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CHAPTER XVI

THE QUEEN SPEAKS

'N August wrote the French Ambassador, Du Bellai, to his king: "Mademoiselle has at last returned to court and I believe the king to be so infatuated with her that God alone could abate his madness."

Henry's passion was the theme and wonder of the court. Anne was lodged in a splendid suite next to his, and not a courtier that vied for royal favor but came to Anne's rooms daily, as in the old, the very old days, other courtiers had come to the queen's. She was the cynosure of eyes, the theme of tongues, and the hope, the eager, urgent hope of her kinsfolk.

The younger courtiers, her brother's set, the idle, jolly rufflers of fashion, spending their all upon their backs, who roistered about Henry night and day, were hand in glove for her, lauding her to the skies, reveling in the merriment she brought, captivated in stout earnest by her charm. In the older set, those who were eager for the cardinal's overthrow were hopeful of bringing it about through Anne and so leagued themselves with Norfolk, her uncle, and Rochford, her father. There were others, like Sir Thomas More, that stood aloof from the participants, the outwardly courteous, inexpressive onlookers, and still others, who were, either in secret or in public, adherents of Catherine and the interests she represented, but these last were few in number and had no place in

the riotous merrymaking that surrounded the person of the king.

Anne had been hitherto most tantalizing in absenting herself from court, in caprices that were intuitive wisdom, but it had been no part of her design to be away at the arrival of the legate, Campeggio, and when Wolsey urged the disadvantageousness of her presence at that time and Henry, for once, held with him," she smoked," as Carewe succinctly reported, and announced in dudgeon that as she had been sent to Hever, at Hever she would remain, and maintained an attitude of petulant resentment that Henry was at some trouble to mollify by frequent messages and expensive presents.

In September of that year 1528 he was able to write her: "The legate, which we most desire, arrived at Paris on Sunday last, and I trust next Monday to hear of his arrival at Calais; then I trust awhile after to enjoy that which I have so long longed for, to God's pleasure and both our comfort.

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No more to you at present, mine own darling, for lack of time, but that I would you were in my arms and I in yours, for I think it long since I kissed you."

The time proved longer than Henry's ardor desired, for it was weeks before the ailing and gouty Italian arrived in London.

He had brought with him the commission which entrusted the decision of the annulment to himself and to Wolsey, and which promised that the pope would not revoke those powers, and he had also brought that for which Wolsey had pressed, a decretal defining the law in the case in a manner so favorable to the king that the matter appeared judged beforehand. But this decretal had been wrung from the pope and now that another turn of his variable fortunes placed him more than ever at

the mercy of the emperor and the emperor was proving generous, he was less inclined to commit himself and he had sent message after message to Campeggio, forbidding him to show the document to any save the king and Wolsey, or to reveal its contents. Moreover, he was to dissuade the king, if possible, or persuade the queen to enter a convent; failing this, to delay the opening of the trial.

Poor Campeggio! After two private audiences with the king, wherein Henry had plied him for continuous hours with all the arguments that his natural shrewdness and his knowledge of law and theology had arrayed, the luckless legate wrote the pope that, "The king is better versed in the matter than a great theologian or jurist, and if an angel descended from heaven he would be unable to convince him of the validity of the marriage.” Henry having proved unyielding, the other alternative was the queen. religion?

Could she be induced to enter the life of

She could and would, Henry opined, delighted at Campeggio's aid in the matter, and for inducement he piled concession on concession. The title of Queen Dowager would be given her, and all her dowry and belongings; the Princess Mary failing a legitimate male heirwould be heiress to the crown, and nothing would be required of Catherine but the conventional vow of chastity. She would be free as air to do what she pleased.

A wise woman would have accepted the offer, but Catherine never for a second considered it. Compromise was absolutely foreign to her and while she might not be shrewd enough to strike a way through her difficulties she had a terrible, bulldog tenacity in clinging to her resolve. Never did she confront the possibility of defeat. The imagination which sustained Anne by lifting her eyes

to the goal ahead, was met in Catherine by a want of imagination which robbed the combat of the paralyzing terror of disaster. She shut her eyes and held on.

It is to be surmised that somewhat in Campeggio stirred sympathy for Henry during his private interview with the queen, one gray October morning. Catherine was rock and iron and tempest. She would die, as she lived, a wife, she flung to all his pleadings of concession.

Her stiff-robed bulk filled the great carved chair in which she sat; there was immobility in her attitude and in the rigid lines of her proud features. Every art and eloquence in his possession Campeggio tried in vainin vain, too, his attempted exercise of priestly influence and authority.

“But may your Majesty not see God's hand in this?” he suavely suggested. "Is it not your duty to submit yourself to His will and accept the trial He has laid upon you?"

"Ha!" said Catherine scornfully in her throat.

To the warning, in a sterner voice, that the sentence might be against her and submission become a necessity, not a merit, she blazed her defiance.

"Let a sentence be given, and if He be against me, I shall be free to do as I like, even as my husband will." The cardinal raised his hand in deprecation, a delicate, priestly hand, with choice lace falling back from the wrist. But thy child," he gently rebuked. "The fate of the Princess Mary is in thy hands. Wilt thou wreck it in attempting to thwart the king?"

"Is it wrecking my daughter's name, to keep her mother's name and marriage sacred?" Catherine flung at him.

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The Princess Mary's position is now beyond dispute,

and will be harmed not by your retirement. But if you anger the king he will vent his displeasure on her."

"He will not he dare not. She is his only daughter and heiress of England, and to permit him to marry again would be to raise rivals to her claim."

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It is rivaled now in the person of the young Duke of Richmond. England hath great need of a rightful male heir."

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None would be rightful but my child. That scum of Lady Talboys is naught to us. The Princess Mary's title is sure."

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"That will it not be long," the man warned her gravely, if you refuse to make terms with the king. He is ill to trifle with. And is it such a hardship that is asked? Your own honor, the honor of your daughter, would be in no wise injured were you to enter the life of religion, and naught but the vow of chastity would be required in the matter. You would be free to reside at any of the palaces that you wished, you would be in full possession of your estates and dowry, and you would have the wardship of your beloved daughter, and the title of Queen Dowager. In that you would be following the honored example of a queen of France. I cannot too strongly counsel your Grace to accept, and I bring the advice of the Holy Father to the same end, and the secret wish of your nephew, the emperor. Is it not a duty laid on your soul not to cause dissension between the Holy See and England? With no sacrifice on your part, for you would but be conceding what is no longer yours, the person of the king, you would be ensuring the continual peace of yourself and your daughter and the welfare of the realm. You would win the Holy Father's most tender benediction, a true daughter in Christ. So now when you refuse this duty you do wrong"