Anne. I have regularly placed it out to interest.
Henry. Where? I demand of thee.
Anne. Among the needy and ailing. My Lord Archbishop has the account of it, sealed by him weekly. I also had a copy myself; those who took away my papers may easily find it; for there are few others, and they lie open.
Henry. Think on my munificence to thee; recollect who made thee. Dost sigh for what thou hast lost?
Anne. I do, indeed.
Henry. I never thought thee ambitious; but thy vices creep out one by one.
Anne. I do not regret that I have been a queen and am no longer one; nor that my innocence is called in question by those who never knew me; but I lament that the good people who loved me so cordially, hate and curse me; that those who pointed me out to their daughters for imitation check them when they speak about me; and that he whom next to God I have served with most devotion is my accuser.
Henry. Wast thou conning over something in that dingy book for thy defence? Come, tell me, what wast thou reading?
Anne. This ancient chronicle. I was looking for someone in my own condition, and must have missed the page. Surely in so many hundred years there shall have been other young maidens, first too happy for exaltation, and after too exalted for happiness—not, perchance, doomed to die upon a scaffold, by those they ever honoured and served faithfully; that, indeed, I did not look for nor think of; but my heart was bounding for any one I could love and pity. She would be unto me as a sister dead and gone; but hearing me, seeing me, consoling me, and being consoled. O my husband! it is so heavenly a thing——
Henry. To whine and whimper, no doubt, is vastly heavenly.