“I will tell!” exclaimed Catharine, rising up again boldly and resolutely “But woe be to those who drive me to this! For I tell you beforehand, from the accused I will become an accuser who demands justice, if not before the throne of the King of England, yet before the throne of the Lord of all kings! King Henry of England, do you ask me whither I went on that night with John Heywood? I might, perhaps, as your queen and consort, demand that you put this question to me not before so many witnesses, but in the quiet of our chamber; but you seek publicity, and I do not shun it. Well, hear the truth, then, all of you! On that night, between Monday and Tuesday, I was not in my sleeping-apartment, because I had a grave and sacred duty to perform; because a dying woman called on me for help and pity! Would you know, my lord and husband, who this dying woman was? It was Anne Askew!”
“Anne Askew!” exclaimed the king in astonishment; and his countenance exhibited a less wrathful expression.
“Anne Askew!” muttered the others; and John Heywood very well saw how Bishop Gardiner’s brow darkened, and how Chancellor Wriothesley turned pale and cast down his eyes.
“Yes, I was with Anne Askew!” continued the queen—“with Anne Askew, whom those pious and wise lords yonder had condemned, not so much on account of her faith, but because they knew that I loved her. Anne Askew was to die, because Catharine Parr loved her! She was to go to the stake, that my heart also might burn with fiery pains! And because it was so, I was obliged to risk everything in order to save her. Oh, my king, say yourself, did I not owe it to this poor girl to try everything in order to save her? On my account she was to suffer these tortures. For they had shamefully stolen from me a letter which Anne Askew, in the distress of her heart, had addressed to me; and they showed this letter to you in order to cast suspicion on me and accuse me to you. But your noble heart repelled the suspicion; and now their wrath fell again on Anne Askew, and she must suffer, because they did not find me punishable. She must atone for having dared to write to me. They worked matters with you so that she was put to the rack. But when my husband gave way to their urging, yet the noble king remained still awake in him. ‘Go,’ said he, ‘rack her and kill her; but see first whether she will not recant.’”
Henry looked astonished into her noble and defiant face. “Do you know that?” asked he. “And yet we were alone, and no human being present. Who could tell you that?”
“When man is no longer able to help, then God undertakes!” said Catharine solemnly. “It was God who commanded me to go to Anne Askew, and try whether I could save her. And I went. But though the wife of a noble and great king, I am still but a weak and timid woman. I was afraid to tread this gloomy and dangerous path alone; I needed a strong manly arm to lean upon; and so John Heywood lent me his.”
“And you were really with Anne Askew,” interposed the king, thoughtfully—“with that hardened sinner, who despised mercy, and in the stubbornness of her soul would not be a partaker of the pardon that I offered her?”
“My lord and husband,” said the queen, with tears in her eyes, “she whom you have just accused stands even now before the throne of the Lord, and has received from her God the forgiveness of her sins! Therefore, do you likewise pardon her; and may the flames of the stake, to which yesterday the noble virgin body of this girl was bound, have consumed also the wrath and hatred which had been kindled in your heart against her! Anne Askew passed away like a saint; for she forgave all her enemies and blessed her tormentors.”
“Anne Askew was a damnable sinner, who dared resist the command of her lord and king!” interrupted Bishop Gardiner, looking daggers at her.
“And dare you maintain, my lord, that you at that time fulfilled the commands of your royal master simply and exactly?” asked Catharine. “Did you keep within them with respect to Anne Askew? No! I say; for the king had not ordered you to torture her; he had not bidden you to lacerate in blasphemous wrath a noble human form, and distort that likeness of God into a horrible caricature. And that, my lord, you did! Before God and your king, I accuse you of it—I, the queen! For you know, my lord and husband, I was there when Anne Askew was racked. I saw her agony, and John Heywood saw it with me.”