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“No, sire,” More broke off, “I cannot go on; it is high treason to read it.”

“I will read,” said the King, and took the pamphlet from him:

“‘I conquer and defy Papists, Thomists, Henrys, Sophists, and all the swine of hell!’ He calls us swine!”

“He is a madman who ought to be beaten to death with iron bars or hunted in a forest with bloodhounds.”

“Yes, he ought! But imagine!–this scoundrel gives himself out for a prophet and servant of Christ. And he has married a nun. That is incest! But he has been punished for it. The Kurfurst of Saxony has abandoned him, and none of his so-called friends went to the wedding….”

“What is his object? What is his new teaching? Justification through faith. If one only believes, one may live like a swine!”

“And his doctrine about the Communion. The Church says the Elements are changed by consecration, but this materialist says they actually are Christ’s Body and Blood. Then the corn in the field and the grapes in the vineyard are already Christ’s Body and Blood! He is an ass! And the world is mad.”

“And the consequence,–sin with impunity! Sire, allow me to read some lines, which I have written as an answer, not to these but to his other follies–only some lines which I hope to add to.”

“Read! I listen when you speak, for I have learnt to listen, and, through that, I know something.”

The King sat down astride on a chair, as though he would ride against his formidable foe.

“Honourable brother,” read More, “father, drinker runaway from the Augustinian Order, clumsy tipsy reveller of the worldly and spiritual kingdoms, ignorant teacher of sacred theology.”

“Good, Thomas; he knows no theology!”

“And this is the way he composed his book against King Henry, the Defender of Our Faith: he collected his stable-companions, and commissioned them to collect all manner of abuse and bad language, each in his own department. One of them among carters and boatmen; another in baths and gaming-houses; a third in barbers’ shops and restaurants; a fourth in mills and brothels. They wrote down in their note-books the most daring, dirtiest, and vulgarest expressions which they heard, brought home all that was coarse and nasty, and emptied it into a disgusting drain, called Luther’s soul.”

“Good! Very good! But what shall we do now?”

“Burn the rubbish, sire, and make an end of the matter.”

“Yes, I will have his heresies burnt to-morrow at St. Paul’s Cross in the City.”

* * * * *

In the great library of the Temple sat the King and Cardinal Wolsey, examining collections of laws and precedents. Outside in the garden the Queen was walking with some of the court ladies. This garden –really a large rose-garden–had been preserved as a promenade for the royal personages who could not sleep in the Tower, because it was haunted, and did not retain their health in the insignificant Bride-well in the City; it was also preserved as a place of historical interest, for here the adherents of Lancaster and York were said to have plucked the red and white roses as their respective badges.

Queen Katherine of Aragon, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, the patrons of Christopher Columbus, had now, after twenty years’ marriage with Henry VIII, reached a certain age. She had borne him several sons, but all had died: only one, a daughter, lived, known later on as Queen, under the title “Bloody Mary.” Katherine had aged early, and sought comfort in religion; she used to rise at night and attend mass in the garb of a Franciscan nun. She knew of the King’s unfaithfulness, but accepted it quietly; she had heard the name of Elizabeth Blunt, but ignored it.

Now she sat on a seat, and watched her young attendants playing, while she turned over the pages of her prayer book. One pair especially her eyes followed with pleasure–the uncommonly beautiful Anna of Norfolk and young Henry Algernon Percy of Northumberland, Hotspur’s descendant. The pair were playing with roses; the youth had an armful of white and the girl an armful of red roses, which they threw at each other, singing as they lid so.