience. The warmer his feelings grow for her the better. Everything depends on the warmth of his feelings.”

“But…if he should turn to Brandon’s widow?”

“We must see that that does not happen. But first we must rid him of Katharine Parr.” Gardiner looked grave. “We must practice the utmost caution. Remember Dr. London, who has since died of the humiliations inflicted upon him.”

“I do remember him. But the jailor admitted the woman came from the Queen.”

“The word of a lowborn jailor could not be of great account. We must remember this, friend Chancellor: The situation is not a simple one. When Cromwell found evidence against Anne Boleyn, the King was already impatient for marriage with Jane Seymour. Now it is less simple. At one moment the King wishes to be rid of his wife, and at the next he remembers that she is his nurse and necessary to him. To bring the jailor’s evidence before the King when he needs his nurse, might bring down Heaven knows what on our defenseless heads. Nay! We must learn by the mistakes and successes of others. Think of the King’s love for Catharine Howard. Cranmer was fully aware of that. What did he do? He presented the King with undeniable evidence of his Queen’s guilt. That is what we must do. But the word of a lowborn jailor is not enough.”

“You mean the woman herself—this Anne Askew—must speak against the Queen?”

“That is what I mean.”

“But you know her mind. She will say nothing against anyone. ‘Kill me,’ she will say. ‘I’m not afraid of death.’ And, by God, you will have but to look at her to know that she speaks truth.”

“It is easy for a fanatical woman to say these things, and to die quickly is easy. But to die slowly…lingeringly…horribly… that is not so simple. The bravest men cry out for mercy on the rack.”

“But… this is a woman.”

Gardiner’s thin lips smiled faintly. “This, dear Chancellor,” he said, “is our enemy.”

IN HER CELL in the Tower, Anne Askew daily waited for the doom which she felt must certainly be hers.

She had knelt by the barred window and prayed, and praying lost count of the hours. On the stone walls of this cell which had been occupied by others before her were scratched names, messages of hope and words of despair. She prayed not for herself but for those who had suffered before her. She knew that there was some grace within her, some extra strength, which would enable her to meet with courage whatever was coming to her.

It was midnight when she had knelt, and now the dawn was in the sky. It filtered through the bars of her cell; another day was coming and she was still on her knees.

It was some days since Nan had visited her. She had had little to eat, yet she did not feel the need of food. There were times when her mind wandered a little—back to her childhood in her father’s house, back to the days when she and her sister had wandered in the gardens and been happy together.

Anne had always been the serious one, loving books more than play. Her elder sister had laughed at her, and there had been times when Anne had envied her. She was so normal, that elder sister of Anne’s; she liked good things to eat, fine clothes to wear. She had said: “Anne, you are strange. Sometimes I think you are a changeling—not the child of our parents. You are like a fairy child, and in your eyes there burns such fervor that I feel your sire must have been a saint.”

Sometimes Anne imagined that she was back in the days of her sister’s betrothal to Mr. Kyme.

She could hear her sister’s light chatter. “He is very rich, Anne. They say he is the richest man in Lincolnshire, and I like him well enough.”

“How can you go into marriage lightly?” Anne had asked, shuddering. “How I rejoice that it is not for me. I shall go into a nunnery. That is what I long for… quiet… peace…to learn that of which Martin Luther has written.”

Looking back it seemed that she lived again through those tragic days of her sister’s death. Death was ever near. It swooped suddenly, and one could never be sure from what source it came.

“Now that your sister is dead,” her father had said, “you must take her place with Mr. Kyme.”

She could see him clearly—Mr. William Kyme, a young and ardent man in need of a wife. He was very willing to take the younger sister in place of the elder.

In vain she had prayed and pleaded with her father. “A daughter’s first duty is obedience; so said the Scriptures,” she was told.

So said the Scriptures. And she would not fight her destiny.

Now was the most horrible of all her memories: the warm, eager hands of Mr. Kyme, and herself trembling supine in the marriage bed.

He had been kind at first. “My poor sweet child, you do not understand. You are so young…so innocent. You must not be afraid.”

She had lain, shuddering, bearing that torture as later she would bear others.

Resignation came to her at length, but Mr. Kyme did not wish for resignation. There were angry scenes. “Unnatural!” That was the word he had flung at her.

“Leave me alone,” she had begged. “Divorce me…do what you will. But release me from this life which is distasteful to me.”

He had not been, she was sure, more brutal, more unkind than any man would have been. “I will not let you go,” he had stormed at her. “You are my wife and you shall be my wife.”

