ify? Anne Boleyn also mourned for Catharine of Aragon, whom she had
pushed from the throne. For eight weeks she was seen in yellow mourning
on account of Henry's first wife; but Anne Boleyn was a shrewd woman,
and she knew very well that the yellow mourning dress was exceedingly
becoming to her."

"But the king's mourning was not merely external," said Lady Jane.
"He mourned really, for it was two years before he resolved on a new
marriage."

Earl Douglas laughed. "But he cheered himself during these two years
of widowhood with a very beautiful mistress, the French Marchioness
de Montreuil, and he would have married her had not the prudent beauty
preferred returning to France, because she found it altogether too
dangerous to become Henry's consort. For it is not to be denied, a
baleful star hovers over Henry's queens, and none of them has descended
from the throne in a natural way."

"Yet, father, Jane Seymour did so in a very natural way; she died in
childbed."

"Well, yes, in childbed. And yet by no natural death, for she could have
been saved. But Henry did not wish to save her. His love had already
grown cool, and when the physicians asked him whether they should save
the mother or the child, he replied, 'Save the child, and let the mother
die. I can get wives enough.' [Footnote: Burnet.] Ah, my daughter, I
hope you may not die such a natural death as Jane Seymour did, for whom,
as you say, the king mourned two years. But after that period, something
new, something altogether extraordinary happened to the king. He fell
in love with a picture, and because, in his proud self-conceit, he was
convinced that the fine picture which Holbein had made of him, was not
at all flattered, but entirely true to nature, it did not occur to him
that Holbein's likeness of the Princess Anne of Cleves might be somewhat
flattered, and not altogether faithful. So the king fell in love with
a picture, and sent ambassadors to Germany to bring the original of
the portrait to England as his bride. He himself went to meet her at
Rochester, where she was to land. Ah, my child, I have witnessed many
queer and droll things in my eventful life, but the scene at Rochester,
however, is among my most spicy recollections. The king was as
enthusiastic as a poet, and deep in love as a youth of twenty, and so
began our romantic wedding-trip, on which Henry disguised himself and
took part in it, assuming the name of my cousin. As the king's master of