L. Mühlbach

“ All England resounds with his fame. The women repeat with enthusiasm his beautiful sonnets and love-songs; the learned are proud to call him their equal, and the warriors speak with admiration of his feats of arms. Be just, then, queen! You have so highly honored the merit of valor; now, honor the merit of mind also! You have, in Seymour, honored the warrior; now, in Howard, honor the poet and the man!”
“I will do it,” said Catharine, as with a charming smile she looked into Jane’s glowing and enthusiastic countenance. “I will do it, Jane, but upon one condition!” ”

“ The queen shuddered and her cheeks grew pale. “Oh,” said she with a sigh, “death then is our hope and perhaps the scaffold our end!”
“No, Catharine, love is our hope, and happiness our end. Think of life, of our future! God grant my request. Swear to me here in the face of God, and of sacred and calm nature around us, swear to me, that from the day when death frees you from your husband you will be mine, my wife, my consort! Swear to me, that you, regardless of etiquette and unmindful of tyrannical custom, will be Lord Seymour’s wife, before the knell for Henry’s death has died away. ”

“ The king, who has constituted himself high-priest of his Church—whom the pope once called ‘the Knight of the Truth and the Faith’—the king has at the bottom of his heart no religion. He is a wavering reed, which the wind turns this way to-day, and that way to-morrow. He knows not his own will, and, coquetting with both parties, to-day he is a heretic, in order to exhibit himself as a strong, unprejudiced, enlightened man; to-morrow a Catholic, in order to show himself an obedient and humble servant of God, who seeks and finds his happiness only in love and piety. ”

“ Poor Jane!”
“What is she to us? We, we love each other. Come, dear one, let me kiss the tears from your eyes; let me drink this nectar, that it may inspire me, and transfigure me to a god! Weep no more—no, weep not; or, if you will do so, be it only in the excess of rapture, and because word and heart are too poor to hold all this bliss!”
“Yes, yes, let us shout for joy; let us be lost in blessedness!” exclaimed she passionately, as with frantic violence she threw herself on his bosom. ”

“ Who shall be brought to the block?”
“Sire, it is true I ask you for the head of a person,” said Catharine, in a tender, earnest tone, “but I wish not that head to fall, but to be lifted up. I beg you for a human life—not to destroy it, but, on the contrary, to adorn it with happiness and joy. I wish to drag no one to prison, but to restore to one, dearly beloved, the freedom, happiness, and splendid position which belong to her. Sire, you have permitted me to ask a favor. Now, then, I beg you to call the Princess Elizabeth to court. ”

“ Follow me out of this dungeon. I know a path that leads out of this place; and I will conceal you so long in my own apartments that you can continue your flight without danger.”
“No, no, queen, you shall not conceal her with you!” said John Heywood. “You have been graciously pleased to allow me to be your confidant; envy me not, then, a share in your noble work also. Not with you shall Anne Askew find refuge, but with me. Oh, come, Anne, follow your friends. It is life that calls you, that opens the doors to you, and desires to call you by a thousand names to itself! ”

“ The king wears the crimson, not because it is beautiful and glossy, but because it is red like blood, and because it is the king’s highest prerogative to shed the blood of his delinquent subjects, and thereby expiate human crime. Thus only do I conceive of royalty, and thus only will I carry it out till the end of my days. Not the right to pardon, but the right to punish, is that whereby the ruler manifests himself before the lower classes of mankind. God’s thunder should be on his lips, and the king’s wrath should descend like lightning on the head of the guilty. ”

“ Swear to me that, beyond these walls, you will be to me only the respectful servant of your queen, and at the same time the proud earl and lord, of whom it is said that never has a woman been able to touch his heart. Swear to me that you will not, by a look, by a smile, by even the gentlest pressure of the hand, betray what beyond this room is a crime for both of us. Let this room be the temple of our love; but when we once pass its threshold, we will not profane the sweet mysteries of our happiness, by allowing unholy eyes to behold even a single ray of it. ”

“ I know a woman who would be incapable of that—a woman who loves me well enough to keep my secret as faithfully as I myself; a woman who could be more than merely a confidante, who could be the protectress of our love. Oh, believe me, if we could gain her to our side, then our future would be a happy and a blessed one, and we might easily succeed in obtaining the king’s consent to our marriage.”
“And who is this woman?”
“It is the queen.”
“The queen!” cried Thomas Seymour, with such an expression of horror that Elizabeth trembled; “the queen your confidante? But that is impossible! ”

“ I am a poet, and therefore, queen, I have put on this fool’s dress, which places me under the king’s protection, and allows me to say to him all sorts of things which nobody else has the courage to speak out. But to-day, queen, I come to you neither as a fool nor as a poet, but I come to you because I wish to cling to your knees and kiss your feet. I come because I wish to tell you that you have made John Heywood forever your slave. He will from this time forth lie like a dog before your threshold and guard you from every enemy and every evil which may press upon you. ”

“ Is not Thomas Seymour one of the first of this land? Does not all England look on him with pride and tenderness? Does not every woman to whom he deigns a look, feel herself honored? Does not the king himself smile and feel more pleased at heart, when Thomas Seymour, that young, bold, and spirited hero, stands by his side?”
“You are right!” said Catharine, whose heart every one of these enthusiastic words, lacerated like the stab of a dagger—“yes, you are right. He is worthy of being loved by you—and you could hit upon no better choice. ”

“ God is just, and He will at last punish these evil-doers. And supposing there is no God, then will we try a little with the devil himself. No, they shall not destroy the noble Cranmer and this beautiful, high-minded queen. I forbid it—I, John Heywood, the king’s fool. I will see everything, observe everything, hear everything. They shall find me everywhere on their path; and when they poison the king’s ear with their diabolical whisperings, I will heal it again with my merry deviltries. The king’s fool will be the guardian angel of the queen. ”