She would awake even now with those words in her ears, so that she was almost glad to be in this cold cell because it at least meant escape from a life which had been too humiliating and distasteful to be borne.

“I will make a normal woman of you yet,” he had said; but he had changed his mind when he had discovered her books.

“What is this?” he had demanded. “Are you one of these Reformers?”

“I believe in the teachings of Martin Luther.”

“Do you want to make us the King’s prisoners?”

“I would as soon be a prisoner of the King as of your sensuality.”

“You are mad. I will stop this reading and writing.”

He had locked her in her room, destroyed her books.

But she had found him to be vulnerable, and she rejoiced that this was so. The servants were talking of her leanings toward the new faith, and when a man’s wife is implicated, how easy it is to cast suspicion on that man!

Mr. Kyme was such a rich man; and it often happened that rich men were considered most worthy prey by those who wished to bring an accusation which might result in the confiscation of lands and goods. He trembled for his possessions; he was ready to give up his wife rather than place his lands and coffers in jeopardy.

“You will leave this house at once,” he had said. “I’ll dissociate myself from you and your evil teachings.”

And the day she left his house was a happy one for her. Now, kneeling in her cell, she was glad of that experience. It had taught her courage; and she knew she would have great need of courage.

Early that morning she heard footsteps in the passage outside her cell; the door opened and two men came in.

“Prepare yourself for a journey, Mistress Askew,” one said. “You are to go to the Guildhall this day for questioning.”

SHE STOOD BEFORE her judges. The strong, pure air had made her faint; the sunlight had seemed to blind her; and her limbs would scarcely carry her. But she did not care, for though her body was weak, her spirit was strong.

She looked up at the open timberwork roof and down at the pavings of Purbeck stone. It was warm in the great hall, for the early summer sun was streaming through the windows, picking out the carvings of the Whittington escutcheons.

Her trial was considered of some importance; yet she was not afraid. She knew that she was in the right, and it seemed to her that, with God and his company of angels on her side, she need have no fear of the Lord Mayor of London, of Bonner, Gardiner, Wriothesley and all the nobles of the Catholic faction who were there to discountenance her and hasten her to the stake.

She heard the words of the Lord Mayor:

“You are a heretic and condemned by the law if you stand by your opinion.”

Her voice rang out—a strong voice to come from such a frail body. “I am no heretic. Neither do I deserve death by any law of God. But concerning the faith which I have uttered, I will not deny it, because, my lords, I know it to be true.”

Wriothesley said: “Do you deny the sacrament to be Christ’s own body and blood?”

“Yes; I do. That which you call God is but a piece of bread. The son of God, born of the Virgin Mary, is now in Heaven. He cannot be a piece of bread that, if left for a few weeks, will grow moldy and turn to nothing that is good. How can that be God?”

“You are not here to ask us questions, madam,” said Wriothesley. “You are here to answer those which we put to you.”

“I have read,” she answered, “that God made man, but that man can make God I have not read. And if you say that God’s blood and body is in bread because man has consecrated that bread, then you say that man can make God.”

“Do you insist in these heresies?” demanded the Lord Mayor.

“I insist on speaking the truth,” she answered.

“You are condemned of your own mouth,” she was told.

“I will say nothing but that which I believe to be true.”

“Methinks,” said Gardiner, “that we should send a priest that you may confess your faults.”

“I will confess my faults unto God,” she answered proudly. “I am sure He will hear me with favor.”

“You leave us no alternative but to condemn you to the flames.”

“I have never heard that Christ or His Apostles condemned any to the flames.”

Her judges whispered together; they were uncomfortable. It was ever thus with martyrs. They discomfited others while they remained calm themselves. If only she would show some sign of fear. If only it were possible to confound her in argument.

“You are like a parrot!” cried Gardiner angrily. “You repeat… repeat…repeat that which you have learned.”

Wriothesley’s eyes were narrowed. He was thinking: I should like to see fear in those eyes; I should like to hear those proud lips cry for mercy.

She spoke in her rich clear voice. “God is a spirit,” she said. “He will be worshipped in spirit and in truth.”

“Do you plainly deny Christ to be in the sacrament?”

“I do. Jesus said: ‘Take heed that no man shall deceive you. For many shall come in My name saying I am Christ; and shall deceive many.’ The bread of the sacrament is but bread, and when you say it is the body of Christ, you deceive yourselves. Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold and worshipped it. That is what you do. Bread is but bread…”

“Silence!” roared Gardiner. “You have been brought here, woman, to be tried for your life, not to preach heresy.”

