第15章 KING BY THE WRATH OF GOD.(4)

You would punish the son through the mother, and because you cannot throttle the cardinal, you murder his mother.""Oh, you are a very knowing child!" cried the king, with an inhuman, ironical laugh. "You know my most secret thoughts and my most hidden feelings. Without doubt you are a good papist, since the death of the popish countess fills you with such heart-rending grief. Then you must confess, at the least, that it is right to burn the four heretics!""Heretics!" exclaimed Anne, enthusiastically, "call you heretics those noble men who go gladly and boldly to death for their convictions and their faith? King Henry! King Henry! Woe to you if these men are condemned as heretics! They alone are the faithful, they are the true servants of God. They have freed themselves from human supremacy, and as you would not recognize the pope, so they will not recognize you as head of the Church! God alone, they say, is Lord of the Church and Master of their consciences, and who can be presumptuous enough to call them criminals?""I!" exclaimed Henry the Eighth, in a powerful tone. "I dare do it.

I say that they are heretics, and that I will destroy them, will tread them all beneath my feet, all of them, all who think as they do! I say that I will shed the blood of these criminals, and prepare for them torments at which human nature will shudder and quake. God will manifest Himself by me in fire and blood! He has put the sword into my hand, and I will wield it for His glory. Like St. George, Iwill tread the dragon of heresy beneath my feet!"And haughtily raising his crimsoned face and rolling his great bloodshot eyes wildly around the circle, he continued: "Hear this all of you who are here assembled; no mercy for heretics, no pardon for papists. It is I, I alone, whom the Lord our God has chosen and blessed as His hangman and executioner! I am the high-priest of His Church, and he who dares deny me, denies God; and he who is so presumptuous as to do reverence to any other head of the Church, is a priest of Baal and kneels to an idolatrous image. Kneel down all of you before me, and reverence in me God, whose earthly representative I am, and who reveals Himself through me in His fearful and exalted majesty. Kneel down, for I am sole head of the Church and high-priest of our God!"And as if at one blow all knees bent; all those haughty cavaliers, those ladies sparkling with jewels and gold, even the two bishops and the queen fell upon the ground.

The king gazed for a moment on this sight, and, with radiant looks and a smile of triumph, his eyes ran over this assembly, consisting of the noblest of his kingdom, humbled before him.

Suddenly they were fastened on Anne Askew.

She alone had not bent her knee, but stood in the midst of the kneelers, proud and upright as the king himself. A dark cloud passed over the king's countenance.

"You obey not my command?" asked he.

She shook her curly head and fixed on him a steady, piercing look.

"No," said she, "like those over yonder whose last death-groan we even now hear, like them, I say: To God alone is honor due, and He alone is Lord of His Church! If you wish me to bend my knee before you as my king, I will do it, but I bow not to you as the head of the holy Church!

A murmur of surprise flew through the assembly, and every eye was turned with fear and amazement on this bold young girl, who confronted the king with a countenance smiling and glowing with enthusiasm.

At a sign from Henry the kneelers arose and awaited in breathless silence the terrible scene that was coming.

A pause ensued. King Henry himself was struggling for breath, and needed a moment to collect himself.

Not as though wrath and passion had deprived him of speech. He was neither wrathful nor passionate, and it was only joy that obstructed his breathing--the joy of having again found a victim with which he might satisfy his desire for blood, on whose agony he might feast his eyes, whose dying sigh he might greedily inhale.

The king was never more cheerful than when he had signed a death-warrant. For then he was in full enjoyment of his greatness as lord over the lives and deaths of millions of other men, and this feeling made him proud and happy, and fully conscious of his exalted position.

Hence, as he now turned to Anne Askew, his countenance was calm and serene, and his voice friendly, almost tender.

"Anne Askew," said he, "do you know that the words vou have now spoken make you guilty of high treason?""I know it, sire.""And you know what punishment awaits traitors?""Death, I know it.""Death by fire!" said the king with perfect calmness and composure.

A hollow murmur ran through the assembly. Only one voice dared give utterance to the word mercy.

It was Catharine, the king's consort, who spoke this one word. She stepped forward, and was about to rush to the king and once more implore his mercy and pity. But she felt herself gently held back.

Archbishop Cranmer stood near her, regarding her with a serious and beseeching look.

"Compose yourself, compose yourself," murmured he. "You cannot save her; she is lost. Think of yourself, and of the pure and holy religion whose protectress you are. Preserve yourself for your Church and your companions in the faith!""And must she die?" asked Catharine, whose eyes filled with tears as she looked toward the poor young child, who was confronting the king with such a beautiful and innocent smile.

"Perhaps we may still save her, but this is not the moment for it.

Any opposition now would only irritate the king the more, and he might cause the girl to be instantly thrown into the flames of the fires still burning yonder! So let us be silent.""Yes, silence," murmured Catharine, with a shudder, as she withdrew again to the embrasure of the window.

"Death by fire awaits you, Anne Askew!" repeated the king. "No mercy for the traitress who vilifies and scoffs at her king!"