It is not wise, O king, to want to avenge so bitterly a trifling injury to your majesty. A king must be exalted above reviling and calumny. Like the sun, he must shine upon the just and the unjust, no one of whom is so mighty that he can cloud his splendor and dim his glory. Punish evil-doers and criminals, but be noble and magnanimous toward those who have injured your person.""The king is no person that can be injured!" said Gardiner. "The king is a sublime idea, a mighty, world-embracing thought. Whoever injures the king, has not injured a person, but a divinely instituted royalty--the universal thought that holds together the whole world!""Whoever injures the king has injured God!" yelled the king; "and whoever seizes our crown and reviles us, shall have his hand struck off, and his tongue torn out, as is done to atheists and patricides!""Well, strike off their hand then, mutilate them; but do not kill them!" cried Catharine, passionately. "Ascertain at least whether their crime is so grievous as they want to make you believe, my husband. Oh, it is so easy now to be accused as a traitor and atheist! All that is needed for it is an inconsiderate word, a doubt, not as to God, but to his priests and this Church which you, my king, have established; and of which the lofty and peculiar structure is to many so new and unusual that they ask themselves in doubt whether that is a Church of God or a palace of the king, and that they lose themselves in its labyrinthine passages, and wander about without being able to find the exit.""Had they faith," said Gardiner, solemnly, "they would not lose their way; and were God with them, the entrance would not be closed to them.""Oh, I well know that YOU are always inexorable!" cried Catharine, angrily. "But it is not to you either that I intercede for mercy, but to the king; and I tell you, sir bishop, it would be better for you, and more worthy of a priest of Christian love, if you united your prayers with mine, instead of wanting to dispose the king's noble heart to severity. You are a priest; and you have learned in your own life that there are many paths that lead to God, and that we, one and all, doubt and are perplexed which of them is right.""How!" screamed the king, as he rose from his seat and gazed at Catharine with angry looks. "You mean, then, that the heretics also may find themselves on a path that leads to God?""I mean," cried she, passionately, "that Jesus Christ, too, was called an atheist, and executed. I mean that Stephen was stoned by Paul, and that, nevertheless, both are now honored as saints and prayed to as such. I mean, that Socrates was not damned because he lived before Christ, and so could not be acquainted with his religion; and that Horace and Julius Caesar, Phidias and Plato, must yet be called great and noble spirits, even though they were heathen. Yes, my lord and husband, I mean that it behooves us well to exercise gentleness in matters of religion, and that faith is not to be obtruded on men by main force as a burden, but is to be bestowed upon them as a benefit through their own conviction.""So you do not hold these eight accused to be criminals worthy of death?" asked Henry with studied calmness, and a composure maintained with difficulty.
"No, my husband! I hold that they are poor, erring mortals, who seek the right path, and would willingly travel it; and who, therefore, ask in doubt all along, 'Is this the right way?'""It is enough!" said the king, as he beckoned Gardiner to him, and, leaning on his arm, took a few steps across the room. "We will speak no more of these matters. They are too grave for us to wish to decide them in the presence of our gay young queen. The heart of woman is always inclined to gentleness and forgiveness. You should have borne that in mind, Gardiner, and not have spoken of these matters in the queen's presence.""Sire, it was, however, the hour that you appointed for consultation on these matters.""Was it the hour!" exclaimed the king, quickly. "Well, then we did wrong to devote it to anything else than grave employments; and you will pardon me, queen, if I beg you to leave me alone with the bishop. Affairs of state must not be postponed."He presented Catharine his hand, and with difficulty, and yet with a smiling countenance, conducted her to the door. As she stopped, and, looking him in the eye with an expression inquiring and anxious, opened her lips to speak to him, he made an impatient gesture with his hand, and a dark frown gathered on his brow.
"It is late," said he, hastily, "and we have business of state."Catharine did not venture to speak; she bowed in silence and left the room. The king watched her with sullen brow and angry looks.
Then he turned round to Gardiner.
"Now," asked he, "what do you think of the queen?""I think," said Gardiner, so slowly and so deliberately that each word had time to penetrate the king's sensitive heart like the prick of a needle--"I think that she does not deem them criminals that call the holy book which you have written a work of hell; and that she has a great deal of sympathy for those heretics who will not acknowledge your supremacy.""By the holy mother, I believe she herself would speak thus, and avow herself among my enemies, if she were not my wife!" cried the king, in whose heart rage began already to seethe like lava in a volcano.
