John Neville. Henry thought Cardinal Pole was the cause of it, and so took his revenge by ordering the execution of the Countess of Salisbury, Pole's mother, who had been in the tower for more than a year: when the aged lady heard of it she refused to lay her head upon the block, saying, 'so should traitors do, but I am none, and if you will have my head you must win it as you can.' thereupon the brutal ruffian who acted as executioner dragged her by her hoary locks, and 'slovenly butchered the woman in whose veins flowed the noblest blood of England.'
For the purpose of ascertaining the exact state of affairs in Yorkshire, King Henry set out with his wife for that place early in July, 1541, leaving Cranmer, Audley, and Seymour, three Protestant adherents, among his councillors at home. At Yorkshire the royal couple were met by two hundred gentlemen in velvet coats, with four thousand yeomen, who knelt while one of their number offered nine hundred pounds. At another place three hundred ecclesiastics presented six hundred pounds, and so on until Henry found himself much richer than when he started on his journey. Queen Katharine saw more of the pomp of royalty at this time than she had done during the whole year before, for the wealthy aristocracy in every part of the country vied with each other in the grandeur of their entertainments given in honor of the royal couple.
Katharine had been married little more than a year when Francis Derham returned to England, and she committed the error of appointing him as her private secretary. As soon as the king heard of the relation that had existed between this man and his wife previous to her marriage his jealousy was aroused, and the Protestant statesmen took good care to encourage every suspicion that entered their monarch's head. Meanwhile poor little Katharine was entirely unconscious of the storm that was gathering about her.
King Henry was soon forced to order her removal from Hampton Court. Wriothesley and Rich were the unprincipled, cruel agents who, determined upon the destruction of the queen, persecuted her until she was beside herself with terror and grief. Then, too, she loved her husband, and when she was compelled to leave him without one word of farewell, one look of compassion, her heart was almost broken. The king suffered also, but his council took little heed of that; it would be dangerous for them were Katharine to regain her power.
Shakespeare truly says:
"Trifles, light as air,
Are to the jealous confirmations strong
As proofs of holy writ."
Katharine was removed to Sion House, and thence a few days later to the gloomy dungeon of the Tower.
During the short season of terror that succeeded the queen's arrest, Derham, the poor old Duchess of Norfolk, Culpepper, Katharine's cousin, and several other persons who were guilty of no crime but that of suspecting the attachment that had existed before her marriage between Katharine and Derham, were executed.