Denny, braver than the rest and certain now that the King was dying, decided to tell him the truth.

“My lord King, all human aid is vain, your doctors fear. It is therefore meet for Your Majesty to review your past life and seek God’s mercy through Christ.”

There was a second of terrible silence while understanding showed itself on the King’s distorted face. But he was quick to recover his calm, to banish the terror which had laid hold on him. He said sternly: “Tell me, Denny, by what authority you come to pass sentence on me. What judge has sent you here?”

“Your doctors, Sire. I will send them to you. They await an audience.”

The King closed his eyes wearily, but when a few seconds later the doctors approached the bed with medicines for him, he opened his eyes and glared at them with the old ferocity. “What’s this?” he demanded. “You have passed sentence on me, you judges; and when a judge has passed his sentence on a criminal, he has no longer need to trouble him. Begone! Begone, I say!” As they continued to stand there watching him, he shouted: “Begone! Begone!”

The doctors bowed and turned away.

“Your presence can do no good here,” said Wriothesley.

When they had gone, the Chancellor approached the bed.

“Your Majesty, would you wish to see some of your divines?”

“Eh?” said the King. “What’s that? Ah…so it has come to that. Divines! Nay! I’ll see none but Cranmer… and him not yet.”

Wriothesley turned to one of the gentlemen. “Go you to Cranmer. He is at Croydon. Go with all speed. Tell him the King desires his presence at White Hall without delay.”

“Your Majesty,” he went on, “Cranmer will come.”

“I’ll have him when I am ready… and not before. Begone! Begone, I said. Leave me….”

His eyes glared at them, although, to him they were like shadows at his bedside. They moved away to a far corner of the chamber, and after a while the King closed his eyes and began to speak again.

“Begone…. Begone… I’ll have none of ye.” He moaned and cried out suddenly in a startled voice: “Anne! Anne! You’re there, you witch. I see you.” He spoke in a whisper then. “Why lookest thou at me with those great black eyes? Thy neck is small. Thou wilt not feel the sword. Ah! You would have a sword from Calais. That is like you. The ax is for ordinary mortals. Haughty to the end! Anne… Anne…’ tis for England, sweetheart. An heir for England. A King is the servant of his country. He is not the servant of his passions. Anne, thy black eyes scorn me. I’ll not have it. To the block! To the block!”

The King opened his eyes suddenly and stared about him in a startled fashion. The candles were burning low and flickering in their sockets.

“Review your past life and seek God’s mercy through Christ,” he murmured. “That is what they tell me. That is what they tell me now. A great reign…a great and glorious reign. Oh God, always did the eighth Henry work for Thy glory and for the good of England. No thought gave he to his own desires….”

His voice died away; his breathing was heavy; then suddenly it stopped, and those watching in the shadows thought the end had come.

But before they could move toward him, he had begun to speak again.

“Is that you, Cardinal, sitting there? Why do you smile, Cardinal? I like your smile not at all. The Cardinal died of a flux. Many die of a flux…be they Cardinal or beggar. You keep good wine, Thomas… good food and wine. A subject should not keep such state. Look at me not with those great black eyes, Anne. You witch! Sorceress! Poisoner! The roses are beautiful at Hever. Red roses… red… the color of blood. Shadows… shadows move about me. Shadows in my room. There. There! Monks… monks. …Black cowls that drip red blood. Oh, dear God, they creep toward me. Closer… closer they come. Monks… monks from all corners….” He tried to lift his hands, but he could not move them; he tried to shout for help, but his voice was a whisper. “The candles are going out and the darkness is coming, and with it… monks…. To Tyburn with them! To Tyburn! I…am not at Tyburn. I lie in bed… adying…adying.”

The sound of his stertorous breathing filled the chamber.

“A drink!” he gasped. “A drink…a cup of wine, for the love of God.”

“He is scorched with the death thirst,” said Wriothesley.

As the Chancellor approached the bed and poured wine into the cup, the King said: “Kate… Kate, is that you… good wife?”

“It is your Chancellor, my lord,” said Wriothesley. “Here is the wine you crave.”

“Good Kate,” said the King; and his eyes were closed now. “Good wife.”

“There, ’tis refreshing, is it not, my lord?”

“It doth but cool the fires ere they burst to wilder fury. Kate… Kate… I’ll not see the sun rise again.”

“Speak not thus, my lord,” said Wriothesley.

“Kate… I loved thee. I loved thee well. I had not thought of putting you from me that I might take another wife. I would not have married… Jane…yes, Jane…an my subjects had not urged me to it.”

Even the grim heart of the Chancellor was moved to pity, and listening to these last words of the King he wished to soothe the monstrous conscience.

“Your subjects urged Your Grace to the marriage,” he said softly.

“’ Twas so. Katharine… canst thou see a dark shadow there… over there by the arras at the door?”

“There is nothing there, Your Grace.”

“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 cortège 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.