“The rack, your majesty.”
“Ah, the rack!” replied the king, with an involuntary shudder.
“All means are good that lead to the holy end!” said Gardiner, devoutly folding his hands.
“The soul must be saved, though the body be pierced with wounds!” cried Wriothesley.
“The people must be convinced,” said Douglas, “that the lofty spirit of the king spares not even those who are under the protection of influential and might personages. The people murmur that this time justice is not permitted to prevail, because Archbishop Cranmer protects Anne Askew, and the queen is her friend.”
“The queen is never the friend of a criminal!” said Henry, vehemently.
“Perchance she does not consider Anne Askew a criminal,” responded Karl Douglas, with a slight smile. “It is known, indeed, that the queen is a great friend of the Reformation; and the people, who dare not call her a heretic—the people call her ‘the Protestant.’”
“Is it, then, really believed that it is Catharine who protects Anne Askew, and keeps her from the stake?” inquired the king, thoughtfully.
“It is so thought, your majesty.”
“They shall soon see that they are mistaken, and that Henry the Eighth well deserves to be called the Defender of the Faith and the Head of his Church!” cried the king, with burning rage. “For when have I shown myself so long-suffering and weak in punishing, that people believe me inclined to pardon and deal gently? Have I not sent to the scaffold even Thomas More and Cromwell, two renowned and in a certain respect noble and high-minded men, because they dared defy my supremacy and oppose the doctrine and ordinance which I commanded them to believe? Have I not sent to the block two of my queens—two beautiful young women, in whom my heart was well pleased, even when I punished them—because they had provoked my wrath? Who, after such brilliant examples of our annihilating justice, who dare accuse us of forbearance?”