She now fixed her anxious gaze on the king, firmly resolved to rush to the help of the earl, who had so nobly and magnanimously interested himself in an innocent woman, should the wrath of her husband threaten him also. But, to her surprise, Henry’s face was perfectly serene and contented.
Like the wild beast, that, following its instinct, seeks its bloody prey only so long as it is hungry, so King Henry felt satiated for the day. Yonder glared the fires about the stake, at which four heretics were burned; there stood the scaffold on which the Countess of Somerset had just been executed; and now, within this hour, he had already found another new victim for death. Moreover, Thomas Seymour had always been his favorite. His audacity, his liveliness, his energy, had always inspired the king with respect; and then, again, he so much resembled his sister, the beautiful Jane Seymour, Henry’s third wife.
“I cannot grant you this favor, Thomas,” said the king. “Justice must not be hindered in her course, and where she has passed sentence, mercy must not give her the lie; and it was the justice of your king which pronounced sentence at that moment. You were guilty, therefore, of a double wrong, for you not only besought mercy, but you also brought an accusation against my cavaliers. Do you really believe that, were this maiden’s cause a just one, no knight would have been found for her?”
“Yes, I really believe it,” cried the earl, with a laugh. “The sun of your favor had turned away from this poor girl, and in such a case your courtiers no longer see the figure wrapped in darkness.”
“You are mistaken, my lord; I have seen it,” suddenly said another voice, and a second cavalier advanced from the anteroom into the chamber. He approached the king, and, as he bent his knee before him, he said, in a loud, steady voice: “Sire, I also beg mercy for Anne Askew!”
At this moment was heard from that side of the room where the ladies stood, a low cry, and the pale, affrighted face of Lady Jane Douglas was for a moment raised above the heads of the other ladies. No one noticed it. All eyes were directed toward the group in the middle of the room: all looked with eager attention upon the king and these two young men, who dared protect one whom he had sentenced.
“Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey!” exclaimed the king; and now an expression of wrath passed over his countenance. “How! you, too, dare intercede for this girl? You, then, grudge Thomas Seymour the pre-eminence of being the most discreet man at my court?”
“I will not allow him, sire, to think that he is the bravest,” replied the young man, as he fixed on Thomas Seymour a look of haughty defiance, which the other answered by a cold, disdainful smile.
“Oh,” said he, with a shrug of his shoulders, “I willingly allow you, my dear Earl of Surrey, to tread behind me, at your convenience, the path, the safety of which I first tested at the peril of my life. You saw that I had not, as yet, lost either my head or my life in this reckless under taking, and that has given you courage to follow my example. That is a new proof of your prudent valor, my Honorable Earl of Surrey, and I must praise you for it.”
A hot flush suffused the noble face of the earl, his eyes shot lightning, and, trembling with rage, he laid his hand on his sword. “Praise from Thomas Seymour is—”