e purity of heart, the
resignation in each--how perfectly equal in degree! how diametrically
opposite in kind![106]

Once more to return to Katherine.

We are told by Cavendish, that when Wolsey and Campeggio visited the
queen by the king's order she was found at work among her women, and
came forth to meet the cardinals with a skein of white thread hanging
about her neck; that when Wolsey addressed her in Latin, she interrupted
him, saying, "Nay, good my lord, speak to me in English, I beseech you;
although I understand Latin." "Forsooth then," quoth my lord, "madam, if
it please your grace, we come both to know your mind, how ye be disposed
to do in this matter between the king and you, and also to declare
secretly our opinions and our counsel unto you, which we have intended
of very zeal and obedience that we bear to your grace." "My lords, I
thank you then," quoth she, "of your good wills; but to make answer to
your request I cannot so suddenly, for I was set among my maidens at
work, thinking full little of any such matter; wherein there needeth a
longer deliberation, and a better head than mine to make answer to so
noble wise men as ye be. I had need of good counsel in this case, which
toucheth me so near; and for any counsel or friendship that I can find
in England, they are nothing to my purpose or profit. Think you, I pray
you, my lords, will any Englishmen counsel, or be friendly unto me,
against the king's pleasure, they being his subjects? Nay, forsooth, my
lords! and for my counsel, in whom I do intend to put my trust, they be
not here; they be in Spain, in my native country.[107] Alas! my lords, I
am a poor woman lacking both wit and understanding sufficiently to
answer such approved wise men as ye be both, in so weighty a matter. I
pray you to extend your good and indifferent minds in your authority
unto me, for I am a simple woman, destitute and barren of friendship and
counsel, here in a foreign region; and as for your counsel, I will not
refuse, but be glad to hear."

It appears, also, that when the Archbishop of York and Bishop Tunstall
waited on her at her house near Huntingdon, with the sentence of the
divorce, signed by Henry, and confirmed by act of parliament, she
refused to admit its validity, she being Henry's wife, and not his
subject. The bishop describes her conduct in his letter: "She being
therewith in great choler and agony, and always interrupting our words,
declared that she would ne