Or how, your majesty, can it possibly be with your permission that my lady the queen maintains a correspondence with Anne Askew?""What say you? The queen in correspondence with Anne Askew?" cried the king in a voice of thunder. "That is a lie, a shameless lie, hatched up to ruin the queen; for it is very well known that the poor king, who has been so often deceived, so often imposed upon, believes himself to have at last found in this woman a being whom he can trust, and in whom he can put faith. And they grudge him that.
They wish to strip him of this last hope also, that his heart may harden entirely to stone, and no emotion of pity evermore find access to him. Ah, Douglas, Douglas, beware of my wrath, if you cannot prove what you say!""Sire, I can prove it! For Lady Jane herself, no longer ago than yesterday, was made to give up a note from Anne Askew to the queen."The king remained silent for a while, and gazed fixedly on the ground. His three confidants observed him with breathless, trembling expectation.
At length the king raised his head again, and turned his gaze, which was now grave and steady, upon the lord chancellor. "My Lord Chancellor Wriothesley," said he, "I empower you to conduct Anne Askew to the torture-room, and try whether the torments which are prepared for the body are perchance able to bring this erring soul to an acknowledgment of her faults. My Lord Bishop Gardiner, Ipromise my word that I will give attention to your accusation against the Archbishop of Canterbury, and that, if it be well founded, he shall not escape punishment. My Lord Douglas, I will give my people and all the world proof that I am still God's righteous and avenging vice-gerent on earth, and that no consideration can restrain my wrath, no after-thought stay my arm, whenever it is ready to fall and smite the head of the guilty. And now, my lords, let us declare this session at an end. Let us breathe a little from these exertions, and seek some recreation for one brief hour.
"My Lords Gardiner and Wriothesley, you are now at liberty. You, Douglas, will accompany me into the small reception-room. I want to see bright and laughing faces around me. Call John Heywood, and if you meet any ladies in the palace, of course I beg them to shed on us a little of that sunshine which you say is peculiarly woman's."He laughed, and, leaning on the earl's arm, left the cabinet.
Gardiner and Wriothesley stood there in silence, watching the king, who slowly and heavily traversed the adjacent hall, and whose cheery and laughing voice came ringing back to them.
"He is a weathercock, turning every moment from side to side," said Gardiner, with a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders.
"He calls himself God's sword of vengeance, but he is nothing more than a weak tool, which we bend and use at our will," muttered Wriothesley, with a hoarse laugh. "Poor, pitiful fool, deeming himself so mighty and sturdy; imagining himself a free king, ruling by his sovereign will alone, and yet he is but our servant and drudge! Our great work is approaching its end, and we shall one day triumph. Anne Askew's death is the sign of a new covenant, which will deliver England and trample the heretics like dust beneath our feet. And when at length we shall have put down Cranmer, and brought Catharine Parr to the scaffold, then will we give King Henry a queen who will reconcile him with God and the Church, out of which is no salvation.""Amen, so be it!" said Gardiner; and arm in armthey both left the cabinet.
Deep stillness now reigned in that little spot, and nobody saw John Heywood as he now came from behind the hanging, and, completely worn out and faint, slipped for a moment into a chair.
"Now I know, so far at least, the plan of these blood-thirsty tiger-cats," muttered he. "They wish to give Henry a popish queen; and so Cranmer must be overthrown, that, when they have deprived the queen of this powerful prop, they may destroy her also and tread her in the dust. But as God liveth, they shall not succeed in this! God is just, and He will at last punish these evil-doers. And supposing there is no God, then will we try a little with the devil himself.
No, they shall not destroy the noble Cranmer and this beautiful, high-minded queen. I forbid it--I, John Heywood, the king's fool. Iwill see everything, observe everything, hear everything. They shall find me everywhere on their path; and when they poison the king's ear with their diabolical whisperings, I will heal it again with my merry deviltries. The king's fool will be the guardian angel of the queen."
