“Burn the rubbish, sire, and make an end of the matter.”
“Yes, I will have his heresies burnt to-morrow at St. Paul’s Cross in the City.”
In the great library of the Temple sat the King and Cardinal Wolsey, examining collections of laws and precedents. Outside in the garden the Queen was walking with some of the court ladies. This garden--really a large rose-garden--had been preserved as a promenade for the royal personages who could not sleep in the Tower, because it was haunted, and did not retain their health in the insignificant Bride-well in the City; it was also preserved as a place of historical interest, for here the adherents of Lancaster and York were said to have plucked the red and white roses as their respective badges.
Queen Katherine of Aragon, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, the patrons of Christopher Columbus, had now, after twenty years’ marriage with Henry VIII, reached a certain age. She had borne him several sons, but all had died: only one, a daughter, lived, known later on as Queen, under the title “Bloody Mary.” Katherine had aged early, and sought comfort in religion; she used to rise at night and attend mass in the garb of a Franciscan nun. She knew of the King’s unfaithfulness, but accepted it quietly; she had heard the name of Elizabeth Blunt, but ignored it.
Now she sat on a seat, and watched her young attendants playing, while she turned over the pages of her prayer book. One pair especially her eyes followed with pleasure--the uncommonly beautiful Anna of Norfolk and young Henry Algernon Percy of Northumberland, Hotspur’s descendant. The pair were playing with roses; the youth had an armful of white and the girl an armful of red roses, which they threw at each other, singing as they lid so.
It was a beautiful sight, but the Queen became sad: “Don’t play like that, children,” she said; “it awakens memories which ought to sleep in the Tower, where Only the dead can sleep quietly. Besides, the King, and consequently the Cardinal, will be vexed; they sit there in the library. Play something else!”
The two young people seemed not to understand. Accordingly the Queen continued: “The Wars of the Roses, children, did not end altogether at Bosworth but--in the Tower happened much that is best forgotten. Take a book and read something.”