SIR THOMAS MORE.
A HISTORICAL ROMANCE.
FROM THE FRENCH OF THE PRINCESSE DE CRAON.
X.
In that portion of the attic of Whitehall Castle looking toward the west they had, according to the king’s orders, erected an altar in order to celebrate Mass. Three persons had assembled there, and were reflecting on the singularity of the hour and the choice of the place where they found themselves called by this religious ceremony.
Lady Berkley, seated upon a high cane chair, had carefully gathered about her feet the long train of her silk dress, to avoid having it sweep over the floor covered with dust, and she observed with great attention the old tapestries, which had been nailed all around the altar in order to conceal as far as possible the unsightly appearance of the rafters of the roof.
Heneage, with his arms crossed, not far from her, waited, having nothing to do, while Dr. Roland Lee, invested with the pontifical vestments, kneeled on the step of the altar, inwardly grieved at this new whim of the king, which he found as inconvenient as disrespectful; but being very pious, he endeavored to pray to God and occupy himself only with the holy sacrifice he was going to offer up.
They had waited very nearly an hour in this position, when Norris entered with a light in his hand.
“The king,” he said in a loud voice.
The assistants immediately arose to their feet, and the king appeared, followed by Lady Boleyn, with Anne Savage carrying her train, gleaming with embroidery.
On entering she cast a glance upon the surroundings of this improvised chapel, and she was far from finding them to her liking. But Henry VIII. gave her no time for reflection; he placed two chairs in front of the altar, and, putting himself in one, he made a sign to her to kneel upon the other; then, having called Sir Roland, he announced to him that he had to proceed with the marriage.
Although he had presaged nothing good from the singular preparations he had seen made in this attic chapel, yet poor Dr. Lee was far from anticipating such an order as he now received; he found himself in a horrible state of perplexity, and stood without making any reply.
“Come!” said the king after a moment’s silence, “commence the prayers.”
But Roland turned toward him, and still continued to stand on the step of the altar; he said with a great deal of dignity:
“No, your majesty cannot marry, the ecclesiastical authorities not having yet decided.…”
“What say you, Roland?” interrupted the king brusquely. “God alone has power to judge the conscience
of princes, and mine has decided that I should marry. Go on and do what I command you now.”
“Sire,” replied Roland, who feared that his days were numbered, “your majesty has all power over my poor body, and I am your very unworthy and very devoted subject; but I cannot solemnize your marriage without having proof that you are at liberty to contract it.”
Henry bit his lower lip.
“Roland!” he said.
“Sire,” replied the other, as if he thought the king had called him.
“The imbecile!” exclaimed Henry VIII. to himself; but he saw it would be better to dissimulate.
“Roland,” he replied, with an inflection of voice as different as his new intention, “do you think I would command you to do anything wrong? I have received from Rome the bulls of our Holy Father, who recognizes the nullity of my marriage with Catherine, the wife of my brother, and permits me to select for my spouse any other unmarried woman in my kingdom. However, in order to avoid scandal, he bound me to do it secretly.”
“Then I have nothing to say,” replied Roland Lee, relieved of an immense weight; “but your majesty will, of course, first show me the proofs.”
“Obstinacy!” thought the king. “How, Sir Roland,” he cried, assuming an air of extreme mortification, “the word of your king, then, is no longer sufficient? Is it necessary for me to go and bring you a thing which I affirm to have in my possession? Roland,” he added in a severe tone, “until now your conscience alone has spoken, therefore I have not been offended; but take care that, instead of commending your course, I no longer
see in you other than an incredulous obstinacy. I pledge you my royal word on the truth of what I have stated.… But add not a word more.”
Roland dared not reply, and, unable to believe the king would dare to prevaricate in that manner before such a number of witnesses, he began, although much disturbed, to say the Mass.… But the quiet solemnity of prayer influences the most obdurate heart: man is so insignificant in the presence of God.
