CHAPTER IV.

ASLEEP.

1536.

1. CHAPUYS tarried for a month before he took the road. For Mary's sake he wished to hear from Catharine's dying lips a declaration of the fact, so much disputed by the lawyers, whether she had been Prince Arthur's wife. But winter had set in. The ways were rough with snow, the fords were choked with ice. Catharine was not reported worse, nor was any person, save her Spanish physician, aware that she was near the end.

2. Bedyngfeld, listening at her door for news, heard nothing to alarm him for her state of health. Things kept their usual course. The invalid lay in her own room; Blanche and Isabel passed in and out; the doctor came and the confessor stayed. They spoke in Spanish to each other and in English to the chamberlain. Such matters had been going on for months. There seemed no need for Chapuys to ride down until the question of Mary going or not going with him was decided by the King. But Lady Willoughby pressed for her permission with a warmer

zeal. Her license had not come, and Cromwell hinted that a verbal message was enough. She feared duplicity. "Without I have a letter of his grace or else of you, to show the officers of my mistress's house, my license shall stand to no effect.' Cromwell put her off once more: and Lady Willoughby, unable to procure a written passport, acted on the secretary's hint.

3. New Year's morning found her in the saddle at the Barbican. The ride was long, the air inclement, the track a waste. Unused to riding, she was thrown to the ground and badly bruised. Still she pressed on. Some persons on the road dissuaded her from going forward; telling her the good old Queen was dead; but neither icy winds, nor smarting wounds, nor fatal news, sufficed to turn her back. Long after dark, a noise of hoofs was heard before the Castle gates. Bedyngfeld went down to see the new arrival, but the Spanish lady was unknown to him by sight. She gave her name and told her errand. He required to see her warrant for admission. Fearing to say she had no papers, Lady Willoughby pointed to her hurts, her freezing limbs, her chattering teeth, and begged him, for love of Jesus and for Christian charity, to lift her in, and set her by the fire. What was he to do? Cromwell's commands were strict. No person was to pass those gates without a written license. Yet, in that wild country, on that winter night, could he repel this faint and pleading woman from his gate ?

Stonely Priory stood a mile off; with a brook to cross, a hill to climb. His heart gave way, the door swung back, and Lady Willoughby was carried in; but here the chamberlain meant to stop; since he might have to pay for breach of Cromwell's orders with his head. When warmth had soothed her limbs, and loosed her tongue, she told the warder she had come to see the Princess Dowager by Cromwell's wish, and on the morrow, when her trunks were opened, she would place her papers in his hands. Her use of the words 'princess dowager,' removed Bedyngfeld's suspicion, and on a promise of showing her papers next day, he let her pass to Catharine's room, and saw no more of her until the Queen was dead.

All

4. At four o'clock next day, Chapuys arrived. The envoy was in no such hurry as the lady. his papers were in order; he had ambled down the roads at ease; stopping at the village inns; and now, on his arrival at her door, he ate his dinner leisurely before going in to see the Queen. At seven, he went with Bedyngfeld to Catharine's room. He stayed some minutes only, and he spoke to Catharine in Castillian. Vaux was absent, so that nothing was known to the King's officers of what was taking place. Next day, Catharine sent her doctor for the envoy. Chapuys had a serious mission for this Spanish doctor to perform. The chance of Mary coming to the throne depended greatly on the

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statements of the English case being false. Primate, when divorcing Catharine from the King, assumed their truth. Parliament, when bastardising Mary, had assumed their truth. The advocates of Catharine had admitted in the legatine court that they were true. Yet Catharine had persistently denied the facts. Would she confirm her previous declarations in her dying breath? Chapuys wished the doctor to observe her with the utmost care, and when he found her on the point of death, to put this question :-would she, in the hour of death, affirm that she had never been Prince Arthur's wife? The doctor undertook his mission, and the envoy, satisfied with this arrangement, passed into the patient's room. Catharine was able to converse with him. 'Make my excuses to the Emperor, to Monsigneur Granvelle, and the great commander for my not writing to them, and beg them, for the love of God, and by either one means or another, to make an end of this affair. It is this waiting for a cure that never comes, together with the misery which this waiting causes both of us to suffer, that throws everything into disorder.'

5. She wrote her last lines to Henry. My most dear Lord, King, and Husband, - The hour of my death draweth nigh. I cannot choose but out of the love I bear you to put you in remembrance of your soul's health, which you ought to prefer before all considerations of the world, and before the

care and tendering of your own body, for which you have cast me into many miseries, and yourself into many cares. But I forgive you all, and devoutly pray that God will forgive you also. For the rest I commend unto you Mary, our daughter, beseeching you to be a good father unto her, as I have always desired. I entreat you also to consider my maids, and to give them marriage-portions, which is not much, they being but three. For all my other servants I ask you for one year's pay more than their due, lest otherwise they should be in want. Lastly, I vow that mine eyes desire you above all things. Farewell!'

6. Catharine seemed better since the coming of Lady Willoughby. She was easier in her mind. She slept at night. On the fifth day of January, Bedyngfeld thought she might rally, though her recovery would be a work of time. But she was sinking faster than he knew. Next morning, she was worse. The night passed heavily away though Lady Willoughby knelt beside her couch, and talked to her in accents to recall her youth on the Alhambra slopes, the pride and glory of the Moorish strife, the Hebrew exodus, the Acts of Faith, and that eternal warfare of the church in which her life had been involved. At ten next morning came the priest with holy oil, and then, her hour being come, the English officers were called into her room. She slowly sank to rest; dying at