Norfolk's niece that the ordinary prisons were unable to contain all
that were arraigned; a shame so bitter that when the proofs of it were
first laid before Henry VIII. the Privy Council quaked to see him shed
tears. It was, they said with awe, "a strange thing in his courage!"
The guilty woman had her own tears to shed in expiation; but in the
dawn of February 12th, 1542, she walked to the block as full of wilful,
cheerful audacity, and as careful of her toilet, as she had ever gone to
meet her royal lover. And so the auburn head of the King's fifth wife
rolled from the axe that had severed her guilty cousin's.

On July 12th, 1543, the "next" year as it then began, the King married
Catherine Parr. She had been twice widowed and was about to marry Sir
Thomas Seymour when the King interfered, and she became his wife
instead; though one can well credit the story that she tremblingly
told him, "It were better to be his mistress." She was a good woman, a
generous stepmother, and a good wife. But there is plenty of probability
for the assertion that her own death had been debated with the King when
her wit delayed it, and his death set her free to marry at last the man
from whom the King had snatched her.

It was formerly believed, as has been said, that Holbein had painted
her miniature--the one at Windsor, now declared to be the portrait
of Catherine Howard. About this time he must have painted the great
portrait of which mention has been made. This is the oil portrait of
Dr. Chamber, the King's physician, now in the Vienna Gallery (Plate 38).
The sitter was, as the inscription shows, eighty-eight years old; and
the strong, stern face is full of that "inward" look which comes to
the faces of men whose meat and drink has been a lifetime of heavy
responsibilities. He had been associated with the Charter of the College
of Physicians in 1518, and was also instrumental in that of the Guild of
"Barbers and Surgeons," in 1541. And it was probably through him and Dr.
Butts, another physician to the King whom Holbein had painted and who
was likewise a Master of the new Guild, that he undertook to paint a
large work for their hall--Henry VIII. granting their Charter to the
Master-Surgeons kneeling before him.

Illustration: PLATE 38
DR. CHAMBER
_Oils. Vienna Gallery_

This work Holbein did not live to finish; and it is to-day exceedingly
doubtful as to how much of the smoke-blackened painting is by him. The
very drawing h