Both now kept silent for a long time. Lord Douglas had leaned back on the ottoman, and, respiring heavily, seemed to breathe a little from the exertion of his long discourse. But while he rested, his large, piercing eyes were constantly turned to Jane, who, leaning back on the cushion, was staring thoughtfully into the empty air, and seemed to be entirely forgetful of her father's presence.
A cunning smile played for a moment over the countenance of the earl as he observed her, but it quickly disappeared, and now deep folds of care gathered on his brow. As he saw that Lady Jane was plunging deeper and deeper into reverie, he at length laid his hand on her shoulder and hastily asked, "What are you thinking of, Jane?"She gave a sudden start, and looked at the earl with an embarrassed air.
"I am thinking of all that you have been saying to me, my father,"replied she, calmly. "I am considering what benefit to our object Ican draw from it."Lord Douglas shook his head, and smiled incredulously. At length he said solemnly: "Take care, Jane, take care that your heart does not deceive your head. If we would reach our aim here, you must, above all things, maintain a cool heart and a cool head. Do you still possess both, Jane?"In confusion she cast down her eyes before his penetrating look.
Lord Douglas noticed it, and a passionate word was already on his lips. But he kept it back. As a prudent diplomat, he knew that it is often more politic to destroy a thing by ignoring it, than to enter into an open contest with it. The feelings are like the dragons'
teeth of Theseus. If you contend with them, they always grow again anew, and with renewed energy, out of the soil. Lord Douglas, therefore, was very careful not to notice his daughter's confusion.
"Pardon me, my daughter, if, in my zeal and my tender care for you, I go too far. I know that your dear and beautiful head is cool enough to wear a crown. I know that in your heart dwell only ambition and religion. Let us, then, further consider what we have to do in order to attain our end.
"We have spoken of Henry as a husband, of Henry as a man; and I hope you have drawn some useful lessons from the fate of his wives. You have learned that it is necessary to possess all the good and all the bad qualities of woman in order to control this stiff-necked and tyrannical, this lustful and bigoted, this vain and sensual man, whom the wrath of God has made King of England. You must, before all things, be perfect master of the difficult art of coquetry. You must become a female Proteus--today a Messalina, to-morrow a nun; to-day one of the _literati_, to-morrow a playful child; you must ever seek to surprise the king, to keep him on the stretch, to enliven him.
You must never give way to the dangerous feeling of security, for in fact King Henry's wife is never safe. The axe always hangs over her head, and you must ever consider your husband as only a fickle lover, whom you must every day captivate anew.""You speak as though I were already queen," said Lady Jane, smiling;"and yet I cannot but think that, in order to come to that, many difficulties are to be overcome, which may indeed perhaps be insuperable.""Insuperable!" exclaimed her father with a shrug of the shoulders.
"With the aid of the holy Church, no hinderance is insuperable.
Only, we must be perfectly acquainted with our end and our means. Do not despise, then, to sound the character of this king ever and again, and be certain you will always find in him some new hidden recess, some surprising peculiarity. We have spoken of him as a husband and the father of a family, but of his religious and political standing I have as yet told you nothing. And yet that, my child, is the principal point in his whole character.
"In the first place, then, Jane, I will tell you a secret. The king, who has constituted himself high-priest of his Church--whom the pope once called 'the Knight of the Truth and the Faith'--the king has at the bottom of his heart no religion. He is a wavering reed, which the wind turns this way to-day, and that way to-morrow. He knows not his own will, and, coquetting with both parties, to-day he is a heretic, in order to exhibit himself as a strong, unprejudiced, enlightened man; to-morrow a Catholic, in order to show himself an obedient and humble servant of God, who seeks and finds his happiness only in love and piety. But for both confessions of faith he possesses at heart a profound indifference; and had the pope at that time placed no difficulties in his way, had he consented to his divorce from Catharine, Henry would have always remained a very good and active servant of the Catholic Church. But they were imprudent enough to irritate him by contradiction; they stimulated his vanity and pride to resistance; and so Henry became a church reformer, not from conviction, but out of pure love of opposition. And that, my child, you must never forget, for, by means of this lever, you may very well convert him again to a devout, dutiful, and obedient servant of our holy Church. He has renounced the pope, and usurped the supremacy of the Church, but he cannot summon up courage to carry out his work and throw himself wholly into the arms of the Reformation. However much he has opposed the person of the pope, still he has always remained devoted to the Church, although perhaps he does not know it himself. He is no Catholic, and he hears mass;he has broken up the monasteries, and yet forbids priests to marry;he has the Lord's supper administered under both kinds, and believes in the real transubstantiation of the wine into the Redeemer's holy blood. He destroys the convents, and yet commands that vows of chastity, spoken by man or woman, must be faithfully kept; and lastly, auricular confession is still a necessary constituent of his Church. And these he calls his six articles, [Footnote: Burnet, vol.
I, p. 259. Tytler, p. 402. Mioti, vol. I, p. 134.] and the foundation of his English Church. Poor, short-sighted and vain man!