The judges conferred together and, finding her guilty, condemned her to death by burning.

They took her back to her dungeon in the Tower.

TO DIE THE martyr’s death!

Had she the courage to do that? She could picture the flames rising from her feet; she could smell the burning faggots, she could hear their crackle. But how could she estimate the agonizing pain? She saw herself, the flames around her, the cross in her hand. Could she bear it with dignity and fortitude?

“Oh God,” she prayed, “give me courage. Help me to bear my hour of pain, remembering how Thy Son, Jesus Christ, did suffer. Help me, God, for Jesus’ sake.”

She was on her knees throughout the night. Scenes from the past seemed to flit before her eyes. She was in her father’s garden, with her sister, feeding the peacocks; she was being married to Mr. Kyme; she was enduring his embraces; she was in the barge which was carrying her to prison; she was facing her judges in the Guildhall.

At last, swooning from exhaustion, she lay on the floor of her cell.

But with the coming of morning she revived. She thought: Previously it was so easy to contemplate death, but that was when I did not know I was to die.

WITHIN THE PALACE they were talking of Anne Askew.

She had deliberately defied her judges. What a fool! What a sublime fool!

“This is but a beginning,” it was whispered.

Those who had read the forbidden books and had dabbled with the new learning, were, in their fear, looking for plausible excuses.

“It was just an intellectual exercise, nothing more.”

“It was not a heresy… not a faith to die for.”

The Queen took to her bed; she was physically sick with horror. Anne—delicate Anne—condemned to the flames! This thing must not be allowed to happen. But how could she prevent it? What power had she?

The King had been irritable with her; he had ignored her when the courtiers were assembled. Once he had made up his mind regarding the Duchesses of Suffolk and Richmond he would find some means of disposing of his present Queen.

Her sister came and knelt by her bed. They did not speak, and Lady Herbert’s eyes were veiled. She wanted to beg her sister to plead for Anne; yet at the same time she was silently begging the Queen to do nothing.

Little Jane Grey went quietly about the apartment. She knew what was happening. They would burn Mistress Anne Askew at the stake, and no one could do anything to save her.

Imaginative as she was, she felt that this terrible thing which was happening to Anne was happening to herself. She pictured herself in that cold and airless cell; she pictured herself facing her judges at the Guildhall.

That night she dreamed that she stood in the square at Smithfield, and that it was about her own feet that the men were piling faggots.

She was with the Prince when Princess Elizabeth came to see him.

Elizabeth was a young lady now of thirteen years. There were secrets in her eyes; she wore clothes to call attention to the color of her hair, and rings to set off the beauty of her hands. She could never look at a man without—so it seemed to Jane—demanding to know whether he admired her. She was even thus with her tutors. And it was clear that Mistress Katharine Ashley, who thought her the most wonderful person in the world, now found her a difficult charge.

Everyone, even Elizabeth, looked sad because of Anne Askew. Elizabeth liked the new learning as much as Jane did—but differently. Elizabeth appreciated it, but would be ready to abandon it. Jane thought: I would not. I would be like Anne Askew.

“Something must be done to save her!” said Jane.

Edward looked expectantly at his sister, for she was the one who was always full of plans. If something could be done, Elizabeth would invariably suggest the means.

But now she shook her head.

“There is nothing to be done. Those with good sense will keep quiet.”

“We cannot let them send her to the stake!” insisted Jane.

“It is no affair of ours. We have no say in the matter.”

“We could plead, could we not?”

“With whom could we plead?”

“With the King.”

“Would you dare? Edward, would you dare?”

“With those near the King perhaps?” suggested Edward.

“With Gardiner?” cried the Princess ironically. “With the Chancellor?”

“No, indeed.”

“Then with Cranmer? Ha! He is too wise. He does not forget how, recently, he himself came near to disaster. He will say nothing. He will allow this affair to pass away and be forgotten—as we all must.”

“But it is Anne—our dearest Mistress Askew!”

“Our foolish Mistress Askew. She dared to stand up and say that the holy bread was not the body of Christ.”

“But that is what we know to be true.”

“We know?” Elizabeth opened her eyes very wide. “We read of these things, but we do not talk of them.”

“But if she believes…”

“I tell you she is a fool. There is no place in this court …nor in this world, I trow, for fools.”

“But you…no less than ourselves….”

“You know not what you say.”

“Then you are against Anne, against our stepmother? You are with Gardiner?”

“I am with none and against none,” answered the Princess. “I am … with myself.”