Henry felt more and more troubled. Queen Catherine’s letter, Norris’ description of her departure, the scene of the previous evening, passed one after another before his eyes and continued to torture his memory. The words of the holy daughter of Kent, “The woman you wish to marry will dishonor your couch and perish on the scaffold,” arose unconsciously to his lips, and aroused in his soul a gloomy jealousy. He cast a glance upon Anne Boleyn; their eyes met, and the miserable woman was terror-stricken at the expression of fury that gleamed from his eyes. Then he looked around him. The sun had arisen, and brought into bold relief the old and faded tapestries surrounding the altar.
“Is this place worthy of me?” he thought to himself. “Is it thus I have prayed with Thomas More?—that quiet, peace, order, and respect?… There one is happy; here they are consumed, devoured by remorse! Happiness of the just, I execrate thee, because I have not been able to attain thee!”… Thus all that was good excited his envy; even Catherine, whom he had driven from the door of his palace a wanderer on the earth, seemed to him happier than himself.
But it was still worse when the venerable priest, turning towards him, began the ancient and solemn rites of marriage between the children of God, and came to these words: “You, Henry of Lancaster, do confess, acknowledge, and swear before God, and in presence of his holy church, that you now take for your wife and legitimate spouse Anne Boleyn, here present.”
“Ah!” said the king mentally, “hell would be better than the life that I lead.” He trembled, and answered in a loud voice:
“Yes!”
“You promise to keep to her faithfully in all things, as a faithful husband should his wife, according to the commandment of God?”
“Yes,” he answered again.
“And you, Anne Boleyn, you also confess, acknowledge, and swear before God, and in presence of his holy church, that you now take for your husband and legitimate spouse Henry of Lancaster, here present.”
“Yes,” stammered Anne Boleyn, who had no relatives, no friends around her—no one except two valets and a femme de chambre.
“You promise to keep to him faithfully in all things, as a faithful wife should her husband, according to the commandment of God?”
“Yes,” she answered more distinctly.
Then the priest took the nuptial ring, and, placing it in the hand of the king, made a sign to give it to his wife.
Henry VIII., leaning toward Anne Boleyn, gave it to her, seeming scarcely conscious that he did so. The sight of this ring recalled the one he had given Catherine on a former and similar occasion, the sanctity of the engagements he had
contracted with her, the love he then bore her, her youth, her sincerity, her charms, her virtues, the tranquillity of his own conscience; now, he had dissipated all these blessings—dissipated them wilfully and through his own fault; he felt himself despised and despicable. His legitimate wife driven forth and discarded, while he took another by means of a disgraceful falsehood which must be very soon discovered. He no longer had children; he had renounced at the same time all the rights of a man, a father, a husband, in order to recommence, at his age, a new career, already branded with disgraceful recollections and shameful regrets.
“May the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob unite you, and may he shower his benedictions upon you! I now pronounce you man and wife, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” said the priest, making the sign of the cross over them.
“Amen!” responded the assistants.
“No benedictions! Don’t talk to me about benedictions, wretches!” replied Henry in a stifled voice.
“It is truly just and reasonable,” continued the priest, ascending the steps of the altar and extending his hands towards heaven, “it is right and salutary, that we return thee thanks at all times and in all places, O Lord, most holy Father, Almighty God eternal, who by thy power hast created the universe out of nothing; who in the beginning of the world, after having made man in thine image, gave him, to be his inseparable companion, the woman whom thou hast formed from thyself, in order to teach him that he is never permitted to put asunder those whom thou hast
united in the sacrament thou hast instituted. O God! thou who hast consecrated marriage by so excellent a mystery that the nuptial alliance is the figure of the sacred union of Jesus Christ and his church; O God! by whom the woman is united to the man, and who givest to this intimate union thy blessing, the only one which has not been taken away, neither by the punishment of original sin nor the sentence of the Deluge; O God! thou who alone hast dominion over the hearts of men, and who knowest and governest all things by thy providence, insomuch that no man can put asunder those whom thou hast joined together—”
“When shall I get out of this place?” murmured Henry VIII.
