madness; and, therefore, before attempting to draw any confession from her, he was obliged first to give her, he says, the assurance of the king's mercy; whereupon she held up her hands and gave most humble thanks. But she soon relapsed into what Cranmer calls "a new rage much worse than before;" and he adds—"Now I do use her thus: when I do see her in any such extreme braids, I do travel with her to know the cause, and then, as much as I can, I do labour to take away, or at least to mitigate the cause, and so I did at that time. I told her there was some new fantasy come into her head, which I desired her to open unto me; and after a certain time, when she had recovered herself that she might speak, she cried and said, 'Alas! my lord, that I am alive! The fear of death did not grieve me so much as doth now the remembrance of the king's goodness,'" &c.
It must not be forgotten that it was this same Cranmer who had made this very charge against her; who had brought her, to save himself and party, into this awful predicament, and who was now wilily seeking to draw from her what should condemn her. In this softened state, therefore, she confessed her frailty before marriage—years before—with Derham, but protested her entire innocence since the marriage. It was—and that Cranmer full well knew—resolved to take the queen's life. The report of the Privy Council is express on that head. If a pre-contract of marriage betwixt Catherine and Derham were pleaded, then there could be no adultery—no high treason, the marriage would be null, and the queen could be properly divorced; but there could be no just ground to take her life. To avoid this, it was determined to steer clear of this pre-contract, though, according to the custom of the times, such contract, though a verbal one, clearly existed, and was provable by various witnesses. Knowing this, the privy council report states:
Henry VIII. delivering the translated Bible to his Lords. (From the engraved title-page to Cranmer's Bible.)
"It is the king's resolution to lay before the Parliament and judges the abominable behaviour of the queen, but without any mention of pre-contract to Derham which might serve for her defence, but only to open and make manifest the king's highness's just cause of indignation and displeasure. Therefore the king's majesty willeth, that whosoever among you know, not only the whole matter, but how it was first detected, by whom, and by what means it came to the king's majesty's knowledge, with the whole of the king's majesty's sorrowful behaviour and careful proceeding in it, should, upon the Sunday coming, assemble all the ladies and gentlewomen and gentlemen being in the queen's household, and declare unto them the whole process of the matter, except that ye make no mention of the pre-contract, but omitting that, set forth such matter as might confound their misdemeanour." This was the system now pursued; there was to be obtained every point to prove adultery with Derham, and all mention of a pre-contract was to be carefully suppressed. It was alleged as a crime, as it certainly was a gross imprudence, that Catherine had allowed Derham to return from Ireland, and enter the king's household; but as nothing could be brought to bear against Derham, the charge was shifted to Thomas Culpepper, the queen's cousin.
It was alleged that an intrigue was going on betwixt the queen and Culpepper on the northern progress, at Lincoln and York, and that one night Culpepper was in the same room with the queen and Lady Rochford for three hours. But when it was attempted to establish this fact on the evidence of women in attendance, Catherine Tylney and Margaret Morton, this evidence dwindled to mere surmise. Tylney deposed that on two nights at Lincoln, the queen went to the room of Lady Rochford, and stayed late, but affirmed "on her peril that she never saw who came unto the queen and my Lady Rochford, nor heard what was said between them." Morton's evidence amounted only to this, that, at Pontefract, Lady Rochford conveyed letters betwixt the queen and Culpepper, as was supposed; and one night when the king went to the queen's chamber, the door was bolted, and it was some time before he could be admitted. This circumstance must have been satisfactorily accounted for to
