“Merciful heaven!” cried Catherine, “must this odious man pursue me for ever?” She hurriedly lowered her veil, and took her place at the left of the door, and the moment he entered passed out behind him. Wolsey glanced at her sharply, the appearance of a woman arousing instantly a suspicion in his mind, but, being compelled to respond with politeness to the legate’s salutations, he had no time to scrutinize, and Catherine escaped without being recognized.
Wolsey was passionately fond of pomp and pageant. The principal positions in his house were filled by barons and chevaliers. Among these attendants were numbered the sons of some of the most distinguished families, who, under his protection and by the aid of his all-powerful patronage and influence, aspired to civil or military preferment.
On this occasion, he considered it necessary to make an unusual display of luxurious magnificence. It was with great difficulty and trepidation that the queen threaded her way through the crowd of prelates, noblemen, and young gentlemen who awaited in the ante-chambers the honor of being presented by the king’s favorite to the cardinal-legate.
The courtyard was filled with their brilliant equipages, conspicuous among which were observed a great number of mules, richly caparisoned, and carrying on their backs immense chests, covered with crimson cloth, trimmed with fringe and embroidered with gold.
A crowd of idle valets were engaged in conversation at the foot of the stairs. The queen, in passing them, attracted their attention, exciting their ridicule and coarse gibes, and she heard them also indulge in the most insolent conjectures regarding her.
“Who is that woman?” said one. “See how dirty she is.” “She looks like a beggar, indeed,” cried another, addressing himself to one of the new-comers engaged to attend the legate. “Your master receives strange visitors; we, on the contrary, have nothing to do with people like that, except quickly to show them the door.”
“Ha! ha! you will have your hands full,” exclaimed the most insolent of the crowd, “if your master gives audience to such rabble as that.” Emboldened by these remarks, one of the porters approached the queen, and, rudely pushing her, exclaimed with an oath: “Well, beldame, what brought you here? Take yourself off quickly. My lord is rich, but his crowns were not made for such as you.” These words excited the loudest applause from the whole crowd, who clapped their hands and cheered vociferously. Catherine trembled with mortification.
“It is thus,” she mentally exclaimed, “that the poor are received in the palaces of the rich. And I myself have probably more than once, without knowing it, permitted them to sigh in vain at the gates of my own palace—mothers weeping for their children, or men, old and helpless, making a last appeal for assistance.”
The queen, entirely absorbed in these reflections, together with the impression made upon her by the appearance of the venerable legate, the sudden apparition of Wolsey, the snares that had been laid for her, and the temptations with which they had surrounded her, mechanically followed Leonora, to whom the fear that her mistress might be pursued and arrested seemed to have given wings.
“Leonora,” at length cried the queen, “I feel that I can go no farther. Stop, and let us rest for a moment; you walk too quickly.” Exhausted with fatigue, she seated herself on a rock by the roadside.