good fires"-namely, her Latin Prayer Book, her golden Crucifix, and beads; the latter was the valued gift of King Henry's mother.*

The Marchioness of Exeter was impeached at the same time with Lady Salisbury, but was "pardoned for her uncommitted offence." Sharon Turner states that Henry

was not willing to take the Countess's life." But it is difficult to reconcile this statement with the circumstances

"The

of the case. After her lengthened confinement in the Tower (27th May), Lady Salisbury was informed that the King had issued his final order for her execution. King ordered," says Lord Herbert, "that the Countess of Salisbury should be carried to the place of execution, as she was unable to walk, from the long suffering she had endured in a damp cell." Just as the Countess reached the scaffold, she seemed to have recovered much of her pristine energy of body and mind. When ordered to prepare for the block, she refused, and with the proud bearing of a Plantagenet, said, "I have committed no crime; I have had no trial. If you cut off my head, then you shall take it as best you can." "With renewed energy of body she moved about the scaffold, and resisted the executioners, who pursued her with enormous knives or hatchets in hand, making dreadful blows at her neck, until she fell covered with wounds, and her long white hair and her hands were bathed with her life-blood. Finally, her head having been cut off, was held up to the gaze of the multitude."+

* English Matrons in the Tower and on the Scaffold. Printed in Brussels, A.D. 1560. Ambrose Fitzwalter states that the author of this little book was

Sister Varney, one of the exiled nuns of Shaftesbury.

+ Lord Herbert's Life of Henry VIII.

"This venerable lady," writes Echard, "who was seventy years of age, was commanded to lay her head on the block, but she positively refused, saying: 'So should traitors do, but I am none.' Nor did it avail that the executioner told her that it was always customary to do so; but turning her grey head every way, she cried out: 'If you will have my head, get it as best you can.' So the executioner was constrained to take her head off barbarously."* Dodd and his contemporaries have accepted Herberts' account of the scene on the scaffold. Reginald Pole states that the last words of the Countess were: "Blessed are those who suffer persecution for righteousness' sake.”+ Mr. Froude questions Lord Herbert's statement as to the scene on the scaffold, although Hall, Burnet, and several other writers have regarded and chronicled it as a fact. Mr. Froude attributes, like Sharon Turner, every description of political intrigue and treason to the aged Countess, but with no better evidence than that adduced against most of those, distinguished or otherwise, who preceded her to the scaffold. "The manlike Margaret," observes Mr. Froude, “would have disdained and disclaimed indulgence on the plea of her sex, so that treason of women in the sixteenth century was no more considered to be entitled to immunity than their participation in grosser crimes is held in the nineteenth century. . . . . A settled age can imperfectly comprehend an age of revolution, or realise the indifference with which men risk their own blood and shed the blood of others when battling for a great cause."+

*Echard's History of England, vol. ii. p. 293.

+ Reg. Pole, vol. iii. p. 76.

Froude's History of England, vol. iv.

What was the "

refers?

"" great cause to which Mr. Froude

Lady Salisbury possessed the distinction of being a Countess in her own right, and historians have described her under the various names connected with her family. She was the daughter of George, Duke of Clarence, and Isabel Nevil, the eldest daughter of Richard, Earl of Warwick, the "setter-up and puller-down of kings." The Countess was also the niece of Edward IV., and therefore no very distant relative of Henry VIII. himself. Her brother, the Earl of Warwick, was impeached and beheaded, his only offence consisting in the fact of a close relationship to the Crown. The family received several warnings from Henry VII., whose suspicious mind was ever jealous of a Plantagenet. Margaret was compelled by Henry VII. to marry a Welsh knight named Richard de la Pole, by whom she had a large family, and "lived in love and peace." Her husband is described by a chronicle of the times " as a chivalrous knight and a good-natured man, who was much esteemed at Court, and respected by the people." In Henry VII.'s reign Lady Salisbury was placed in charge of the Royal children; so that Henry VIII. had known her almost from his infancy. On the arrival of the Infanta (Katherine) from Spain, the Countess "conducted and arranged the young Princess's household." A feeling of mutual friendship sprang up between the lady companion and the Princess. When Katherine was married to Prince Arthur, the Countess was still attached to her household; was at Ludlow at the period of Arthur's death; was with the Princess during a great portion of her widowhood, and again at her marriage with Henry. Lady Salisbury stood amongst the noble ladies who

thronged around the King and Queen at their coronation; when the Princess Mary was baptised, the royal infant was held at the font by Lady Salisbury. At the confirmation of Mary, she appeared, as what Queen Katherine styled her, "the old family friend and sponsor." At this period Henry seemed much attached to his kinswoman. He visited the royal nursery almost daily, and conversed freely with her; he listened with pleasure to her tales about his own days of childhood; he had perhaps heard of the sonnets written on the historical Margaret Plantagenet when styled the "Maid of the Golden Tresses." Time rolled on, and the "Maid of the Golden Tresses" became a feeble old woman, with snow-white hair, who was impeached for high treason- —a prisoner for nearly two years in one of the dungeons of the Tower; next, on the scaffold, defying the headsman in the strength of her innocence, and right royally meeting her death at the command of that kinsman whom she had nursed in childhood, and to whose own offspring she had accorded almost a mother's care. Now, I cannot but regard it strange that writers of the present day should describe Henry as "gentle and merciful," "a model of married life," &c.; and all this with such facts before them! Are not the students of history-nay, all lovers of truth-entitled to exclaim of such writers, with the Roman orator-"Quosque tantdem abutere patientiid nostra?”

CHAPTER VIII.

CATHERINE PARR.

CATHERINE, the widow of Lord Latymore, was selected by Henry to take the perilous position of his sixth wife. It is said this lady had the courage to tell him " that it was safer to be his concubine than his wife." He was, however, so little offended at this observation that he pursued his suit with characteristic impetuosity. Catherine had been twice married, and at this time contemplated a third match with a former lover, Sir Thomas Seymour, which ambition set aside for a time, and the "Adonis of the Court vanished from the scene." But three months intervened between the proving of her late husband's will and the marriage of Catherine with the King. Archbishop Cranmer, as commanded, issued a licence for the marriage, " to be performed in whatever church, chapel, or oratory, it might please his Highness the King to have his marriage celebrated." The marriage accordingly took place on Thursday, the 10th of July, 1543, at Hampton Court Palace. Stephen Gardyner, Bishop of Winchester, performed the ceremony-but, as we are assured, “with much reluctance." Gardyner dared not, however, refuse. This "sixth Queen" of Henry is historically known as Catherine Parr, and holds a prominent place amongst Miss Strickland's heroines of the Reformation epoch. The " piety and learning" attributed to her by Miss.