“Nor injure those whom thou hast blessed—unite, we pray thee, the souls of these thy servants, who belong to thee, and pour into their hearts a sincere friendship, to the end that they may become one in thee, as thou art the only true and all-powerful God. Regard with a favorable eye thy servant, who, before being united to her spouse, implores your protection. Grant that her yoke may be a yoke of love and peace; grant that, chaste and faithful, she may follow the example of the holy women of old; that she render herself amiable to her husband, like Rachel; that she may be wise as Rebecca; that she may enjoy a long life, and be faithful like Sara; that the author of prevarication may find nothing in her that proceeds from him; that she may abide firm in thy law and
in the observance of thy commandments; that, at last, being attached only to her husband, she defile not the marriage-bed by any illicit connection.”
“Do you understand what the priest advises you?” said Henry VIII., angrily regarding Anne Boleyn, and speaking almost loud enough for her to hear him.
“That, in order to sustain her weakness, she may fortify herself by an exact and well-regulated life; that she may conduct herself with such proper modesty as will ensure respect; that she inform herself of her duties in the heavenly doctrines of Jesus Christ; that she may obtain from thee a happy fecundity; that she may lead a life pure and irreproachable—”
“I will not suffer her to do otherwise,” thought the king.
“That at length she may arrive at the rest of the saints in the kingdom of heaven. Grant, Lord, that they may both live to behold their children’s children until the third and fourth generation, and attain a happy old age, through Jesus Christ our Lord, thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, world without end.”
“Amen!” responded the assistants.
“It is over at last,” said the king, rising precipitately.
He motioned Anne Boleyn to follow him; but she made no reply, and he saw that she was weeping, and had put her hands over her eyes to conceal her tears.
He then left her, and immediately went out.
XI.
On returning to his apartments, the king found in his cabinet Cromwell and Cranmer, who, pompously invested with the garb of his new episcopal dignity, came with Cromwell to thank the king for having
conferred on him this exalted position.
The sight of these two intriguers produced a disagreeable impression on Henry. He was very wearied already by the scene through which he had just passed, and longed to be alone. Instead of that, he found himself face to face with two new instruments of torture.
Cromwell regarded the king attentively, and was astonished at the expression of dissatisfaction visible on every feature of his face.
“What does he want now?” mentally inquired this unprincipled man. “Have we not procured the accomplishment of all his desires? Is he not now the very legitimate spouse of the brilliant Anne Boleyn, Marchioness of Pembroke?” But he thought it advisable under existing circumstances to let the king speak first, and contented himself with a profound salutation.
“What more do you want of me?” asked the king very brusquely.
“He is not very approachable this morning,” thought Cromwell; “but never mind, he will not escape us for all that.”
“We come,” replied Cromwell, “to congratulate your majesty on the clemency and magnanimity you displayed yesterday evening towards that daughter of Kent; and Dr. Cranmer has come to lay at your feet the assurance of his gratitude and his entire devotion.”
“Yes,” replied the king, happy to attribute his anger to something he could confess; “you are clever men, and richly deserve to be driven from my presence for having risked compromising me with that fool to whom you have made me listen! I am beginning to get tired of your fooleries; Sir Cromwell, understand that well!” And he emphasized the last words with a
marked intention and an expression of anger and scorn.
“The marriage has not improved matters much, it would seem,” said Cromwell to himself; but he considered it proper to display a little dignity. “I understand,” he replied immediately, “that your majesty may have at first taken some offence at the insolent audacity of that woman of Kent; but I am astonished that you should be so unjust as to think ill of your servants on account of it, and especially since nothing could have been more fortunate in putting us on the track of the infamous intrigues of the queen and her partisans.”
“Infamous intrigues! infamous intrigues!” cried the king. “That is a word which may be very readily applied, and often it is not to those who most deserve it.”
An angry flush mounted to Cromwell’s pale visage; he felt that it was time to calm the storm about to burst upon him.