“ Not a criminal, but a noble lady, whose proud and lofty heart never harbored a thought of treason or disloyalty, but who, true to her faith and her convictions, would not forswear the God whom she served. As she passed through the crowd, it seemed as if a halo encompassed her head, and covered her white hair with silvery rays; all bowed before her, and the hardest natures wept over the unfortunate woman who had lived more than seventy years, and yet was not allowed to die in her bed, but was to be slaughtered to the glory of God and of the king. ”

“ The king uttered a cry, and, forgetting his gout and his pains, arose from his chair.
“Howard!” said he, with a cruel smile. “Say you that a Howard threatens our life? Which one is it? Name me the traitor!”
“I name them both—father and son! I name the Duke of Norfolk and the Earl of Surrey! I say that they both are traitors, who threaten the life and honor of my king, and with blasphemous arrogance dare stretch out their hands even to the crown!” ”

“ Catharine trembled and cast down her eyes with the bashfulness of a young girl. “Alas!” whispered she, “do you not then see my mourning dress? Is it becoming to think of happiness, while the funeral lamentations have scarcely died away?”
“Queen Catharine,” said Archbishop Cranmer, “let the dead bury their dead! Life also has its rights; and man should not give up his claim on happiness, for it is a most holy possession. You have endured much and suffered much, queen, but your heart is pure and without guilt; therefore you may now, with a clear conscience, bid welcome to happiness also. ”

“ Perhaps I may become his wife, if Henry Howard is no more,” said the young duchess. “So let us consider. How shall we begin, so as to strike them surely and certainly?”
“When three women are agreed, they may well be certain of their success,” said Arabella, shrugging her shoulders. “We live—God be praised for it—under a noble and high-minded king, who beholds the blood of his subjects with as much pleasure as he does the crimson of his royal mantle, and who has never yet shrunk back when a death-warrant was to be signed.” ”

“ When at length will fall from her those golden chains that bind her to a tyrannical and bloodthirsty husband—to the cruel and arrogant king? When will Catharine at length cease to be queen, in order to become Lady Surrey?
Strange! As he asked himself this, there ran over him a shudder, and an unaccountable dread fell upon his soul.
It seemed to him as if a voice whispered to him: “Thou wilt never live to see that day! The king, old as he is, will nevertheless live longer than thou! Prepare thyself to die, for death is already at thy door!” ”

“ Henry looked astonished into her noble and defiant face. “Do you know that?” asked he. “And yet we were alone, and no human being present. Who could tell you that?”
“When man is no longer able to help, then God undertakes!” said Catharine solemnly. “It was God who commanded me to go to Anne Askew, and try whether I could save her. And I went. But though the wife of a noble and great king, I am still but a weak and timid woman. I was afraid to tread this gloomy and dangerous path alone; I needed a strong manly arm to lean upon; and so John Heywood lent me his.” ”

“ My God, I am five-and-twenty, and my heart is still the heart of a child; it does not yet know itself, and now it is doomed never to learn to know itself; for I am Henry’s wife, and to love another is, in other words, to wish to mount the scaffold. The scaffold! Look, Jane. When the king approached me and confessed his love and offered me his hand, suddenly there rose before me a fearful picture. It was no more the king whom I saw before me, but the hangman; and it seemed to me that I saw three corpses lying at his feet, and with a loud scream I sank senseless before him. ”

“ And I have told you, you are not the queen to me. You are but a beloved, an adored woman. This love has nothing to do with your royalty, and while I confess it to you, I do not think that you abase yourself when you receive it. For the true love of a man is ever the holiest gift that he can present to a woman, and if a beggar dedicates it to a queen, she must feel herself honored by it. Oh, queen, I am a beggar. I lie at your feet and raise my hands beseechingly to you; but I want not charity, I want not your compassion and pity, which may, perhaps, grant me an alms to lessen my misery. ”

“ Catharine Parr does not love the king; you will, then, teach her to love Henry Howard.”
“Yet, my father,” said Lady Jane, with a sarcastic smile, “to bring about this result, one must, before all things, be acquainted with a magic spell, through the might of which the earl will first glow with love for Catharine. For the queen has a proud soul, and she will never so forget her dignity as to love a man who is not inflamed with an ardent passion for her. But the earl has not only a bride, but, as it is said, a mistress also.” ”

“ The hour has come which is finally to determine our destiny! The king is at the point of death, and my Catharine will at length be free—free to follow her own heart. At this hour I remind you of your oath! Do you remember still that day when you referred me to this hour? Do you still know, Catharine, how you vowed to be my wife and to receive me as the lord of your future? Oh, my beloved, that crown which weighed down your head will soon be taken away. Now I yet stand before you as your subject, but in a few hours it will be your lord and your husband that stands before you ”

“ There are moments in which life is at its crowning point, and when one heeds not the abyss that threatens close beneath. Such an hour is the present. I am aware that this hour makes me guilty of high treason and may send me to the block; but nevertheless I will not be silent. The fire which burns in my breast consumes me. I must at length give it vent. My heart, that for years has burned upon a funeral pyre, and which is so strong that in the midst of its agonies it has still ever felt a sensation of its blessedness—my heart must at length find death or favor. You shall hear me, queen! ”

“ But I would not draw the pure and exalted person of the queen into this net with which we wanted to surround Earl Surrey. I was obliged, then, to seek a substitute for her; and I did so. There was at your court a woman whose whole heart belongs, after God, to the king alone; and who so much adores him, that she would be ready at any hour gladly to sacrifice for the king her heart’s blood, her whole being—ay, if need be, even her honor itself—a woman, sire, who lives by your smile, and worships you as her redeemer and savior—a woman whom you might, as you pleased, make a saint or a strumpet ”