lieve what you tell me," he replied to his Ambassador's frightful story. "The King cannot be so unnatural as to put to death his own wife and daughter. The threats you speak of can only be designed to terrify them. They must not give way, if it can be avoided; but, if they are really in danger, and there is no alternative, you may tell them from me that they must yield. A submission so made cannot prejudice their rights. They can protest that they are acting under compulsion, in fear for their lives. I will take care that their protestation is duly ratified by their proctors at Rome."[1] Chapuys was a politician, and obeyed his orders. But that either Catherine or her daughter should give way was the last wish either of him or of Ortiz, or any of the fanatical enthusiasts. Martyrs were the seed of the Church. If Mary abandoned her claim to the succession, her name could no longer be used as a battle-cry. The object was a revolution which would shake Henry from his throne. On the scaffold, as a victim to her fidelity to her mother and to the Holy See, she would give an impulse to the insurrection which nothing could resist.
The croaks of the raven were each day louder. Lady Exeter declared that the King had said that the Princess should be an example that no one should disobey the law. There was a prophecy of him that at the beginning of his reign he would be gentle as a lamb, and at the end worse than a lion. That prophecy he meant to fulfil.[2]
Ortiz, who had his information from Catherine herself, said that she was preparing to die as the Bishop of Rochester and the others had died. She regretted
