“Well, then,” she cried, seizing his hand, “abandon me now! Cease, cease to sacrifice yourself for me! Know that you have no longer a queen; the banished Catherine leaves to-morrow the palace of her cruel husband. No place of refuge is offered her; she is left to choose some obscure corner of
the earth where she will be at liberty to die. But he is mistaken! I will never leave the soil of England—no, never!” she cried. “I will never look again upon my own happy land. ‘Woman,’ they would say to me, ‘you have deserted your children; you have not known how to die in the land over which you ought to reign; has the Spanish blood, then, ceased to flow in your veins?’ No, never!”
On hearing her speak thus More stood transfixed with astonishment and sorrow.
“They have dared!” he said at last, “they have dared, Rochester!”
“Yes,” replied the queen, “they have dared! But, Rochester, speak; the time is short; every moment is precious. What has passed in the assembly?”
“Where shall I find words to tell you, madam?” replied the good and venerable old man. “Parliament has been won over; your friends, powerless, have been made to tremble for their own lives; threats of death pass from mouth to mouth. I myself have scarcely been able to escape their criminal attempts on my life; a dish on my table was poisoned, and several of my people have died from eating of it. Consternation reigns secretly in every heart. The clergy are threatened on all sides; the people are exasperated by a thousand calumnies, the sources of which remain scrupulously concealed. The soil of old England seems about to be shaken to its foundations. Vice stalks forth with head erect, while the virtuous man flies in terror. There is time yet, madam. Save yourself! Save us all! Renounce an alliance so fatal for you; abandon this prince who no longer puts
any restraint upon his passions—he is not worthy of you; and let the house of the Lord become your retreat and be your refuge!”
“What sayest thou?” replied Catherine. “Was it for cowardly advice like this I called you to me, Rochester? And my daughter—what kingdom and what father would you give her?”
“God, madam, and the justice of her cause!” cried the afflicted old bishop.
“Then you have yielded?” said the queen.