“I implore your majesty to believe,” he replied in an extremely mortified tone, “that I advance nothing without proof; and I ask now what he will say when he shall know that the queen, Thomas More, and the Bishop of Rochester, concealed in the church, assisted with us at the examination of the holy daughter of Kent, in order to assure themselves that their instrument resounded loudly in the ears of your majesty.”
“What do you say, Cromwell? The queen was in the Abbey last night? And how did she gain admittance there? What! she has heard all? She has enjoyed my humiliation? Why have I not known it? I would have punished her audacity and wickedness on the spot; but I will surely have my revenge.”
“Sire,” replied Cromwell, “the
queen is but a woman, and you should pardon her. The real culprits are the Bishop of Rochester and More, whose ingratitude toward your majesty exceeds all conception. The queen’s partisans laud More above the clouds, and publish it abroad that he has retired from your majesty’s service because his conscience would no longer permit him to remain there. It is time to put an end to such excesses, and the honor of your majesty requires that they shall no longer go unpunished.”
Cromwell intended by this discourse to excite the king’s wrath and at the same time strike at his ruling passions—pride, and the fear of losing his authority. Thus he held him in his hands, and changed him from one to the other, like a piece of soft wax melted before a hot fire.
“Yes,” cried the king, “yes, I swear it, I will chastise them! The whole world shall learn what it is to try to resist me!” He was nearly stifled with rage, which entirely transported him and rendered him incapable of reflection.
“You will assist me, Cromwell,” he cried, “you will assist me! I shall have need of you to help me tame this insolent clergy, who will raise a loud howl when they hear I have banished Catherine and married Anne Boleyn without their participation.”
“He is caught,” thought Cromwell. “Poor fish! you have too many vices to hope to escape my nets! I am very happy to see,” he replied with a satisfied air, “that your majesty has not been cast down or discouraged by the trifling difficulties you have until the present encountered. It is time your courage got the better of your generosity, and that you should throw
off the yoke which has been so long imposed on you.”
“Yes, that is just what I want!” cried the king; “but it is a very difficult question to deal with.”
“Not the least in the world,” replied Cromwell; “let your majesty continue as you have begun, and you will very soon see every obstacle fall before you. Not long since they declared your marriage was impossible; to-day it is accomplished.… The clergy will not recognize it!… Make Parliament proclaim it; then demand of them the oath of fidelity to the new queen, to her children, and to the supreme head of the church; because we must not lose sight,” continued Cromwell, “of the fact that there is no longer any necessity for discretion now; after the injury done to the Sovereign Pontiff of the church, there remains no other way to proceed than to cast off his authority at once and substitute another in his place.”
“Softly, softly,” said the king; “unless the necessity be forced upon me, I do not wish to go to such an extremity.”
“This is not an extremity,” replied Cromwell, who had the plan already perfectly arranged, and enjoyed in advance all the ecclesiastical benefits he counted on appropriating to himself; “it is a decisive victory, simple and easy to carry out. Is it not, Cranmer?”
“I think so,” said Cranmer, who had taken the habit of a bishop only that he might be better able to serve his ambition and avidity.
“Softly,” continued the king, with an air of importance; “it is very evident that neither of you are statesmen, and that you are not experienced in such matters, nor acquainted with their difficulties.”
“I think, however, I know very
well how to manage my own,” said Cromwell under his breath.
“We know quite as much about it as some others,” thought Cranmer.
“It will first be necessary,” continued Henry, “to see if there will be no means of arranging it otherwise. It is possible that Catherine may submit, that she may ask to become a religieuse, that they may decide at Rome that it is not necessary to enforce the law so urgently in my case. At any rate, I wish to try them,” he added in a determined voice, “by demanding, as is customary, Cranmer’s bulls of the pope. Afterward—ah! well, we will see.”
“Then, sire,” replied Cromwell, “consider well that, by this act of submission, you destroy all the terror you have inspired, and that if Cranmer holds his rank and powers as Archbishop-Primate of England from any other than yourself, he will be obliged to publicly acknowledge the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome, and to take from him, as usual, the oath of fidelity.”
