After so much care and excitement, the king needed an hour of recreation and amusement. Since the fair young queen was seeking these far away in the chase, and amid the beauties of Nature, Henry must, no doubt, be content to seek them for himself, and in a way different from the queen's. His unwieldiness and his load of flesh prevented him from pursuing the joys of life beyond his own halls;so the lords and ladies of his court had to bring them hither to him, and station the flitting goddess of Joy, with her wings fettered, in front of the king's trundle-chair.
The gout had that day again overcome that mighty king of earth; and a heavy, grotesque mass it was which sat there in the elbow-chair.
But the courtiers still called him a fine-looking and fascinating man; and the ladies still smiled on him and said, by their sighs and by their looks, that they loved him; that he was ever to them the same handsome and captivating man that he was twenty years before, when yet young, fine-looking, and slim. How they smile upon him, and ogle him! How Lady Jane, the maiden otherwise so haughty and so chaste, does wish to ensnare him with her bright eyes as with a net!
How bewitchingly does the Duchess of Richmond, that fair and voluptuous woman, laugh at the king's merry jests and double entendres!
Poor king! whose corpulency forbids him to dance as he once had done with so much pleasure and so much dexterity! Poor king! whose age forbids him to sing as once he had done to the delight both of the court and himself!
But there are yet, however, pleasant, precious, joyous hours, when the man revives some little in the king; when even youth once more again awakes within him, and smiles in a few dear, blessed pleasures. The king still has at least eyes to perceive beauty, and a heart to feel it.
How beautiful Lady Jane is, this white lily with the dark, star-like eyes! How beautiful Lady Richmond, this full-blown red rose with the pearl-white teeth!
And they both smile at him; and when the king swears he loves them, they bashfully cast down their eyes and sigh.
"Do you sigh, Jane, because you love me?""Oh, sire, you mock me. It would be a sin for me to love you, for Queen Catharine is living.""Yes, she is living!" muttered the king; and his brow darkened; and for a moment the smile disappeared from his lips.
Lady Jane had committed a mistake. She had reminded the king of his wife when it was yet too soon to ask for her death.
John Heywood read this in the countenance of his royal master, and resolved to take advantage of it. He wished to divert the attention of the king, and to draw it away from the beautiful, captivating women who were juggling him with their bewitching charms.
"Yes, the queen lives!" said he, joyfully, "and God be praised for it! For how tedious and dull it would be at this court had we not our fair queen, who is as wise as Methuselah, and innocent and good as a new-born babe! Do you not, Lady Jane, say with me, God be praised that Queen Catharine is living?""I say so with you!" said Jane, with ill-concealed vexation.
"And you, King Henry, do you not say it too?""Of course, fool!""Ah, why am I not King Henry?" sighed John Heywood. "King, I envy you, not your crown, or your royal mantle; not your attendants or your money. I envy you only this, that you can say, 'God be praised that my wife is still alive!' while I never know but one phrase,'God have pity, my wife is still alive!' Ah, it is very seldom, king, that I have heard a married man speak otherwise! You are in that too, as in all things else, an exception, King Henry; and your people have never loved you more warmly and purely than when you say, 'I thank God that my consort is alive!' Believe me, you are perhaps the only man at your court who speaks after this manner, however ready they may be to be your parrots, and re-echo what the lord high-priest says.""The only man that loves his wife?" said Lady Richmond. "Behold now the rude babbler! Do you not believe, then, that we women deserve to be loved?""I am convinced that you do not.""And for what do you take us, then?"
"For cats, which God, since He had no more cat-skin, stuck into a smooth hide!""Take care, John, that we do not show you our claws!" cried the duchess, laughing.
"Do it anyhow, my lady! I will then make a cross, and ye will disappear. For devils, you well know, cannot endure the sight of the holy cross, and ye are devils."John Heywood, who was a remarkably fine singer, seized the mandolin, which lay near him, and began to sing.
It was a song, possible only in those days, and at Henry's voluptuous and at the same time canting court--a song full of the most wanton allusions, of the most cutting jests against both monks and women; a song which made Henry laugh, and the ladies blush; and in which John Heywood had poured forth in glowing dithyrambics all his secret indignation against Gardiner, the sneaking hypocrite of a priest, and against Lady Jane, the queen's false and treacherous friend.
But the ladies laughed not. They darted flashing glances at John Heywood; and Lady Richmond earnestly and resolutely demanded the punishment of the perfidious wretch who dared to defame women. The king laughed still harder. The rage of the ladies was so exceedingly amusing.
"Sire," said the beautiful Richmond, "he has insulted not us, but the whole sex; and in the name of our sex, I demand revenge for the affront.""Yes, revenge!" cried Lady Jane, hotly.
"Revenge!" repeated the rest of the ladies.
"See, now, what pious and gentle-hearted doves ye are!" cried John Heywood.
The king said, laughingly: "Well, now, you shall have your will--you shall chastise him.""Yes, yes, scourge me with rods, as they once scourged the Messiah, because He told the Pharisees the truth. See here! I am already putting on the crown of thorns."He took the king's velvet cap with solemn air, and put it on.
