“Look again,” commanded the King.
“Nay, Sire. Your eyes deceive you.”
“Come closer, Kate. I would whisper. It doth look to me like a fellow in a black robe. Can you not see a monk standing there?”
“It is but the hangings, my lord.”
“You lie!” cried the King. “I’ll have your head off your shoulders an you deceive me. Suffolk’s wife, ah! She doth please me. Her eyes are dove’s eyes and she would be a loving wench, I vow. And not too docile. I never greatly cared for too much docility. Jane, dost remember what happened to thy predecessor? A Flander’s mare… and Howard’s niece the prettiest thing that ever graced a court. Is that you, Chancellor? Monks…. Chancellor. They come at me. They come at me. Hold them off. Hold them off from your King, I say!” The King was breathing with difficulty. “What day is this?” he asked.
“The morning has come, for it is two of the clock,” said Wriothesley.
“What day? What day?”
“The twenty-eighth day of January, my lord.”
“The twenty-eighth day of January. Remember it. It is the day your sovereign lord the King was murdered. There in the hangings. See! Take my sword. Ah, you would have a sword from Calais to sever that proud head. The huntsman’s call…do you hear it? There… look. In the hangings. I swear I saw the curtains move. Monks… monks… Hanged, drawn and quartered. So perish all who oppose the King!”
Those who had been standing back from the bedside now drew near.
“He dies, I fear,” said Wriothesley. “His hour is come.”
The King seemed calmed by the sight of his ministers.
“My lords,” he said, “my time approaches fast. What of my son—my boy Edward? His sister Mary must be a mother to him; for look, he is little yet.”
“Be comforted, Your Majesty. Edward will be well cared for.”
“He is your King. Supreme head of the Church. Defender of the Faith. A little boy…but ten years old.”
“Your Majesty may safely leave these matters to your ministers, those whom you yourself have appointed to guide the affairs of your realm.”
The King chuckled incongruously. “A motley lot. You’ll have a noisy time, fighting together. But I’ll not be there to see it… I’ll not be there. Kate…. Where is Kate? I see her not. I command you all to honor her, for she has been a good wife to me. We…we never thought to… put her from us. ’T was but for sons… for England. Wine, wine… I am a burning furnace.”
He had not the strength to drink the wine which was offered.
His eyes rolled piteously.
“All is lost. All is lost,” he moaned.
Cranmer came hastening to the chamber. Henry looked at this well-loved minister, but he could no longer speak to him.
The Archbishop knelt by the bed and took his master’s hand.
“My lord, my beloved lord, give me a sign. Show me that you hope to receive the saving mercy of Christ.”
But Henry’s eyes were glazed.
Cranmer had come too late.
IN THE PRIVY CHAMBER, the King’s body lay encased in a massive chest; and in this chamber, for five days, the candles burned, masses were said, and obsequies held with continual services and prayers for the salvation of his soul.
On the sixth day the great chest was laid on the hearse which was adorned with eight tapers, escutcheons, and banners bearing pictures of the saints worked in gold on a background of damask.
Dirges were sung as the funeral cortege began its stately journey to Windsor, where the chapel was being made ready to receive the royal corpse.
And the mourners?
There was his wife, now strangely light of heart. How did one feel when the ax which had been poised above one’s head for nearly four years, was suddenly removed? She was a young woman in her mid-thirties, and she had never known that happy marriage which she had thought would be hers before the King had decided to make her his wife. Those four years had seemed liked forty; but she had come through them unscathed. The death of the King had saved her; and as she rode with the procession or took her place in the state barge, she could think of little but Thomas, who was waiting.
In his cell in the Tower of London, the Duke of Norfolk felt a similar lifting of the spirits—for he too had escaped death, and in his case, it was by a few hours. The King had intended that he should die, and instead the King had died; and now, without that master of men, there was no one left who would dare destroy the great Catholic leader. The Catholics were too strong, and there must be much diplomacy if the country was to avoid a bloody civil war. None wanted that. The hideous Wars of the Roses were too close to be forgotten. So, like Katharine, Norfolk, who had narrowly escaped with his life, could not be expected to mourn sincerely the passing of the King.
Lord and Lady Hertford could scarcely wait to take over control. They had the young King in their keeping and they were the rulers now.
There was the little King himself, frightened by the homage which was now done to him. Men now knelt in his presence and called him Majesty, but he was wise enough to know that he was their captive as he had never been before.
And Mary? One life was now between her and the throne. The King was sickly; and so was she; but she prayed that God would take her brother before her so that she might have the glory of leading the English back to Rome.
