In the meantime the king, thanks to Cromwell, had time to recover from the astonishment that had seized him, and to hide from the monks the humiliation which he could hardly wait to avenge; for, not disdaining himself to subdue this feeble enemy whom they had represented as unable to speak in his presence, he had believed, on the faith of his confidants, it was worth while to summon the Holy Maid of Kent before him, in order to show that she was worthy of no confidence. Now the most furious thoughts were at strife within him. How had she recognized him? Had the queen’s friends instructed her?… But she would not name them. What a story this would make throughout the kingdom! And his hardened heart could not cease being troubled.
Cromwell, despite the joy he felt at having made her name More and the Bishop of Rochester, was at a loss how to close with dignity this disagreeable scene. The monks opened their office-books and pretended to be reading; the woman remained seated on her stool and said nothing more; the guards waited some signal, which no one gave.
The king decided the question,
which was becoming every moment more and more embarrassing.
“It is well,” he said; “we have had enough of it; I am satisfied.”
He arose abruptly. All followed him; the guards threw open the doors, extinguished the lights, led away the Holy Maid of Kent, and the monks slowly retired into the abbey.
* * * * *
The hours of night rapidly succeeded each other; already a whitish circle began to rise and extend over the horizon. Nevertheless, all were wrapped in sleep in the plain and beneath the shadow of the woods. The industrious husbandman still rested his weary limbs on his rude couch; the dog which guarded his thatched cottage had ceased to howl; and even the invalid found, at the approach of day, a moment of repose. But idleness, always so prolonged in the palaces of kings, seemed to have been banished from the palace of Whitehall. Lights were seen glancing to and fro athwart the large windows; hurried footsteps were heard running up and down the marble stairways; whilst a coach with several horses attached, slowly drove around a distant courtyard.
Anne Boleyn herself was already occupied with the arrangement of her attire. She was seated upon soft cushions of velvet before a toilet table of ebony and gold. A young girl named Anne Savage, whom she preferred above all her maids because of her uninterrupted cheerfulness, her merry chat, and her expertness in the arts of the toilet, perfumed the long and beautiful hair which she was arranging with extreme care on the brow of her mistress, while the latter was searching in a casket she held in her lap for the
jewels she wished to adorn her ears and add to her coiffure.