Cromwell appeared before him with eyes cast down and affecting an air of sadness and constraint.
“Sire,” he said, as he approached the king, “yesterday, even yesterday, I was happy—yes, happy in the thought of being permitted to present myself before your majesty; because it seemed to me I might be able to offer some consolation for the anxieties you experience by reminding you that nothing should induce you to pause in your efforts to advance the interests of the kingdom and the state. But to-day, in appearing before you, I know not what to say. This morning Lady Boleyn, being informed that I was to have the happiness of seeing your majesty, sent for me and charged me with the commission of asking your majesty’s permission for her to withdraw from court.”
“What!” exclaimed Henry, rising hastily to his feet, “she wishes to leave me?—she, my only happiness, my only joy? Never!”
“I have found her,” continued Cromwell, seeming not to remark the painful uneasiness he had aroused in the king’s mind—“I have found her plunged in a state of indescribable grief. She was almost deprived of consciousness; her beautiful eyes were weighed down with tears, her long hair hanging neglected around her shoulders; and her pale, transparent cheek made her resemble a delicate white rose bowed on its slender stem before the violence of the tempest. ‘Go, my dear Cromwell,’ she said to me with a tremulous voice, but sweet as the soft expiring notes of an æolian lyre—‘go, say to my king, to my lord, I ask his permission to retire this day to my father’s country-seat. I know that I am surrounded by enemies, but, while favored by his protection, I have not feared their malice. But now I feel, and cannot doubt it, I shall become their victim, since they have succeeded in prejudicing my sovereign against me to such an extent that he refuses to hear my defence.’”
“What can she be afraid of here?” cried the king. “Who would dare offend her in my palace?”
“Who will be able to defend her if your majesty abandons her?” replied Cromwell in a haughty tone, feigning to forget the humble demeanor he had assumed, and mentally applauding the success of his stratagem. “Has she not given up all for you? Every day she has wounded by her refusals the greatest lords of the realm, who have earnestly sued for her heart and hand; but she has constantly refused to listen to them because of the love she bears for you—always preferring the uncertain hope of one day becoming yours to all the brilliant advantages of the wealthiest suitors she has been urged to accept. But to-day, when her honor is attacked, when you banish her from your presence, she feels she will not have the courage to endure near you such wretchedness, and she asks to be permitted to withdraw from court at once and for ever!”
“For ever?” repeated the king. “Cromwell, has she said that? Have you heard her right? No, Cromwell, you are mistaken! I know her better than you.” And he turned on Cromwell a keen, scrutinizing glance.
But nothing could daunt this audacious man.
“She said all I have told you,” replied the hypocrite, with the coolest assurance, raising his head haughtily. “Would I dare to repeat what I have not heard? And your majesty can imagine that my devotion has alone induced me to become the bearer of so painful a message; for I could not believe, your majesty had ceased to love her.”
“Never!” cried the king. “Never have I for one moment ceased to adore her! But listen, dear Cromwell, and be convinced of how wretched I am! Yesterday I received from Rome the most distressing intelligence. I had written the pope a letter, signed by a great number of lords of my court and bishops of the kingdom, in which they expressed the fears they entertained of one day seeing the flames of civil war break out in this country if I should die without male heirs, as there would be grounds for contesting the right of my daughter Mary to the throne on the score of her legitimacy. But nothing can move him.”