“Oh!” hurriedly interrupted Cranmer, who feared that this remark of Cromwell would make the king hesitate, and retard his installation, “this oath is only a simple formality, … an ancient usage.… Nothing could prevent me later from taking another to the king in the form and tenor adopted.”
“Ah! well; yes, still—” said Cromwell, whose talent above all consisted in never finding, nor letting the king find, any difficulty in following his advice.
“These honest individuals!” thought the king; “an oath weighs no more on their conscience than a gnat on the back of a swallow.”
With this remark his patience was exhausted with them.
“Well, it is all right,” he said;
“we will return to this subject after the council. Go now; I need rest; but keep an eye on Thomas More and the Bishop of Rochester,” he added, turning toward Cromwell.
They then had to retire, and leave the king by himself, a prey to his own reflections.
“They are gone at last!” cried Henry, throwing himself into a fauteuil. “I am rid of them! These are, then, the agents of hell with whom hereafter I must manage the affairs of my kingdom.”
And he angrily pushed from under his feet a footstool, which was hurled against a chair they called the “queen’s chair,” because she had shown a preference for it.
Henry recollected it; he arose abruptly, and changed his position in order to avoid seeing the vacant chair, that annoyed him.
“Always Catherine,” he cried; “nothing but Catherine! I cannot take a step without being reminded of her! So much trouble, and only to make myself so wretched!… That doll-baby, Anne Boleyn, was weeping!… A weak creature, and with no energy!… She is not equal to the position to which I have elevated her. To weep the day that I married her, when for her I have torn myself from the arms of the clergy, the people, the pope, and the emperor!… I shall not be happy with this woman;… she wearies me already!… It will be necessary to make all this known before the coronation; … otherwise there will be no time to recede.… To acknowledge that I have done wrong … it is impossible.… More, could you, then, have been right? Shall I always be more unhappy in following my own will than in conquering it?… That wretch! always calm, always
contented.… I see him now, down in his obscurity, seated quietly in his cabinet, working, loving God, not fearing death, … smiling at poverty and all the circumstances of life, which, as he says, have no power to annoy him.… And I—I roll here on these velvet cushions, with remorse in my heart, despair in my soul; and why, when I have obtained the object I wanted?… Hell has already begun for me!… If it is so, I should not, at least, be ashamed to acknowledge it!… March on!”
The king, rising then precipitately, left his cabinet, and ordered preparations for a grand hunting party, and for the assembling of the ladies for a ball and supper in the evening.
XII.
Whilst they were dancing at court, and sought, in dissipation of mind, to drown remorse of heart, a few leagues distant one of the victims of Henry VIII. lay on his death-bed, rapidly approaching his end.
The night before some travellers had knocked at the gate of Leicester Abbey. It was opened, and the Archbishop of York had alighted from his mule, on which he was no longer able to sustain himself. He was carried by the good monks to a chamber, and laid in bed, where he still remained confined and nigh unto death.
All was gloom around this bed; two wax lights only burned on a table at the extremity of the room, whilst several monks were on their knees praying for the dying. Not a sound disturbed the silence around them save the slight noise made by the rosary as they turned it in their hands, and the labored respiration of the sick man.
“Monsieur Kingston,” he suddenly cried in a broken voice, “I conjure you, say to the king that I have never betrayed him, that my enemies have misrepresented me, that I have always been faithful to him!… Tell him this, I conjure you!—ah! tell him this.”
But Sir William Kingston, lieutenant
of the Tower, had left the room and returned to the lower hall among his guards, with whom he had been sent, by order of the king, to seek his prisoner at the castle of the Count of Shrewsbury, and bring him to the Tower.
Fatigued by the journey, some of them were stretched on the floor, while others slept on their arms, leaning against the wall, as if death still required them to guard their prey.
Wolsey receiving no reply, turned himself over with a groan, and saw the shadow of a man standing near his bed.