“Perhaps Uncle Thomas could put a plea before my father,” said Edward. “He is clever with words, and my father is amused by him. Uncle Thomas will know what to do.”

“’ Tis true,” said Elizabeth. “He will know what to do, and he will do what I shall do.”

She smiled and her face flushed suddenly; it was clear to Jane that Elizabeth was thinking, not of wretched Anne Askew, but of jaunty Thomas Seymour.

THE KING WAS in a merry mood. He sat, with a few of his courtiers about him, while a young musician—a beautiful boy— played his lute and sang with such sweetness that the King’s thoughts were carried away from the apartment. The song was of love; so were the King’s thoughts.

It should be my lady of Suffolk, he decided. She would bear him sons. He pictured her white body and her hair, touched with the bright yellow powder which so many used to give that pleasant golden touch. She was a fine, buxom woman.

Her glances had told him that she found him attractive. He liked her the better because she was the widow of Charles Brandon. There had always been friendship between himself and Charles. How readily he had forgiven the fellow when he had so hastily married Henry’s own sister, Mary Tudor, after old Louis’ death. Henry chuckled at the recollection of the old days, and a great longing for them swept over him.

He was not an old man. Fiftyfive. Was that so old? He decided angrily that he felt old because he no longer had a wife who pleased him.

Why is it, he pondered, that she cannot give me sons?

He had the answer to that. God was displeased with her. And why should God be displeased with her? She was no harlot—he would admit that—as the others had been. No. But she was a heretic. She was another such as that friend of hers, this Anne Askew. And that woman had been found guilty and condemned to the flames. Henry licked his lips. Was this wife of his any less guilty than the woman they had condemned to die?

I would not wish her to die such a death, he thought. I am a merciful man. But was it right that one woman should die for her sins while another, equally guilty, should go free?

There was an unpleasant rumor that the Duchess of Suffolk was one of those ladies who had dabbled in heresy. He did not want to examine that now. He refused to believe it. It was the sort of thing her enemies would say against her, knowing his interest. No! There was no need to occupy his thoughts with that matter…at this time.

She was a fascinating creature—aye, and not a little fascinated by her King. Feeling perhaps just a little afraid of such a mighty lover, seeming at times to long to run away? Perhaps. But he knew how she longed to stay!

In the old days she would have been his mistress ere this. But when a man grows older, he mused, he does not slip so easily into lovemaking. There is not the same desire for haste. Lovemaking must now be conducted more sedately, by the dim light of say…one candle?

His Chancellor was at his side. The King smiled. Wriothesley had comported himself well at the trial of the heretic. He had shown no softness merely because she was a woman.

A woman! A new vision of the Duchess’s beauty rose before him. Soon to be tested! he thought with pleasure.

Nay! Anne Askew was scarcely a woman. Lean of body and caring for books rather than the caress of a lover. That was not how a woman should be. No! Anne Askew was no woman.

He caught the phrase and repeated it to his conscience, for he was wily and shrewd and could guess what plans were being formed in the Chancellor’s mind.

No woman! No woman! he repeated to his conscience.

She was not alone in her guilt. There must be others. A little questioning, and she might disclose their names. The name of the Duchess of Suffolk came quickly into his mind. No, no. It was not true. He did not believe it. Moreover he had no fools about him. There was not one of them who would dare present him with the name of an innocent lady.

But why should Anne Askew not be questioned by his servants of the Tower? Because she was a woman? But she was no woman…no true woman.

And if I find heretics in my court, he said to his conscience, they shall not be spared. In the name of the Holy Church of which I am the head, they shall not be spared…no matter who…no matter who….

He could see the fair Duchess staring dreamily ahead, listening to that song of love. Was she thinking of a lover, a most desirable and royal lover?

He spoke to his conscience again: “I am a King, and many matters weigh heavily on my mind. I am the head of a great State, and I have seen that State grow under my hands. I have shown wisdom in my relations with foreign powers. I have allowed nothing to stand in the way of England. I have played off the Emperor Charles against sly François… and I have seen my country grow in importance in the world. I am a King and, because of these state matters, which are ever with me, I have need of the soothing sweetness of love. I have need of a mistress.”

The conscience said: “You have a wife.”

“A wife who is a heretic?”

“Not yet proven.”

The little eyes were prim.

“And if it were proved, I should have no alternative but to put her from me. I cannot tolerate heretics in my kingdom. Whoever they should prove to be, I could not tolerate those who work against God’s truth.”

“Nay! But it would have to be proved.”

