She had devoted her whole heart to love, but she felt day by day, and hour by hour, that her husband’s heart was cooling more and more. She felt, with dreadful heartrending certainty, she was his with all her love.
But he was no longer hers.
And she tormented her heart to find out why he no longer loved her—what she had been guilty of, that he turned away from her. Seymour had not the delicacy and magnanimity to conceal from her his inward thoughts; and at last she comprehended why he neglected her.
He had hoped that Catharine would be Regent of England, that he then would be consort of the regent. Because it had not happened so his love had died.
Catharine felt this, and she died of it. But not suddenly, not at once, did death release her from her sorrows and racking tortures. Six months she had to suffer and struggle with them. After six months she died.
Strange rumors were spread at her death; and John Heywood never passed by Earl Seymour without gazing at him with an angry look, and saying: “You have murdered the beautiful queen! Deny it, if you can!”
Thomas Seymour laughed, and did not consider it worth his while to defend himself against the accusations of the fool. He laughed, notwithstanding he had not yet put off the mourning he wore for Catharine.
In these mourning garments he ventured to approach the Princess Elizabeth, to swear to her his ardent love, and sue for her hand. But Elizabeth repelled him with coldness and haughty contempt; and, like the fool, the princess also said: “You have murdered Catharine! I cannot be the wife of a murderer!”
And God’s justice punished the murderer of the innocent and noble Catharine; and scarcely three months after the death of his wife, the high admiral had to ascend the scaffold, and was executed as a traitor.
By Catharine’s wish, her books and papers were given to her true friend John Heywood, and he undertook with the greatest care an examination of the same. He found among her papers many leaves written by herself, many verses and poems, which breathed forth the sorrowfulness of her spirit. Catharine herself had collected them into a book, and with her own hand she had given to the book this title: “Lamentations of a Sinner.”