The whole court was assembled, as it was wont to be for a
joyous festival; and Catharine once more sat on the royal throne.
But the dreaded tyrant, the bloodthirsty King Henry the Eighth, was
no longer at her side; but the poor pale boy, Edward, who had
inherited from his father neither energy nor genius, but only his
thirst for blood and his canting hypocrisy. At his side stood his
sisters, the Princesses Mary and Elizabeth. Both were pale and of a
sad countenance; but with both, it was not for their father that
they were grieving.
Mary, the bigoted Roman Catholic, saw with horror and bitter anguish
the days of adversity which were about to befall her church; for
Edward was a fanatical opponent of the Roman Catholic religion, and
she knew that he would shed the blood of the papists with relentless
cruelty. On this account it was that she mourned.
But Elizabeth, that young girl of ardent heart--she thought neither
of her father nor of the dangers threatening the Church; she thought
only of her love, she felt only that she had been deprived of a
hope, of an illusion--that she had awoke from a sweet and enchanting
dream to the rude and barren reality. She had given up her first
love, but her heart bled and the wound still smarted.
The will was read. Elizabeth looked toward Thomas Seymour during
this solemn and portentous reading. She wanted to read in his
countenance the impression made on him by these grave words, so
pregnant with the future; she wanted to search the depths of his
soul, and to penetrate the secret thoughts of his heart.
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