HENRY THE EIGHTH.
(In Two Parts.)
BY MRS. LEW. WALLACE.
II.
THE MIDDLE TOWER.
Among Anne's maids of honor was a delicate girl of exquisite charm, and as witty as the Queen herself. Jane Seymour came of a haughty house, but had missed the imperious bearing that was the heritage of her race. The winsome presence, all sweetness and grace, caught the restless fancy of the ungoverned King, and so bewitched was Bluebeard that he determined to slip off the bonds that bound him, and lead another wife to the altar and throne. To be sure, he had worn the light fetters of his second marriage loosely enough, and how to rid himself of the tireless devotion of Anne must have made him ponder and hesitate.
Not for long did he ever wait; patience was not a trait of even the best of the Tudors. One day, at Greenwich Palace, the Constable of London Tower suddenly appeared, and announced it was the King's pleasure that the Queen should at once depart with him. She was in an agony of terror, but calmly said, "If it be the King's pleasure, I obey." Without changing her dress, she entered her barge and was silently rowed to the Traitors' Gate. Under the fatal black arch she knelt and solemnly protested her innocence, prayed and wept, then laughed, and cried again, distracted like one insane. Two of her worst enemies were appointed ladies in waiting, in reality to watch her every movement day and night, tormenting the woful prisoner with questions. "The King wist what he did when he put such women about me," cried the wretched Anne. Faithful friends were lodged near, but not allowed to come close enough to ward off her persecutors.
On the fourth day of her captivity the Queen wrote a heart-breaking letter to the brute she called her sweet lord. It is so touching and tender I wish for more space that I could give it in full. The original MS. you may see in the British Museum. She prayed for a lawful trial, not before her enemies, and generously begged she alone might be condemned, if any. Here is the conclusion:
"If ever I have found favor in your sight, if ever the name of Anne Boleyn has been pleasant in your ears, then let me obtain this request, and I will so leave to trouble your Grace any further, with mine earnest prayers to the Trinity to have your Grace in His good keeping, and to direct you in all your actions.
"From my doleful prison in the Tower this 6th of May.
"Your most loyal and ever faithful wife,
"Anne Boleyn."
The trial was held the 16th May in the great Hall of the Tower, the scene of much iniquity, but none so black as this. The twenty-six "lords triers" were picked men who knew Henry's will and pitiless cruelty. The defenceless prisoner had no counsel or advice of any kind, but she bore herself composedly, and fearlessly held up her hand and pleaded not guilty. The records of the trial were destroyed, but it is said she defended herself with power and eloquence. It was a mere form; she was sentenced to be burnt or beheaded in three days, at the pleasure of the sovereign, and was requested to lay aside her crown, which she did, swearing herself innocent of any crime against her husband. Then clasping her hands, she appealed from earth to heaven, to the One who judgeth quick and dead: "O Father! O Creator! Thou who art the Way, the Truth, and the Life! Thou knowest that I have not deserved this fate!"
The whole proceeding was a bitter mockery, the deliberate sentence of death of a wife to make room for another.
She knew him too well to entreat for life or an extension of time. Three days more were allowed her, and of the hundreds the lovely lady had befriended not one was bold enough to stand between the murderer and the Queen. He was surrounded by flatterers who compared him to Absalom for beauty, Solomon for wisdom, and heroes ancient and modern for courage. And the same day she was condemned bluff King Harry signed the death warrant of his "entirely beloved Anne Boleyn."
In the dismal Tower she wrote her own requiem, so pitiful, yet so brave a thing few souls could dare. It begins:
"O Death! rock me asleep!
Bring on my quiet rest;
Let pass my very guiltless ghost
Out of my careful breast.
Ring out the doleful knell;
Let its sound my death tell;
For I must die.
There is no remedy,
For now I die!"
Her old friend, Sir Henry Kingston, was charged to announce the dreadful sentence that she be beheaded at noon the 19th of May, 1536, and, instead of the axe, the King graciously ordered she be beheaded by a sword; there was an expert in the horrid business who should be sent for to come from Calais.
