s her refusal to return in the character of a
discarded and rejected damsel, to the home which she had so lately
quitted in all the pomp and triumph of a royal bride, is to be regarded
as such. But even for this part of her conduct a different motive is
with great plausibility assigned by a writer, who supposes her to have
been swayed by the prudent consideration, that the regular payment of
her pension would better be secured by her remaining under the eyes and
within the protection of the English nation.

A very few weeks after this apparently formidable business had been thus
readily and amicably arranged, Catherine Howard niece to the duke of
Norfolk, and first cousin to Anne Boleyn, was declared queen. This lady,
beautiful, insinuating, and more fondly beloved by the king than any of
her predecessors, was a catholic, and almost all the members of the
council who now possessed office or influence were attached, more or
less openly, to the same communion. In consequence, the penalties of the
Six Articles were enforced with great cruelty against the reformers; but
this did not exempt from punishment such as, offending on the other
side, ventured to deny the royal supremacy; the only difference was,
that the former class of culprits were burned as heretics, the latter
hanged as traitors.

The king soon after seized the occasion of a trifling insurrection in
Yorkshire, of which sir John Nevil was the leader, to complete his
vengeance against cardinal Pole, by bringing to a cruel and ignominious
end the days of his venerable and sorrow-stricken mother, who had been
unfortunate enough thus long to survive the ruin of her family. The
strange and shocking scene exhibited on the scaffold by the desperation
of this illustrious and injured lady, is detailed by all our historians:
it seems almost incredible that the surrounding crowd were not urged by
an unanimous impulse of horror and compassion to rush in and rescue from
the murderous hands of the executioner the last miserable representative
of such a line of princes. But the eyes of Henry's subjects were
habituated to these scenes of blood; and they were viewed by some with
indifference, and by the rest with emotions of terror which effectually
repressed the generous movements of a just and manly indignation.

In public causes, to be accused and to suffer death were now the same
thing; and another eminent victim of the policy of the English Tiberius
displayed in a novel a