“Perhaps it is my duty to prove it. And when I talk of love I think not of my body’s needs. When did I ever think of that? Nay! I need sons. I need them now in my declining years more than I ever did. If I put away one wife and take another, it would be solely with the object of getting myself sons, of making my line safe … for England’s sake.”

“That,” said the conscience primly, “is a very good motive for putting away a barren wife.”

The conscience was subdued. It had been shown that as usual the sensualist and the moralist walked hand in hand.

And now the Chancellor was at his side.

He murmured: “Your Grace’s pardon, but have I Your Grace’s permission to question the condemned woman?”

“You suspect you can get the names of others?”

“I do, Your Majesty; and I propose to question her in the service of Your Grace.”

“If there be those in this realm who disobey their King, I would know of them. Whoever they be, sir Chancellor, they may expect no mercy from me.”

The Chancellor bowed. He was pleased to have won such an easy victory.

THE DOOR OF ANNE’S cell was opening.

Two men had come for her.

“Is it to be so soon?” she asked. “Do you take me to Smithfield?”

“Not yet, mistress. You have another journey to make ere you set out on that last one.”

“What journey is this?”

“You will see soon enough. Are you ready to come with us?”

“Yes.”

She walked between the two men.

“Whither are you taking me?” she asked; but she believed she knew.

“Oh God,” she prayed, “help me. Help me now as never before, for I need Your help. I am a woman… and weak… and I have suffered much. I am faint from hunger, sick from cold; but it is not these things which distress me. I mourn because I am afraid.”

She fell against the slimy walls in her sickness; she drew back shuddering as she heard the rats scuttling away, alarmed by the sound of footsteps.

“This way, mistress.”

One of the men pushed her forward, and before her dazed eyes appeared a short, spiral staircase, down which they led her.

Now they were in the gloomy dungeons below the great Tower. Foul odors from the river were stronger here.

“Oh God,” she prayed, “let me die here. Let me die for the Faith. Willingly I will give my life. Let me not bring disgrace on the Faith. Let me be strong.”

Now the sickening stench of stale blood assailed her nostrils. She had no doubt to what place they were taking her. Misery seemed to haunt it. She fancied she heard the screams of men in agony. Did she really hear them, or were they the ghostly echoes of forgotten men?

She was pushed into the chamber—that dread chamber, the sight of which sickened the hearts of the bravest men.

She fell against a stone pillar from which hung the hideous instruments whose uses she could only guess, except that she knew they were made to torture men.

Two men had come toward her—two of the most brutishlooking men she had ever seen. Their eyes betrayed them—their glittering, cold, excited eyes. Those eyes betrayed too a certain lewdness in their thoughts; it was as though they spoke and said: “Ha! Here we have a woman!” These two men were Chancellor Wriothesley and Solicitor-General Rich, whom she had seen at her trial.

She was aware that this was to be one of the most important cross-examinations which had ever taken place in this room, for not only were the Chancellor and the Solicitor-General present, but there also was Sir Anthony Knevet, the Lieutenant of the Tower.

She looked at him appealingly, for he had not the cruel, animal look of the other men, and it seemed to her that there was sympathy in his eyes, as though they meant to convey the message to her: “I am not responsible for this. I but obey orders.”

The Chancellor spoke first. He had seated himself at the table on which were writing materials.

“You wonder why you are brought here, madam?” he said.

“I know why people are brought here. It is to answer questions.”

“You are clever. I can see that we need not waste time with explanations.”

The Solicitor-General had turned to her. “You will answer my questions, madam.”

“Do not weary yourselves with asking me questions,” she said. “I have answered them, and I shall not change those answers. I believe that the body of Christ…”

Rich waved a hand. “No, no. That is settled. You are a heretic. We know that. You have been sentenced, and that case is closed.”

“It is for another reason that you are brought here,” said Wriothesley. “You were not alone in your heresies. You must know the names of many people who support that erroneous belief for which you are going to die.”

“How should I know what goes on in the hearts and minds of others?”

“Madam, you are very clever. You have read too many books… far too many books. But do not waste your cleverness on us. We do not want sly answers. We want names.”

“Names?”

“The names of those who attended your meetings, who read those books with you.”

“I cannot give you names.”

“Why not, madam?”

“If I could say with certainty that such and such a person believes as I do…even so Iwould not give a name.”

“It would be wise not to be saucy. We are less patient here than in the Guildhall.”

“That I understand. Many may hear your words in the Guildhall. Here, you may say what you will.”

“Madam, you are a lady of gentle birth. I do not think you realize the importance of your visit to this chamber.”

