“If you can get hold of the Vatican records about that divorce,” I answered, “the fortune of your book amongst scholars is made. What do you suppose was the cause of the divorce granted by the Roman Court?”
“Why, the murder of Mary’s second husband, the Earl of Darnley, at which she and Bothwell had connived.”
“Wrong.”
“Or the fact that Bothwell was a Protestant, a heretic.”
“Wrong again.”
“Then because Bothwell was still the husband of Ann Thorssen when he married the Queen.”
“Wrong the third time. The divorce was granted on evidence that Bothwell had intercourse with Mary before marriage.”
One of these Northern lore stories Field wrote for a little book of Christmas tales, but having been unable to carry out his intention as above set forth, the yarn was of small account. It lacked local color and the naturalness that made most of his stories so delightful.
LITTLE BOY BLUE
It has been forgotten by this time that Gene lost a son while the boy was at school in Hanover—the most promising of his boys, it was said. But at the time when the grieving father brought the body of his boy home, a great many lovers of his poetry associated the child’s death with the famous “Little Boy Blue.”