change for the
worse; but this person evidently no longer believed that there was any
immediate danger, for his last words to Chapuys were to ask him to arrange
for her removal from Kimbolton to some better air. Catherine, when the
Ambassador took leave, charged him to write to the Emperor, to Granvelle,
and to Secretary Covos, and entreat them, for God's sake, to make an end
one way or the other, for the uncertainty was ruining the realm and would
be her own and her daughter's destruction.

This was on the night of Tuesday, the 4th of January. Chapuys was to leave
the next morning. Before departing he ascertained that she had again slept
well, and he rode off without disturbing her. Through the Wednesday and
Thursday she continued to improve, and on the Thursday afternoon she was
cheerful, sate up, asked for a comb and dressed her hair. That midnight,
however, she became suddenly restless, begged for the sacrament, and
became impatient for morning when it could be administered. Her confessor,
Father Ateca (who had come with her from Spain, held the see of Llandaff,
and had been left undisturbed through all the changes of the late years),
offered to anticipate the canonical hour, but she would not allow him. At
dawn on Friday she communicated, prayed God to pardon the King for the
wrongs which had been inflicted upon her, and received extreme unction;
she gave a few directions for the disposition of her personal property,
and then waited for the end. At two o'clock in the afternoon she passed
peacefully away (Friday, Jan. 7, 1536).

A strange circumstance followed. The body was to be embalmed. There were
in the house three persons who, according to Chapuys, had often performed
such operations, neither of them, however, being surgeons by profession.
These men, eight hours after the death, opened the stomach in the usual
way, but without the presence either of the confessor or the physician.
Chapuys says that these persons were acting by the King's command,[373]
but there is nothing to indicate that the confessor and physician might
not have been present at the operation had they thought it necessary.
Chapuys had previously asked the physician if the Queen could have been
poisoned. The physician said that he feared so, as she had not been well
since she had taken some Welsh ale; if there had been poison, however, it
must have been very subtle, as he had observed no symptom which indicated
it; when the body was opened they