“I know, sir, why you have brought me here,” she said. “Here you bring men to suffer torture. I did not know that you brought women. I understand now that it is so.”

“You are insolent, Madam. Have a care.”

Wriothesley signed to the two men, who came forward. They were professional torturers; their faces were blank; they were devoid of all feeling, as all must become who ply such a horrible trade.

They had seized her by the arms, and Wriothesley put his face close to hers.

“I do not think even now that you fully understand what will happen to you if you are obstinate. You have heard of the rack, no doubt, but you have no notion of its action.”

“I can imagine that,” she answered; she hoped that he did not see her lips moving in prayer, forming that one word which made up her desperate plea: Courage.

“Take her to the rack,” said the Solicitor-General. “Mayhap the sight of it will bring her to her senses.”

She was dragged across the room and her eyes perceived that instrument which none could look on without a shudder. It was shaped like a trough, at the ends of which were windlasses; in these, slots had been cut in which oars could be placed in order to turn them, and about them were coiled ropes to which the wrists and ankles of the sufferer could be tied and made taut by winding the windlasses. By means of the oars, in the hands of two strong men, the windlasses could be turned so that the victim’s legs and arms were slowly pulled out of their sockets. Even the dreaded Scavenger’s Daughter was not more feared than the rack.

“You…you would put me on the rack…in the hope that I would betray the innocent?” asked Anne.

“We would put you there that you might betray the guilty.”

She looked at the men about her, and her eyes rested on the anxious face of the Lieutenant of the Tower, but he could not bear to meet her glance. He said: “My lords, I like this not. A lady…to be put on the rack!”

“Those are His Majesty’s orders,” said Wriothesley.

Knevet turned away. “If you are sure, gentlemen, that these are the King’s commands, then we must obey them.” He turned to Anne. “I appeal to you, madam. Give us the names that we ask of you, and save yourself from torture.”

“I cannot give names merely to save myself from pain. How could I?”

“You are brave,” said the Lieutenant. “But be guided by me. Give the names…and have done with this miserable affair.”

“I am sorry,” said Anne steadfastly.

“Then,” said Wriothesley, “we have no alternative. Madam, you will take off your robe.”

She was made to stand before them in her shift, whereupon they placed her on the rack and attached the ropes to her emaciated wrists and ankles.

“Are you sure,” said Wriothesley, “that you wish us to continue?”

“You must do with me as you will.”

The Chancellor and Solicitor-General signed to the two men who had taken their stand at each end of the trough.

Slowly the windlasses began to turn; her poor sagging body became taut, and then… such agony took possession of it that for one terrible moment she must scream aloud for mercy. But almost immediately she was lost in blessed unconsciousness.

They would not allow her to remain in that happy state. They were splashing vinegar on her face. She opened her eyes, but she did not see the men about her; she was aware only of her sagging body held to the ropes by her dislocated limbs.

Wriothesley said: “The pain is terrible, I know. Endure no more of it. Merely whisper those names.”

She tried to turn her face away. Her lips began to move; but as Wriothesley put his ear close to her face, he was disgusted to find that she gave no names; it was but prayers she uttered, prayers for courage and the strength to endure her pains.

Wriothesley cried out in anger: “Again! Again! The woman is a fool. Let her suffer for her folly. That was merely a taste. Now let her have the full fury.”

“No…no…” cried Anne’s lips. “This…is…too…”

She had believed, a few seconds before, that she had learned all she could ever know about pain, that she had suffered it in all its malignancy, its fullest and most venomous powers. She was mistaken. Here was woeful agony, excruciating, exquisite torture, the very peaks of pain. “Oh God, let me die… let me die….” Those words beat on and on in her brain.

But they would not let her die. They would not let her long enjoy the benefit of unconsciousness. They were there, those evil men, bringing her out of the blessed darkness to suffer more pain.

“Names… names… names….” The words beat on her ears.

“Oh, God,” she prayed, “I had not thought of this. I had not thought I could endure so much and live. I had thought of the quick sharp pain. Death by the flames could not bring such agony as this.”

She heard the voice of Wriothesley beating like an iron bar on her shattered nerves:

“I will have those names. I will. I will. Again. Again. Give it to her again. You men are soft. You are too gentle. By God, I’ll have those names.”

Sir Anthony Knevet intervened: “My lords, I protest against this additional racking. The lady has been put to the test. That is enough.”

“And who, sir,” demanded the Chancellor, “are you to say what shall and what shall not be done?”

“I am the Lieutenant of this Tower. I am in sole charge in this Tower. The lady shall not, with my consent, be tortured further.”