“Who is that?” he asked.
“It is I,” replied Cavendish, still remaining behind the curtain, and who endeavored in silence to conceal his tears.
“How are you now?” said Wolsey.
“Well, my dear lord, if your grace was well also,” responded the faithful servant.
“Ah! my dear friend,” replied the cardinal, “as for me, I am very sick. I am rapidly approaching my end; but what most distresses me is to have nothing to leave you, and not to be able to assure you of a subsistence.”
“Do not trouble yourself about that,” said this devoted servant,
who approached and took the trembling hand of the dying man; “in a few days you will be better, and we shall not lose you.”
“What time is it?” said Wolsey.
“Midnight.”
“Midnight!” replied the archbishop. “How short the time is! Before eight o’clock I shall have to leave this world. God calls me to himself, and I can remain no longer with you. Monsieur Vincent,” he continued after a moment’s silence—“Monsieur Vincent, say to the king that it was my intention to have left him all my property; but he has himself deprived me of that pleasure, since they have seized, by his orders, everything that I possessed.”
On hearing his name called, Monsieur Vincent hurried to the bedside; but at these last words he shook his head in token of incredulity and impatience. He was an employé of the king’s treasury, and his heart was as hard as the coin he had charge of.
Having learned that Wolsey was very sick when he left the castle of the Count of Shrewsbury, and fearing he might die on the road, the king had despatched this man in all haste to secure the money and valuables he supposed Wolsey might have concealed among his friends.
“I have told you the truth,” replied the archbishop, who remarked his movement. “I have nothing left in London, and but for the assistance of Monsieur Arundel I should have died of starvation at Asher. I implore you, then, that the king may have compassion on my poor servants, and allow them the wages now due them.”
“We will see, my lord,” said the dissatisfied scribe, who was waiting for an avowal which he had continued to solicit, without any
consideration, ever since his arrival; “we will see. But the treasury is so very much impoverished at this time!… However, we will do what we can. We will ask the king, if it is convenient.”
“Monsieur Vincent, I implore you!” replied the cardinal.
“Master Vincent,” said Cavendish, “I beg you to leave the room; your presence annoys and excites him. Have mercy, then, and leave him in peace.”
The scribe hesitated, but he did not go; he returned to the corner of the chamber and began to write as before.
Cavendish followed him with a look of indignation. It seemed very hard that his master could not even be permitted to die without this avaricious surveillance.
“Cavendish,” asked the archbishop immediately, “do you think she will come?”
“They expect her every moment, my dear lord,” he replied; “she will remain three days here.”
“O Cavendish!”
“My dear master!”
And he fell on his knees by the bed. He bathed with tears the hand of the archbishop, which he held in his own.
“She will not see me, my son! She will not forgive me!”
“Ah! my dear, my beloved lord.” He could say no more, being entirely overcome by grief.
“Remember, my son, remember,” continued Wolsey, “that it was my infernal policy that persuaded the king of the possibility of his divorce! Is that she? I hear a noise. My God! I am dying. Spare me, that I may ask her forgiveness; yes, her forgiveness, even as God has forgiven me. O my God!” he cried suddenly, fixing his eyes on a crucifix he had
made them hang on the wall in front of him,” had I only served thee as faithfully as I have served this prince in whom I have placed all my hopes and centred all my affections! Weak mortal like myself, what had he to offer me that I should attach myself to him? Vain splendor of an ephemeral power, where have you led me? O man, crowned with a diadem! cast a glance upon the bed of a dying man, and reflect. Why have I not despised your favors and the gifts you have offered me? How fatal they have proved to me! To-day, solitary and alone, I must appear before my God, with hands empty and void of all those virtues and merits which you have prevented me from acquiring. Why have I not come here in my youth, among these humble monks, and learned to extinguish the pride that has governed my entire life? Listen, all you who are here present! Come and behold my emaciated limbs; see the flesh that covered them already destroyed by the breath of death, that has struck them! And my tongue that now speaks to you, and which was thought capable of dictating the decrees of conquerors, will soon be silenced for ever.”