Said the messenger, "I told her that the pain would be little, it was so subtle"; and then she replied, "I have heard say the executioner is very good, and my neck is very slender," upon which she clasped it with her two hands and smiled serenely; was even cheerful.
ANNE BOLEYN.
A few minutes before noon the Queen of England, attended by four maids of honor, appeared on Tower Hill, dressed in a robe of black damask, with deep white crape ruffling her neck, a black velvet hood on her head. Her cheeks were flushed with fever, and her beauty, says an eye-witness, was fearful to look upon.
In sight of the scaffold she made a speech, resigned and gentle: "I come here to die, not to accuse my enemies.... I pray God to save the King, and send him long to reign over you, for a gentler and more merciful Prince was there never. To me he was ever a good and gentle sovereign lord.... Thus I take my leave of the world and of you, and I heartily desire you all to pray for me."
Then she bade her weeping ladies farewell, refusing to allow her eyes to be covered, and the skilful Frenchman, avoiding her reproachful glance, with one blow of the sharp steel parted the burning brain from the true heart, and Anne Boleyn entered the strange peace we call death.
The dripping head with its soft silky tresses and the dis-severed body reeking in blood, were thrown into an old elm chest that had been used for keeping arrows, and carelessly buried in the chapel, without hymn or prayer.
Again the Tower guns sounded—the signal for death, not life. The solemn knell was music of wedding-bells in the listening ear of Henry. Dressed for the chase, he had stood under a spreading oak waiting impatiently till the sun-dial told noon, when the heavy booming filled the air. "Ha! ha!" he cried, with unnatural joy. "The deed is done. Uncouple the hounds, and away!" And mounting his horse, he rode at fiery speed to his bride expectant at Wolf Hall. The peerless Seymour, the pure white lily-bud, in the freshness of life's morning married Bluebeard the very next day.
The wedding feast was spread, the coronation a cloudless splendor; submissive courtiers held to the ancient proverb that the crown covers all mistakes, and they kissed the bloody hand of their master and hung on the smiles of the youthful Queen.
The sins of Anne Boleyn lie lightly on her now. Whatever her vanity and follies, she was a thousand thousand times too good for her "merciful Prince."
The fair Seymour, happily for herself, died the next year after her marriage, and Henry made offers to several royal ladies, and to an Italian Princess who had the shrewdness to decline, saying she might consider the proposal if she had two heads, but could not afford to lose her only one by the axe. And it was a good answer. A German Princess married him, and was divorced for Catherine Howard, who was murdered as Anne Boleyn had been; and then came the last wife, Catherine Parr, widow of Lord Latimer. By that time the King was grown a beast, with savage will unbroken, ready to kill, kill, kill whatever opposed caprice or whim. She lived to nurse him, this proud lady, till his bloated body almost rotted; he became a loathsome object, polluting the air (I may say the world), fearful to approach; and she paid a high price for her diamond coronet and whatever else came by the death of the despot she outlived. Of the latter days of Henry the Eighth the less said the better.
Beloved, these are sorry tales to tell young readers, but the Tower is a dreary place, and the greater portion of its history was made in barbarous ages. The historian mousing through the records of a terrible past has little pleasure, except in the thought that these murderous old days are ended forever. It is now a government store-house and armory.
One more little story, and we say good-by to the famous Tower whose foundations were laid by Julius Cæsar.
Not every reader of its history remembers that the greatest of England's rulers was once prisoner there. When Bloody Mary, daughter of Henry the Eighth and Katherine of Aragon, was Queen, she had Elizabeth, daughter of Anne Boleyn, arrested for conspiracy. The Princess, who could look down a lion, clad herself in white to proclaim her innocence, and rode to her prison in an open litter, that she might be seen by the people. A sick girl, faint and pale, her mien was lofty and defiant. It was but eleven days since Lady Jane Grey had been beheaded, and no one, high or low, knew when he might be marched to the dungeon or the block.