“And who has placed you in command of this Tower? You forget to whom you owe your honors. This is rank disobedience to His Majesty’s orders. I will carry reports of this to the King, and we shall see how much longer you remain Lieutenant of the Tower, sir.”

Sir Anthony grew pale. He was afraid of the Chancellor and the Solicitor-General, for the two stood firm against him. But when he looked from them to the halfdead woman on the rack, he boldly said: “I cannot give my consent to the continuation of the racking.” He turned to the torturers. “Hold!” he ordered. “Have done.”

Wriothesley laughed.

“Then must we do the work ourselves. Come, Rich!” he cried; and he threw off his cloak. “We will work this together. We will show the lady what happens to those who defy us. As for you, sir Lieutenant, you will hear more of this matter. I, personally, shall convey the tale of your disobedience to the King.”

Knevet walked out of the chamber.

Rich hesitated; the two professional torturers, who dared not disobey the Lieutenant’s orders, stood watching. But Wriothesley had pushed them aside, was rolling up his sleeves, and, signing to Rich to do the same, he took an oar.

And venomously and most cruelly did those two go to work.

Anne was past prayers, past thought. There was nothing in the world for her, but the most exquisite agony ever inflicted on man or woman; there was nothing for her but the longing for death.

Sweating with their exertions, Wriothesley and Rich paused.

“She cannot endure more,” said Rich. “She is on the point of death.”

Rich was also thinking: And Knevet will be in his barge at this moment on his way to Greenwich. And what will the King say? His Majesty would not want this woman to die on the rack; he only wanted her to betray, as a heretic, the woman of whom he was so tired that he wished to rid himself of her.

Wriothesley followed his thoughts.

“Remove the ropes,” he said. “She has had enough.”

The professional torturers untied the ropes and laid the broken body of Anne Askew on the floor.

KNEVET SOUGHT AN AUDIENCE WITH THE KING.

“Your Majesty, I come in great haste. I come to lay before you my sincere apologies if I have disobeyed your orders. But I cannot believe Your Most Clement Majesty ever gave such orders.”

“What orders are these?” asked the King, his shrewd eyes glinting. He guessed that the Lieutenant of the Tower had news of Anne Askew.

“Your Grace, I have come straight from the racking of Anne Askew.”

“The racking of Anne Askew!” The King’s voice was noncommittal. He wished Anne Askew to betray the Queen’s guilt, but he did not care to have his name connected with the racking of a woman.

The Lieutenant of the Tower lifted his eyes hopefully to the King’s face.

“It is the woman, Your Grace, who is condemned to the stake.”

“The heretic,” said Henry. “She is condemned with three men, I understand. She has offended against our Holy Church and slandered the Mass. She has been tried and her judges have found her guilty.”

“That is so, Your Majesty. The sentence is just. But… they are racking her to death. Your Chancellor and Solicitor-General are racking her for information.”

“Racking her! Racking a woman!”

Knevet was on his knees, kissing the King’s hand.

“I knew that Your Grace in your great mercy would never have given your consent to such treatment of a frail woman. I could not allow myself to be involved in the matter unless I had written orders from Your Majesty. I trust I did right.”

The King’s lips were prim. To rack a woman! He had never given his consent to that. The rack had not been mentioned in his talk with the Chancellor.

“You did right,” said the King.

“Then I have Your Majesty’s pardon?”

“There is no need of pardon, my friend.” The King laid his hand on Knevet’s shoulder. “Go back to your duties with a good conscience.”

Fervently Knevet continued to kiss the King’s hand.

As he was about to retire, Henry said: “And the woman…did she disclose…er… anything of interest?”

“No, Your Majesty. She is a brave woman, heretic though she be. I left the Chancellor and Solicitor-General working the rack themselves, and with great severity.”

The King frowned. “And…on a frail woman!” he said in shocked tones. “It may be that under dire torture she will betray others who are as guilty as she is.”

“I doubt it, Your Majesty. She was then too weak to know anything but her agony.”

The King turned away as though to hide his distress that such things could happen in his realm. “A woman …” he murmured, his voice half sorrowful, half angry. “A frail woman!”

But when the Lieutenant had gone, his eyes, angry points of light, almost disappeared in his bloated face.

“A curse on all martyrs!” he muttered. “A curse on them all!”

Memories of others came to him in that moment. Norris and Derham; Fisher and More.

And it seemed to him that the ghosts of those martyrs were in the room, mocking him.

