r more important question than any concerning the weal of his people,
and the prosperity of his kingdom.

But after dinner came another respite, a new enjoyment, and this time a
more real one, which indeed for a while banished all gloomy forebodings
and melancholy fears from Catharine's heart, and suffused her
countenance with the rosy radiance of cheerfulness and happy smiles.
For King Henry had prepared for his young wife a peculiar and altogether
novel surprise. He had caused to be erected in the palace of Whitehall
a stage, whereon was represented, by the nobles of the court, a comedy
from Plautus. Heretofore there had been no other theatrical exhibitions
than those which the people performed on the high festivals of the
church, the morality and the mystery plays. King Henry the Eighth was
the first who had a stage erected for worldly amusement likewise, and
caused to be represented on it subjects other than mere dramatized
church history. As he freed the church from its spiritual head, the
pope, so he wished to free the stage from the church, and to behold
upon it other more lively spectacles than the roasting of saints and the
massacre of inspired nuns.

And why, too, represent such mock tragedies on the stage, when the king
was daily performing them in reality? The burning of Christian martyrs
and inspired virgins was, under the reign of the Christian king Henry,
such a usual and every-day occurrence, that it could afford a piquant
entertainment neither to the court nor to himself.

But the representation of a Roman comedy, that, however, was a new and
piquant pleasure, a surprise for the young queen. He had the "Curculio"
played before his wife, and if Catharine indeed could listen to the
licentious and shameless jests of the popular Roman poet only with
bashful blushes, Henry was so much the more delighted by it, and
accompanied the obscenest allusions and the most indecent jests with his
uproarious laughter and loud shouts of applause.

At length this festivity was also over with, and Catharine was now
permitted to retire with her attendants to her private apartments.

With a pleasant smile, she dismissed her cavaliers, and bade her women
and her second maid of honor, Anna Askew, go into her boudoir and await
her call. Then she gave her arm to her friend Lady Jane Douglas, and
with her entered her cabinet.

At last she was alone, at last unwatched. The smile disappeared from her
face, and an expression o