"I retract!" exclaimed she, with a contemptuous smile. "Never, my lady, never! No! as sure as I hope for God to be gracious to me in my last hour, I retract not! It is true, it was agony and horror that made me speak; but what I have spoken is yet, nevertheless, the truth. Horror caused me to speak, and forced me to show my soul undisguised. No, I retract not! I tell you, they who have been executed over yonder are holy martyrs, who have ascended to God, there to enter an accusation against their royal hangman. Ay, they are holy, for eternal truth had illumined their souls, and it beamed about their faces bright as the flames of the fagots into which the murderous hand of an unrighteous judge had cast them. Ah, I must retract! I, forsooth, am to do as did Shaxton, the miserable and unfaithful servant of his God, who, from fear of earthly death, denied the eternal truth, and in blaspheming pusillanimity perjured himself concerning the holy doctrine. [Footnote: Burnet, vol. i, p.
341] King Henry, I say unto you, beware of dissemblers and perjurers; beware of your own haughty and arrogant thoughts. The blood of martyrs cries to Heaven against you, and the time will come when God will be as merciless to you as you have been to the noblest of your subjects! You deliver them over to the murderous flames, because they will not believe what the priests of Baal preach;because they will not believe in the real transubstantiation of the chalice; because they deny that the natural body of Christ is, after the sacrament, contained in the sacrament, no matter whether the priest be a good or a bad man. [Footnote: Ibid.] You give them over to the executioner, because they serve the truth, and are faithful followers of the Lord their God!""And you share the views of these people whom you call martyrs?"asked the king, as Anne Askew now paused for a moment and struggled for breath.
"Yes, I share them!"
"You deny, then, the truth of the six articles?""I deny them!""You do not see in me the head of the Church?""God only is Head and Lord of the Church!"A pause followed--a fearful, awful pause.
Every one felt that for this poor young girl there was no hope, no possible escape; that her doom was irrevocably sealed.
There was a smile on the king's countenance.
The courtiers knew that smile, and feared it yet more than the king's raging wrath.
When the king thus smiled, he had taken his resolve. Then there was with him no possible vacillation or hesitation, but the sentence of death was resolved on, and his bloodthirsty soul rejoiced over a new victim.
"My Lord Bishop of Winchester," said the king, at length, "come hither."Gardiner drew near and placed himself by Anne Askew, who gazed at him with angry, contemptuous looks.
"In the name of the law I command you to arrest this heretic, and hand her over to the spiritual court," continued the king. "She is damned and lost. She shall be punished as she deserves!"Gardiner laid his hand on Anne Askew's shoulder. "In the name of the law of God, I arrest you!" said he, solemnly.
Not a word more was spoken. The lord chief justice had silently followed a sign from Gardiner, and touching Anne Askew with his staff, ordered the soldiers to conduct her thence.
With a smile, Anne Askew offered them her hand, and surrounded by the soldiers and followed by the Bishop of Winchester and the lord chief justice, walked erect and proudly out of the room.
The courtiers had divided and opened a passage for Anne and her attendants. Now their ranks closed again, as the sea closes and flows calmly on when it has just received a corpse. To them all Anne Askew was already a corpse, as one buried. The waves had swept over her and all was again serene and bright.
The king extended his hand to his young wife, and, bending down, whispered in her ear a few words, which nobody understood, but which made the young queen tremble and blush.
The king, who observed this, laughed and impressed a kiss on her forehead. Then he turned to his court; "Now, good-night, my lords and gentlemen," said he, with a gracious inclination of the head.
"The feast is at an end, and we need rest.""Forget not the Princess Elizabeth," whispered Archbishop Cranmer, as he took leave of Catharine, and pressed to his lips her proffered hand.
I will not forget her," murmured Catharine, and, with throbbing heart and trembling with inward dread, she saw them all retire, and leave her alone with the king.
