Parliament, which had not for a long time now ventured to offer any further opposition to the king's will--Parliament had acquiesced in his decree. It had accused Earl Surrey of hi...
After so much care and excitement, the king needed an hour of recreation and amusement. Since the fair young queen was seeking these far away in the chase, and amid the beauties of...
Catharine was not deceived. The doors were opened, and on the threshold appeared the lord marshal, with his golden mace. "His majesty the king!" whispered he, in his grave, solemn...
Thomas Seymour returned to Catharine. She still lay there with closed eyes, pale and motionless. He gazed on her long and steadily; his eyes drank in, in long draughts, the sight o...
On turning over in my mind the contents of your last letters, I have put myself into great agony, not knowing how to interpret them, whether to my disadvantage, as you show in some...
"God bless and preserve your majesty!" said Gardiner as he entered, to the king, who just then was sitting with the queen at the chess-board. With frowning brow and compressed lips...
At the very moment when the king was pronouncing, in a voice almost exultant, Anne Askew's sentence of death, one of the king's cavaliers appeared on the threshold of the royal cha...
It was in the year 1543. King Henry the Eighth of England that day once more pronounced himself the happiest and most enviable man in his kingdom, for to-day he was once more a bri...
The calm of night had now succeeded to the tempest of the day, and after so much bustle, festivity, and rejoicing, deep quiet now reigned in the palace of Whitehall, and throughout...
King Henry lay a-dying. That life full of sin, full of blood and crime, full of treachery and cunning, full of hypocrisy and sanctimonious cruelty--that life was at last lived out....
MY MISTRESS & FRIEND, my heart and I surrender ourselves into your hands, beseeching you to hold us commended to your favour, and that by absence your affection to us may not be le...
Since your last letters, mine own darling, Walter Welshe, Master Browne, Thos. Care, Grion of Brearton, and John Coke, the apothecary, be fallen of the sweat in this house, and, th...
Slowly and lost in gloomy thought, John Heywood walked toward his lodgings. These lodgings were situated in the second or inner court of the vast palace of Whitehall, in that wing...
It was many days since the king had been as well as he was to-day. For a long time he had not enjoyed such refreshing sleep as on the day when he signed the warrant for the queen's...
MY LORD, in my most humblest wise that my heart can think, I desire you to pardon me that I am so bold to trouble you with my simple and rude writing, esteeming it to proceed from...
All was quiet in the palace of Whitehall. Even the servants on guard in the vestibule of the king's bedchamber had been a long time slumbering, for the king had been snoring for se...
For a present so beautiful that nothing could be more so (considering the whole of it), I thank you most cordially, not only on account of the fine diamond and the ship in which th...
At last this long day of ceremonies and festivities drew near its close, and Catharine might soon hope to be, for the time, relieved from this endless presenting and smiling, from...
For a long time the king had not appeared in such good spirits as on this festive evening. For a long time he had not been so completely the tender husband, the good-natured compan...
Both now kept silent for a long time. Lord Douglas had leaned back on the ottoman, and, respiring heavily, seemed to breathe a little from the exertion of his long discourse. But w...
Henry Howard was dead; and now one would have thought the king might be satisfied and quiet, and that sleep would no longer flee from his eyelids, since Henry Howard, his great riv...
King Henry was alone in his study. He had spent a few hours in writing on a devout and edifying book, which he was preparing for his subjects, and which, in virtue of his dignity a...
The great court festival, so long expected, was at last to take place today. Knights and lords were preparing for the tournament; poets and scholars for the feast of the poets. For...
"Who dares interrupt us?" cried the king, as with headlong step he returned to the chamber--"who dares speak of mercy?" "I dare!" said a young lady, who, pale, with distorted featu...
The queen was just ascending the steps of the great public staircase, and she greeted John Heywood with a friendly smile. "My lady," said he aloud, "I have a few words in private t...
It was a wondrous morning. The dew still lay on the grass of the meadows, over which they had just ridden to reach the thicket of the forest, in whose trees resounded the melodious...
She rushed to the window and gazed after him till he had disappeared, then she uttered a deep cry of anguish, and, wholly overcome by her agony, she sank down on her knees weeping...
"And now, Kate," said the king, when all had withdrawn, and he was again alone with her, "now let us forget everything, save that we love each other." He embraced her and with ardo...
The great levee was over. Sitting beside the king on the throne, Catharine had received the congratulations of her court; and the king's smiling look, and the tender words which, i...
For a few days past the king's gout had grown worse, and, to his wrath and grief, it confined him as a prisoner to his rolling chair. The king was, therefore, very naturally gloomy...