“There, here is the clasp!” said he then aloud to the king. “It stuck as tightly in the ribbon as malice in the hearts of priests and courtiers!”
The king snatched the ribbon out of his hand, and examined it by drawing it through his fingers.
“Nothing! nothing at all!” said he, gnashing his teeth; and now, deceived in his expectations and suppositions, he could no longer muster strength to withstand that roaring torrent of wrath which overflowed his heart. The tiger was again aroused in him; he had calmly waited for the moment when the promised prey would be brought to him; now, when it seemed to be escaping him, his savage and cruel disposition started up within him. The tiger panted and thirsted for blood; and that he was not to get it, made him raging with fury.
With a wild movement he threw the rosette on the ground, and raised his arm menacingly toward Henry Howard. “Dare not to touch that rosette,” cried he, in a voice of thunder, “before you have exculpated yourself from the guilt of which you are accused.”
Earl Surrey looked him steadily and boldly in the eye. “Have I been accused, then?” asked he. “Then I demand, first of all, that I be confronted with my accusers, and that my fault be named!”
“Ha, traitor! Do you dare to brave me?” yelled the king, stamping furiously with his foot. “Well, now, I will be your accuser and I will be your judge!”
“And surely, my king and husband, you will be a righteous judge,” said Catharine, as she inclined imploringly toward the king and grasped his hand. “You will not condemn the noble Earl Surrey without having heard him; and if you find him guiltless, you will punish his accusers?”
But this intercession of the queen made the king raging. He threw her hand from him, and gazed at her with looks of such flaming wrath, that she involuntarily trembled.
“Traitoress yourself!” yelled he, wildly. “Speak not of innocence—you who are yourself guilty; and before you dare defend the earl, defend yourself!”
Catharine rose from her seat and looked with flashing eyes into the king’s face blazing with wrath. “King Henry of England,” said she, solemnly, “you have openly, before your whole court, accused your queen of a crime. I now demand that you name it!”