With this remark his patience was exhausted with them.
“Well, it is all right,” he said;
“we will return to this subject after the council. Go now; I need rest; but keep an eye on Thomas More and the Bishop of Rochester,” he added, turning toward Cromwell.
They then had to retire, and leave the king by himself, a prey to his own reflections.
“They are gone at last!” cried Henry, throwing himself into a fauteuil. “I am rid of them! These are, then, the agents of hell with whom hereafter I must manage the affairs of my kingdom.”
And he angrily pushed from under his feet a footstool, which was hurled against a chair they called the “queen’s chair,” because she had shown a preference for it.
Henry recollected it; he arose abruptly, and changed his position in order to avoid seeing the vacant chair, that annoyed him.
“Always Catherine,” he cried; “nothing but Catherine! I cannot take a step without being reminded of her! So much trouble, and only to make myself so wretched!… That doll-baby, Anne Boleyn, was weeping!… A weak creature, and with no energy!… She is not equal to the position to which I have elevated her. To weep the day that I married her, when for her I have torn myself from the arms of the clergy, the people, the pope, and the emperor!… I shall not be happy with this woman;… she wearies me already!… It will be necessary to make all this known before the coronation; … otherwise there will be no time to recede.… To acknowledge that I have done wrong … it is impossible.… More, could you, then, have been right? Shall I always be more unhappy in following my own will than in conquering it?… That wretch! always calm, always
contented.… I see him now, down in his obscurity, seated quietly in his cabinet, working, loving God, not fearing death, … smiling at poverty and all the circumstances of life, which, as he says, have no power to annoy him.… And I—I roll here on these velvet cushions, with remorse in my heart, despair in my soul; and why, when I have obtained the object I wanted?… Hell has already begun for me!… If it is so, I should not, at least, be ashamed to acknowledge it!… March on!”
The king, rising then precipitately, left his cabinet, and ordered preparations for a grand hunting party, and for the assembling of the ladies for a ball and supper in the evening.