At the Traitors' Gate the Princess Elizabeth refused to land. One of the lords attending told her she must not choose, and, as it was raining, offered her his cloak. She dashed it from her "with a good dash," and setting her foot on the stairs, exclaimed: "I am no traitor! Here lands as true a subject, being prisoner, as ever landed at these stairs. Before Thee, O God, I speak it, having no other friend but Thee." Instead of passing through the opened gates, she sat on a cold wet stone, determined not to enter the prison of her own mother. However, the dauntless maid was forced to yield. The death of her half-sister made her Queen, and she reigned long and wisely, with a strange mixture of weakness in the midst of her wisdom and strength.
Once in a time of peril she mounted a white horse and rode through her army, very stately, in a steel corselet, bareheaded, her page bearing her plumed helmet, and spoke in words unsurpassed for appeal:
"My loving people, we have been persuaded by some that are careful of our safety to take heed how we commit ourselves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery; but I do assure you I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear. I have always so behaved myself that under God I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good will of my subjects; and therefore I am come amongst you as you see me at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved in the midst and heat of battle to live or die amongst you all, to lay down for my God, and for my kingdoms, and for my people my honor, and my blood even in the dust. I know I have the body of a weak, feeble woman; but I have the heart of a King, and of a King of England, too, and think foul scorn that Parma of Spain, or any Prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm; to which, rather than any dishonor should grow by me, I myself will take up arms. I myself will be your General, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field. I know already for your forwardness you have deserved rewards and crowns, and we do assure you, on the word of a Prince, they shall be duly paid you.
"For the mean time my Lieutenaut-General shall be in my stead, than whom never Prince commanded a more noble or worthy subject; not doubting but by your obedience to my General, by your concord in camp and your valor in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over these enemies of my God, of my kingdoms, and of my people."
No wonder the troops fell on their knees as one man, and shouted themselves hoarse in applause for their lion Queen, mother of all true Englishmen.
HENRY THE SEVENTH'S CHAPEL.
The gentlest of peacemakers is Time. The two daughters of Henry the Eighth—Mary and Elizabeth—so wide apart and repellent in life, are at one now. Henry the Seventh's Chapel of Westminster Abbey contains a narrow vault that holds what remains of the rival Queens. Their tomb allows no other tenant, and they will never more be divided. In calm after storm the unquiet Tudor sisters lie there alone, the leaden casket of Elizabeth resting on the coffin of Mary, well named the Bloody. Heirs of a contested throne, they sleep together in their Palace of Peace awaiting the call of the Angel of the Resurrection.
the end.
[DAISIES AND DANDELIONS.]
"Doctor, lawyer, merchant, priest,
Rich man, poor man, beggar-man—"
The last petal was reached as my little friend came to "beggar-man."
"Oh, dear," she said, with a comical look of make-believe distress on her pretty face. "A beggar-man for a husband! It's too dreadful for anything! Naughty daisy! I don't believe you are a good fortune-teller."
She was right. The daisy is not a good fortune-teller. But it is a nice flower, or rather group of flowers, to study. The whole yellow centre is a crowded mass of flowers, and the white petals along the edge are not petals at all, but rays.
Squeeze a daisy between your thumb and finger. Let the rays drop off, but keep one of the tiny florets, as they are called, and place it under a reading-glass or, better still, a pocket microscope. You cannot spend two or three dollars better than for a pocket-microscope, which will make a small seed look as large as a pea. In our daisy floret we shall find all the parts which the larger flowers have. The calyx is low down, clinging to a single hard seed. Such a seed is called an achenium (plural, achenia). The corolla is a tube with five points cut in the top. There are five stamens, joined, and making a ring by their anthers. The pistil is in the centre, where it belongs, with stigmas, and the style cut in two at the top. The flowers grow on a smooth white receptacle. There are two more things to notice about flowers belonging to this great Composite family: one, that each floret has a long, narrow bract standing beside it; the other, that the calyx-cup is crowned with stiff points, or coarse teeth, or bristles, or feathery-looking things. These are called the pappus. In the daisy there is no true pappus, but you have seen it in thistledown and in the dandelion-seed. The pappus serves for little wings for the flower, by which the wind blows the seed about.
