they never did, and they do lie in gaol.' She
turned again upon Cromwell and spoke piteously from her full throat.
'My lord,' she cried. 'Soften your heart and let the wax in your ears
melt so that ye hear. Your servants swore falsely when they said these
women lived lewdly; your men swore falsely when they said that these
women prayed treasonably. For the one count they took their lands and
houses; for the other they lay them in the gaols. Sir, my lord, your
servants go up and down this land; sir, my lord, they ride rich men
with boots of steel and do strangle the poor with gloves of iron. I do
think ye know they do it; I do pray ye know not. But, sir, if ye will
right this wrong I will kiss your hands; if you will set up again
these homes of prayer I will take a veil, and in one of them spend my
days praying that good befall you and yours.' She paused in her
speaking and then began again: 'Before I came here I had made me a
fair speech. I have forgot it, and words come haltingly to me. Sirs,
ye think I seek mine own aggrandisement; ye think I do wish ye cast
down. Before God, I wish ye were cast down if ye continue in these
ways; but I have prayed to God who sent the Pentecostal fires, to
give me the gift of tongues that shall soften your hearts----'

Cromwell interrupted her, smiling that Venus, who made her so fair,
gave her no need of a gift of tongues, and Minerva, who made her so
learned, gave her no need of fairness. For the sake of the one and the
other, he would very diligently enquire into these women's courses. If
they ha been guiltless, they should be richly repaid; if they ha been
guilty, they should be pardoned.

Katharine flushed with a hot anger.

'Ye are a very craven lord,' she said. 'If you may find them guilty,
you shall have my head. But if you do find them innocent and shield
them not, I swear I will strive to have thine.' Anger made her blue
eyes dilate. 'Have you no bowels of compassion for the right? Ye treat
me as a fair woman--but I speak as a messenger of the King's, that is
God's, to men who too long have hardened their hearts.'

Throckmorton laid back his head and laughed suddenly at the ceiling;
Cranmer crossed himself; Wriothesley beat his heel upon the floor and
shrugged his shoulders bitterly--but Lascelles, the Archbishop's spy,
kept his eyes upon Throckmorton's face with a puzzled scrutiny.

'Why now does that man laugh?' he asked himself. For it seemed to him
that by laughing