“We have been reading all the morning,” answered Anne surnamed Boleyn or Bullen.
“_The Canterbury Tales_? Those are not for children: Chaucer was a jester. You had better take my book. It has beautiful pictures.” The young Percy took the little breviary, and, going down the path as though they sought the shade, they both quietly disappeared from the Queen’s eyes.
But from the library four eyes had followed them, those of the King and the Cardinal, while they turned over the folios.
The King was uneasy, and spoke more for the sake of speaking than because he had something to say, and so did the Cardinal.
“You ought to aim at the Papacy, Cardinal, as Hadrian’s successor.”
“They are controlled by the Emperor Charles V and King Francis I.”
“How can one bring such a discordant pair into harmony?”
“That is just what requires diplomatic skill, sire.”
“You cannot stand on good terms with both.”
“Who knows? The Emperor has taken Rome, and placed the Pope in the Castle of St. Angelo ... that was a droll stroke! Then the soldiers in jest, under the windows of the Castle, called out for Martin Luther as Pope.”
“Name not his cursed name,” growled the King, but more in anger at what he saw in the rose-garden than at the mention of Luther.
The Cardinal understood him. “I do not like a union between Northumberland and Norfolk,” he said.
“What do you say?” asked the King. He was angry that Wolsey had read his thoughts, but did not wish to betray himself.
“Anne is really too good for a Percy, and I find it improper of the Queen to act as a match-maker, and let them go alone in the shrubbery. No, that must have an end!”
“Sire, it is already at an end; I have written to Anne’s father to call her home to Hever.”
“You did well in that, by heaven! Two such families, who both aim at the succession, ought not to unite.”
“Who is there that does _not_ aim at the throne? Just now it was Buckingham, now it is Northumberland, and only because there is no proper heir. Sire, you must consider the country, and your people, and name a successor.”
“No! I will not have anyone waiting for my decease.”
“Then we shall have the Wars of the Roses again, which cost England a million men and eighty of our noblest families.”