Perhaps you like yellow daisies better than the too common white ones. Their seed was brought to us with clover-seed from the West, and now the yellow daisy or cone-flower is a tiresome weed to farmers about New Jersey, and soon will be over all New England. The florets are dark brown, and grow on a pointed receptacle. It is certainly a handsome thing, but it is a weed all the same. It differs from the white daisy in one particular. The rays of the white daisy have each a pistil like the florets, while the rays of the cone-flower are neutral—that is, have no pistil.
The marnta, or mayweed, is a small daisy growing on sandy roads. Its leaves are prettily cut, and smell like tansy leaves. The handsome asters which keep goldenrods company in autumn, marigolds, thorough worts, and hosts of others belong to the daisy family.
The dandelion has been called "the bright eye of spring." Did you ever curl its hollow stem or blow off its seeds? Blow three times, and you will have as many children as there are seeds left standing, so says this bit of flower-lore. The dandelion has no rays around the edge, but all the florets alike have rays. So the corollas, instead of being five-pointed tubes, are all spread out flat like the rays of the daisy. There are not so many flowers of this kind, but perhaps you know the wild-lettuce, the fall dandelion, the hawkweed, and the chicory. The last is a pretty blue flower. Blue flowers are rather rare. Red, yellow, and pink are commoner.
One of the hawkweeds has handsome leaves, all clustered at the root, light purple underneath, veined with darker purple. If you find such a rosette of leaves, with a tall slim stem bearing a few tassel-shaped yellow blossoms, you will have one of my favorites. Somebody has given it a bad name—rattlesnake-weed. It is not a weed, and only in its purple coloring may there be some suggestion of a snake-skin.
You will see now how the Composites are divided into two classes. The first is tubular, in which, like the daisy, ray-flowers grow only around the margin; the second, ligulate, in which, like the dandelion, all the corollas are alike, spreading out and flat.
These flowers are surrounded by an involucre composed of small leaves in rows, each one a scale. In thistles the scales are prickly.
[A BRAVE WAR CORRESPONDENT.]
It is a pleasure to cite the following case of an American correspondent whom Lord Wolseley encountered during the Ashantee campaign, and it cannot be done better than to cite it as the General told it, in a reminiscent mood, not long since: "It was at the beginning of the campaign, just after our landing, when a square-built little man came up to me, and said, speaking slowly, and with an unmistakable American accent: 'General, allow me to introduce myself. I am the correspondent of the New York ——. I—.' Too busy to attend to him, I cut him short with, 'What can I do for you, sir?' He replied, imperturbably, with the same exasperating slowness, 'Well, General, I want to be as near you as I can, if there is any fightin' to be seen.' 'Captain So-and-so has charge of all the arrangements concerning correspondents,' I rejoined, curtly; 'you had better see him.' And with this I turned on my heel and left him. I saw no more of my correspondent with the aggravating coolness and slowness of speech for many a day. I did not even know whether he was accompanying the column or not. Personally speaking, I was only in danger once during the whole expedition. It was shortly before we entered Coomassic. I had pressed forward with the advanced troops, hoping to break the last effort at resistance and have done with the affair, when the enemy, utilizing the heavy covert, came down and fairly surrounded us. For a few minutes the position was critical, and every man had to fight, for the enemy's fire was poured in at close quarters. They pressed upon us from all sides, dodging from tree to tree, and continually edging closer, hoping to get hand to hand. In the hottest of it my attention was caught by a man in civilian's clothes who was some fifteen or twenty yards in front of me, and who was completely surrounded by the advancing savages. He seemed to pay no heed to the danger he was in, but, kneeling on one knee, took aim and fired again and again, and I seemed to see that every time he fired a black man fell. I was fascinated by his danger and coolness. As our main body came up and the savages were driven back, I went forward to see that no harm came to my civilian friend, who rose just as I reached him. To my astonishment it was the correspondent of the New York ——, and he began again, in the same slow, calm way, 'Well, General——.' Again I interrupted him. 'You were lucky to escape. Didn't you see that you were surrounded?' 'Well, General,' he began again, 'I guess I was too much occupied by the niggers in front to pay much attention to those behind.'"