"I will help you!" said he.
"I will do it, if you will help me also, and further my plans."
"Oh, only save Henry Howard, and I will sign myself away to the
devil with my heart's blood!" said Jane Douglas, with a horrible
smile. "Save his life, or, if you have not the power to do that,
then at least procure me the happiness of being able to die with
him."
CHAPTER XXXII.
UNDECEIVED.
Parliament, which had not for a long time now ventured to offer any
further opposition to the king's will--Parliament had acquiesced in
his decree. It had accused Earl Surrey of high treason; and, on the
sole testimony of his mother and his sister, he had been declared
guilty of lese majeste and high treason. A few words of discontent
at his removal from office, some complaining remarks about the
numerous executions that drenched England's soil with blood--that
was all that the Duchess of Richmond had been able to bring against
him. That he, like his father, bore the arms of the Kings of
England--that was the only evidence of high treason of which his
mother the Duchess of Norfolk could charge him. [Footnote: Tytler,
p. 402. Burnet, vol. i, p. 95.]
These accusations were of so trivial a character, that the
Parliament well knew they were not the ground of his arrest, but
only a pretext for it--only a pretext, by which the king said to his
pliant and trembling Parliament: "This man is innocent; but I will
that you condemn him, and therefore you will account the accusation
sufficient.
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