But exhausted by so violent an effort, he sank into a state of insensibility.
Seized with terror, the monks gathered around his bed, recalling the power and éclat with which the name of Wolsey was surrounded, and which had so many times resounded even through the most remote walls of their solitude.…
Yes, it was she—it was indeed Queen Catherine. She had reached this monastery, where she intended remaining several days before deciding on the place of her
retreat. Henry VIII., in order to entirely prove that she had become to him an object of perfect indifference, had not even offered her an asylum.
“She is free,” he said; “let her do what she pleases. That is the widow of my brother, the Princess Dowager of Wales. Hereafter she must bear no other name.”
However, they had opened all the gates, and the father abbot, preceded by the cross and followed by all his religieux carrying lighted torches, went before the queen and conducted her into the chapter-hall, which had been prepared for her reception.
There she found carpets, cushions, an arm-chair covered with velvet, and everything the good monks could imagine would be agreeable and testify their devotion.
Catherine felt touched to the heart by these testimonials of respect and affection.
She seated herself a moment in order to thank them; then, rising with that calm and majestic dignity which so eminently characterized her, she said:
“Good fathers, it is no more your queen whom you receive in your midst; it is a fugitive woman, an outraged mother, separated from all that she holds most dear in the world. Do not treat me, then, with so much honor. I have more need of your tears and prayers than of your respect and homage.”
“Alas! madam,” replied the father abbot, “life is very short, and the judgments of God are inscrutable. You come beneath the shadow of this sanctuary to seek an asylum, while the first author of all your woes, a man of whom you have had great cause to complain, has sought here a refuge to die.”
“What!” said the queen. “Venerable father, explain yourself!”
“Yesterday, madam,” replied the abbot, “the Archbishop of York arrived here in a dying condition. He was accompanied by Cavendish, his servant, and the lieutenant of the Tower, who is conducting him to London, there to be tried on the charge of high treason.”
“He here!” cried the queen, overwhelmed with astonishment. And Catherine, a Spaniard and a mother, felt the hatred she had borne Wolsey revive in her soul with extreme violence. The feeling she had vainly sought to extinguish rekindled with renewed strength every time she received a new outrage, or when the name and conduct of the minister who had sacrificed her to his political views and interests was brought to her recollection.
A sudden tremor seized her.
“Wolsey here!” she repeated. “No matter where I go, this man follows me!… Here!” she said again.
“Yes, madam,” replied the father abbot, “here, dying, but more worthy of pity than hatred; he weeps, he bemoans his past life, he implores God’s mercy. It is sufficient to see him to be touched with compassion. For two days we have watched him by turns; he has not ceased to pray God, and I know that to see you will be a great consolation to him.”
“See him?” replied the queen. “No! oh! no, never. God forgive him the injury he has done me; but I will never see him.”
“Will Queen Catherine forget the charity of Jesus Christ?” replied the father abbot in a severe tone. “Can that virtue be more than a vain appearance which is stranded by coming in contact with a resentment,
just, perhaps, but none the less criminal?… I conjure you, madam,” he continued, falling on his knees before the queen, “refuse not to see him. Already, without doubt, he knows that you are here. He desires to see you and ask your forgiveness. All of our brothers ask it with him.”
Catherine remained silent, but she advanced a step forward, which the father accepted as a mute consent; and passing immediately before her, he conducted her into the chamber where Wolsey was lying.
She advanced to the middle of the room, and was struck by the spectacle presented to her view. Cavendish supported the dying man in his arms, and wiped the cold sweat from his face, now as white as the sheet on which he lay. A convulsive movement agitated occasionally his extended limbs, and it was from that alone they saw that life was not yet extinct.
Catherine approached at once, and remained standing in silence, in the face of this enemy, heretofore so powerful and so formidable.
