sequences
of it. Since he knew that this love needed a confidant, he assumed
this role, that Catharine, in the vehemence of her passion and in the
simplicity of her innocent heart, might not make others sharers of her
dangerous secret.

John Heywood therefore watched over Catharine's safety and happiness,
as she watched over Thomas Seymour and her friends. He protected and
guarded her with the king, as she guarded Cranmer, and protected him
from the constantly renewed assaults of his enemies.

This it was that they could never forgive the queen--that she
had delivered Cranmer, the noble and liberal-minded Archbishop of
Canterbury, from their snares. More than once Catharine had succeeded
in destroying their intriguing schemes, and in rending the nets that
Gardiner and Earl Douglas, with so sly and skilful a hand, had spread
for Cranmer.

If, therefore, they would overthrow Cranmer, they must first overthrow
the queen. For this there was a real means--a means of destroying at
once the queen and the hated Seymours, who stood in the way of the
papists.

If they could prove to the king that Catharine entertained criminal
intercourse with Thomas Seymour, then were they both lost; then were the
power and glory of the papists secured.

But whence to fetch the proofs of this dangerous secret, which the
crafty Douglas had read only in Catharine's eyes, and for which he had
no other support than his bare conviction? How should they begin to
influence the queen to some inconsiderate step, to a speaking witness of
her love?

Time hung so heavily on the king's hands! It would have been so easy to
persuade him to some cruel deed--to a hasty sentence of death!

But it was not the blood of the Seymours for which the king thirsted.
Earl Douglas very well knew that. He who observed the king day and
night--he who examined and sounded his every sigh, each of his softly
murmured words, every twitch of his mouth, every wrinkle of his brow--he
well knew what dark and bloody thoughts stirred the king's soul, and
whose blood it was for which he thirsted.

The royal tiger would drink the blood of the Howards; and that they
still lived in health, and abundance, and glory, while he, their
king and master, lonely and sad, was tossing on his couch in pain and
agony--that was the worm which gnawed at the king's heart, which made
his pains yet more painful, his tortures yet keener.

The king was jealous--jealous of the power and greatness