would know.[374] The physician had thus
looked forward to an examination, and had he really entertained suspicions
he would certainly have made an effort to attend. If he was prohibited, or
if the operation had been hurried through without his knowledge, it is not
conceivable that, after he had left England and returned to his own
country, he would not have made known a charge so serious to the world.
This he never did. It is equally remarkable that on removing from
Kimbolton he was allowed to attend upon the Princess Mary--a thing
impossible to understand if he had any mystery of the kind to communicate
to her, or if the Government had any fear of what he might say. When the
operation was over, however, one of the men went to the Father Ateca and
told him in confession, as if in fear of his life, that the body and
intestines were natural and healthy, but that the heart was black. They
had washed it, he said; they had divided it, but it remained black and was
black throughout. On this evidence the physician concluded that the Queen,
beyond doubt, had died of poison.[375]

A reader who has not predetermined to believe the worst of Henry VIII.
will probably conclude differently. The world did not believe Catherine to
have been murdered, for among the many slanders which the embittered
Catholics then and afterwards heaped upon Henry, they did not charge him
with this. Chapuys, however, believed, or affected to believe, that by
some one or other murdered she had been. It was a terrible business, he
wrote. The Princess would die of grief, or else the Concubine would kill
her. Even if the Queen and Princess had taken the Emperor's advice and
submitted, the Concubine, he thought, under colour of the reconciliation
which would have followed, would have made away with them the more
fearlessly, because there would then be less suspicion. He had not been
afraid of the King. The danger was from the Concubine, who had sworn to
take their lives and would never have rested till it was done. The King
and his Mistress, however, had taken a shorter road. They were afraid of
the issue of the brief of execution. With Catherine dead the process at
Rome would drop, the chief party to the suit being gone. Further action
would have to be taken by the Pope on his own account, and no longer upon
hers, and the Pope would probably hesitate; while, as soon as the mother
was out of the way, there would be less difficulty in working upon the
daughter