She made no movement, and her eyes only were fixed on the dying. “And I too will die!” she said in her heart. “The day will come when I shall cease to suffer. O material life which envelops me! cease also to burden my soul, and let it flee into eternity. Let me find a refuge even in the bosom of the tomb.”
* * * * *
“My daughter, my daughter!” she suddenly cried, as though beside herself; “give her back to me, you who have torn her from my arms!”
A shudder passed over the form of Wolsey; he had heard that voice. It seemed as though a burning fire had touched him. He rose up in his bed, and, gazing at
the queen with wildly staring eyes, “Your daughter, madam!” he cried, “your daughter!… Alas! it is I who have done all. You accuse me, and yet, as God is my judge, I threw myself at the feet of the king, and tried to turn him from his evil intention; but it was too late, and I had not foreseen the fatal consequences of a policy which I believed would be advantageous and beneficial. Alas! how differently I regard it at this terrible hour. Pardon me! pardon me!… I conjure you, that I may not bear to the foot of the throne of the Sovereign Judge the fearful weight of the malediction of the widow and the orphan!” And he stretched towards her his hands, which he was no longer able to raise.
“May God forgive you,” responded the queen, “may God forgive you! But what can there be in common between you and me, unless it is suffering? You will soon be delivered from your woes; but I—I must live!”
“Ah!” cried Woolsey with expressions of the most profound wretchedness, “you hear it, brothers, already the voice of God punishes me by the mouth of this woman. And thus,” he continued, fixing his terrified gaze on the queen, “I die at enmity with you, and you will not have compassion on the condition to which I am reduced! How can one human being call down upon another without trembling the vengeance of the Most High? Are we not all formed of the same flesh and blood? Are you not horror-stricken at the thought of the judgments I must suffer and the account I must render?”
Catherine felt her blood congealed by the frightful eloquence of
this expiring man—this man whom but a moment separated from death and eternity.
At the thought of the nothingness of all created humanity, she felt the hatred she had borne Wolsey entirely effaced.
“Your reasoning enlightens me!” she cried. “Who are we that we should wish to be revenged?. Weak and blind, should we precipitate ourselves into the bottomless pit? We have received an injury, and shall we inflict one in return? Who are we, and what is our duty?”
She then advanced toward him, and, taking in her own the hands of her enemy, she said:
“I forgive you, I forgive you from the most profound depths of my heart.… May God, the sovereign Creator of all things, bless you, and blot out from the awful book of his justice your slightest fault! May he open to you the mansions of eternal bliss! Then remember me, and ask of him that my eyes also may soon be closed to the light of that day which you have rendered insupportable. Tell him that I want to die, and beg him to recall to himself the soul that he has given me; say that my eyes are weary with tears, and my heart worn with suffering; that sorrow has multiplied my days, and that I have lived during the night, keeping tearful vigils; that I have only enjoyed the blessings of life long enough to regret them; that I am ready, that I listen, I wait to hear his voice, in order that I may arise and depart.”
Wolsey drank in with avidity all of her words, and his eyes followed every movement of the queen’s lips; but suddenly the fire of his burning glance was extinguished, his head fell forward on his breast—he had ceased to breathe!…
What pen can describe, what pencil
portray, the terrible and solemn moment when a man is called to leave for ever the world that gave him birth—the moment when those who, having surrounded him with the most constant care, loving words, and affectionate attentions, fall prostrate around the silent couch, which now contains no more than the despoiled and lifeless clay which a beloved and cherished being seems to have cast aside like a soiled garment? Let the cold sceptic come, and, passing through that throng of afflicted friends, let him place his hand on the heart that has ceased to beat, and then turn and dare still to tell them that man has been created to die, and nothing more remains of him after death!… It is easy in the intoxication of joy, amid the false glare of vanity and of worldly dissipations, to put our trust in falsehood and array ourselves against the truth; but the day and the hour will come when she will appear clothed in dazzling robes of light, and the splendor of her irradiated countenance will strike with terror and annihilation the last one of her wretched and presumptuous enemies.