owed to her rank; she removed herself haughtily from his grasp.
When Sir Thomas left Hatfield House he was sure that the visit had been an important one. He believed that he had made progress in his courtship and that he had taken one step nearer to the throne.
CHRISTMAS CAME AND WENT. Everyone, except the King, knew that he was about to die. Henry refused to accept this dismal fact. Ill as he was, he insisted on meeting his council each day and discussing matters of state. He saw little of Katharine. He did not wish to see her. Since the cauterization of his legs he had not wished any female to come near him; and in any case, he was still contemplating ridding himself of her.
January came, cold and bleak. On the nineteenth of that month, the poet Surrey went out to meet the executioner on Tower Hill.
The young man died as he had lived, reckless and haughty, seeming not to care.
People of the court shivered as they watched the handsome head roll in the straw. What had this young man done except carry royal blood in his veins and boast of it? Well, many had lost their heads for that crime.
That was the end of Surrey; and his father, it was said, was to follow him soon.
The King, in his bedchamber, received news of the execution.
“So die all traitors!” he mumbled.
He was, in these days of his sickness, recalling to mind too vividly those men and women he had sent to the block. But he had an answer to his conscience, whatever name his memory called up.
“I have to think of my boy,” he told his conscience. “That is why Surrey has gone. That is why Norfolk shall go. He is too young, my Edward, to be without me and surrounded by those ambitious men who fancy their heads fit a crown.”
Surrey then. And after him, proud Norfolk.
Norfolk now lay in the Tower awaiting his trial.
Seymour was beside the King, proffering a cup of wine to his lips. There were times when Henry’s hands were so swollen with dropsy that he could not hold a cup.
“Good Thomas!” he murmured.
The handsome head was bent low. “Your Grace,” said Seymour, “the Lady Elizabeth was grieved to leave her brother. I thought it would please you to know how much they love each other.”
“Would the girl were a boy!” muttered Henry.
“Indeed, Your Grace, that would be well. But alas, she is a girl, and what will become of her? Will she grow, like her sister Mary, into spinsterhood?”
Henry gave the Admiral a sly glance. He knew what thoughts were going on in that handsome head.
“’ Twould be a sad thing, Your Grace,” persisted the bold Admiral.
“Aye! ’T would be a bad thing,” said the King.
“And yet, Sire, on account of the frailty of her mother, and the fact that she was not married to Your Grace because of that precontract with Northumberland, what… will become of the Lady Elizabeth?”
The King softened toward Seymour. He liked boldness, for he himself had been bold.
He smiled. “More wine, good Thomas.”
“Your Majesty might give her to one of your gentlemen…if his rank and wealth were commensurate.”
“I might indeed. But she is young yet. There’s no knowing… no knowing, friend Thomas.”
And the King’s friend Thomas felt elated with his success.
THE OLD DUKE OF NORFOLK lay in his cell awaiting his death. How many years had he expected this? All through his life there had been these alarms which he was too near the throne to have escaped. But he had been a wise man and had always made the King’s cause his own.
But the wisest men could be betrayed, and often by those who were nearest and dearest to them.
Tomorrow he was to die.
In the Palace of White Hall the King lay sick. He will not live long after me, reflected Norfolk.
When a man is going to die he thinks back over his life. He had been a great statesman, this Duke of England’s noblest House; he had had his place in the building of England’s greatness. He was a proud man and he hated to die thus…as traitors die.
Proud young Surrey had betrayed him—not with plots, but with vanity, pride.
Norfolk’s thoughts went back to his marriage with Buckingham’s daughter—a proud woman, a vain woman. He himself had been Earl of Surrey then and had inherited the title of Duke of Norfolk some years later. The trouble with Bess Holland had started when he was still Earl