Queen of This Realm Read Online Free PDF Page B

in me to admire my father who withhis words and frowns could inspire such terror in those who had given him nothing but love. So it had been with Katharine Howard. I did not know whether my mother had loved him but I had seen for myself that these two Katharines had done everything in their power to please him. Such devotion had not saved Katharine Howard's head. Would it save that of Katharine Parr?
    How relieved and happy I was when my father and stepmother were friends again. I think he must have missed her nursing, for she was so ill that she could not leave her bed. Her physician Dr Wendy was sent for and he reported that her sickness was due to uneasiness of mind. She wept piteously and could not control the trembling of her limbs. My father must have regretted giving such a ready ear to the complaints of her enemies for they had gone so far as to plan her death and were already looking out for a new queen who would be favorable to the cause of Rome. They had forgotten that the King was old, and a good nurse was more appealing to him than the sensuous charms of women like my beautiful mother and sweet Katharine Howard.
    Dr Wendy, the Queen's good friend, had told her that the King missed her and he believed that if she spoke humbly to him and expressed deep sorrow for any fault she might have committed, he would be ready to turn to her because he was certainly not happy with the estrangement.
    I saw my stepmother after the King's visit to her bedchamber. The change in her was miraculous. She no longer wept and that fearful trembling had ceased. She told me that after the King had said a few kind words to her he had tried to lure her into an argument. But Katharine was clever and having been primed by Dr Wendy she made an acceptable reply. She was but a woman, she said, with the imperfections of her sex. Therefore in all serious matters she must refer herself to His Majesty's better judgment. “God has appointed you to be the supreme head of us all,” she added piously, “and of you next to God shall I ever learn.”
    “It seems not so,” said the King. “You have become a doctor, Kate, to instruct us and not to be instructed of us as oftentimes we have seen.”
    “Indeed,” replied my stepmother, “if Your Majesty has so conceived, my meaning has been mistaken, for I have always held it preposterous for a woman to instruct her lord; and if I have ever presumed to differ with Your Highness on religion, it is partly to obtain information for my own comfort regarding certain nice points on which I stood in doubt, and sometimes because I perceived that in talking you were able to pass away the pain and weariness of your present infirmity, which encouraged me in this boldness in the hope of profiting withal by Your Majesty's learned discourse.”
    How clever she was, my kind stepmother! Those words were well worth remembering. What a clear estimation of his character she had, for he replied: “And is that so, sweetheart? Then we are perfect friends.”
    If only Katharine Howard had been able to reach him when she had made that frantic dash along the gallery to the chapel! Could she have changed him with her loveliness as wise Katharine Parr had with words? I asked myself then, great as my father was, so powerful that the fate of us all rested in his hands, was he not a little childlike? But was he seduced by Katharine's words or was he seeking a way out of a difficult situation which would placate his conscience? The fact was that he did not want to lose Katharine Parr. If he had wished so, nothing she could have said or done would have saved her.
    The reconciliation was timely. The next day was that which had been arranged for her arrest, but now that the matter had been smoothed out between them, the King asked her to sit with him in the gardens. So she went, with her sister, Jane Grey and Lady Tyrwhit in attendance—so they were witnesses of the scene which followed.
    While they were seated there, Wriothesley,