eat many men noted the chair with
a dais that was set up always where she might be, in her principal room,
and though her ladies said that she never sat in it, most men believed
that she had made a pact with the King to do him honour and so to be
reinstated in the estate in which she held her own. It was considered,
too, that she no longer plotted with the King's enemies inside or out of
the realm; it was at least certain that she no longer had men set to
spy upon her, though it was noted that the Archbishop's gentleman,
Lascelles, nosed about her quarters and her maids. But he was always
spying somewhere and, as the Archbishop's days were thought to be
numbered, he was accounted of little weight. Indeed, since the fall of
Thomas Cromwell there seemed to be few spies about the Court, or almost
none at all. It was known that gentlemen wrote accounts of what passed
to Gardiner, the Bishop of Winchester. But Gardiner was gone back into
his see and appeared to have little favour, though it was claimed for
him that he had done much to advance the new Queen. So that, upon the
whole, men breathed much more freely--and women too--than in the days
before the fall of Privy Seal. The Queen had made little change, and
seemed to have it in mind to make little more. Her relatives had, nearly
none of them, been advanced. There were few Protestants oppressed,
though many Catholics had been loosed from the gaols, most notably him
whom the Archbishop Cranmer had taken to be his chaplain and confessor,
and others that other lords had taken out of prison to be about them.

All in all the months that had passed since Cromwell's fall had gone
quietly. The King and Queen had gone very often to mass since Katharine
had been shown for Queen in the gardens at Hampton Court, and saints'
days and the feasts of the life of our Lady had been very carefully
observed, along with fasts such as had used to be observed. The King,
however, was mightily fond with his new Queen, and those that knew her
well, or knew her servants well, expected great changes. Some were much
encouraged, some feared very much, but nearly all were heartily glad of
that summer of breathing space; and the weather was mostly good, so that
the corn ripened well and there was little plague or ague abroad.

Thus most men had been heartily glad to see the new Queen upon her
journey there to the north parts. She had ridden upon a white horse with
the King at her side; she had asked the