IN THAT SQUARE where so many tragedies had been played out, where medieval duels had been fought, where the sixty-two-year-old Edward III had held a seven-day joust for the entertainment of the young woman with whom he was in love, where Wat Tyler had been bettered by the youthful Richard II—in that square of gay triumphs and cruel deeds, men were now piling the faggots around four stakes.

From all over London the people were coming to Smithfield. Today was a show day, and the crowning event of a day’s sightseeing was to be the burning of four martyrs, one of them a woman—the famous Anne Askew. They chattered and laughed and quarreled, and most impatiently they waited for the sight of those who were to suffer.

The hot sun burned down on the walls of the Priory renowned for the fine mulberries that grew in its grounds, picking out the sharp stones and making them glitter. The smell of horses was in the air, although this place was to be used for a purpose other than the marketing of horses on this tragic day.

On a bench outside the Church of St. Bartholomew sat Wriothesley, with important members of his party, among them the old Duke of Norfolk and the Lord Mayor.

Wriothesley was uneasy.

The King had not reproved him in private for the racking of Anne Askew, and he knew that he had done what His Majesty had wished even though he could not be commended for it in public. Still, the torturing had been a failure, for the woman had refused to give the names which were required of her; and it was not wise to forge a false confession, for she was a fearless woman who was quite capable of exposing the fraud when she was at the stake and there would be many to hear her.

Yes, the affair was a failure, for clearly the torturing and burning of a gentlewoman had not in itself been the desire of the King or the Chancellor. The motive had been to implicate the Queen, and that had not been achieved.

On this day a fence had been erected on all sides of the square. It was necessary to keep back the press of people. He was afraid of what they might do, what sympathies they might display toward a woman who had been broken on the rack … whatever her faith. He was afraid of what words Anne Askew might speak while the flames crackled at her feet. Fervently he hoped that if she did speak, the fences would prevent the mass of sightseers from being near enough to hear her. He was, therefore, a most uneasy man.

The victims were now on their way from Newgate, whither Anne had been taken after her torturing, to await the day of her death. Anne came first. She was carried to the stake in her chair, for her limbs were useless. The people shouted when they saw her. The cry of “Heretic! To the stake with the heretics!” was distinctly heard. But so also were the words: “God bless you.” And some pressed forward to touch the garment of one who they considered would shortly be a holy martyr.

Her golden hair lay lusterless about her shoulders, but how fiercely her blue eyes burned. No torture could douse the light which burned within her. She was the fanatical and triumphant martyr. She knew that she had come successfully through the greater ordeal. Death by the flames would offer a welcome release from pain.

With her were three men—three others who had denied the Mass. None of them was considered of any importance; they were humble people. John Lascelles was the most interesting, because he had been the man who had first spread the rumors concerning Catharine Howard and so sent her to her doom.

Wriothesley thought fleetingly that every man was near to death. He who condemned today, was in his turn condemned tomorrow.

He turned to Norfolk. “A woman to die thus! It seems cruel.”

“Aye,” said Norfolk, who had seen two female relatives, wives of the King, lose their heads. “But she is nevertheless a heretic.”

“I have the King’s pardon in my pocket. It is hers if she will recant. I wish to let the people know that pardon awaits her if she will see reason.”

“Have it sent to her before the sermon starts.”

Anne received the message while, about her body, they were fixing the chain which would hold her to the stake.

“I come not hither,” she said, “to deny my Lord and Master.”

She saw that the three men who were to die with her received similar messages.

They were brave, but they lacked her spirit. They turned their agonized eyes to her, and she saw how their apprehensive bodies longed to recant, although their spirits would firmly ignore the frailty of the flesh.

She said: “My friends, we have suffered…I more than any of you. I am happy now. I long for death. I long to feel the flames. To deny your God now, would mean that you would loathe the life offered you on such terms.”

She smiled and looked almost lovingly at the faggots about her maltreated legs.

Then the men smiled with her and tried to emulate her courage.

“They are beginning the sermons,” she said. “There is Dr. Shaxton. He will preach to us, he who a short while ago was one of us. Now he has denied his faith. He has chosen life on Earth in place of the life everlasting. Do not envy him, my friends, for very soon now you and I will be in paradise. We are to die, and we die for truth. We die in the Lord. God bless you, my friends. Have no fear; for I have none.”

She held the cross in her hands. She lifted her eyes to Heaven, seeming to be unaware of the flickering flames. She heard the shrieks of agony about her; but she was smiling as the flames crept up her tortured body.

Soon there was silence, and a pall of smoke hung above Smithfield Square.