at the King, standing in midst of a world of
doubts, would, in the next hour, the next week, or the next month,
come in the midst of doubts to be of Privy Seal's mind. Then Privy
Seal hath pushed him to action. Now his Highness is a good lover, and
being himself a great doubter, he loveth a simple and convinced
nature. Therefore he hath loved Privy Seal....'

'In the name of the saints,' Katharine laughed, 'call you Privy Seal's
a simple nature?'

He answered imperturbably:

'Call you Cato's a complex one? He who for days and days and years and
years said always one thing alone: "Carthage must be destroyed!"'

'But this man is no noble Roman,' Katharine cried indignantly.

'There was never a nature more Roman,' Throckmorton mocked at her.
'For if Cato cried for years: _Delenda est Carthago_, Cromwell hath
contrived for years: _Floreat rex meus._ Cato stuck at no means. Privy
Seal hath stuck at none. Madam Howard: Privy Seal wrote to the King in
his first letter, when he was but a simple servant of the Cardinal,
"I, Thomas Cromwell, if you will give ear to me, will make your Grace
the richest and most puissant king ever there was." So he wrote ten
years agone; so he hath said and written daily for all those years.
This it is to have a simple nature....'

'But the vile deeds!' Katharine said.

'Madam Howard,' Throckmorton laughed, 'I would ask you how many broken
treaties, how many deeds of treachery, went to the making of the Roman
state, since Sinon a traitor brought about the fall of Troy, since
Aeneas betrayed Queen Dido and brought the Romans into Italy, until
Sylla played false with Marius, Caesar with the friends of Sylla,
Brutus with Caesar, Antony with Brutus, Octavius with Antony--aye, and
until the Blessed Constantine played false to Rome herself.'

'Foul man, ye blaspheme,' Katharine cried.

'God keep me from that sin,' he answered gravely.

'--And of all these traitors,' she continued, 'not one but fell.'

'Aye, by another traitor,' he caught her up. 'It was then as now. Men
fell, but treachery prospered--aye, and Rome prospered. So may this
realm of England prosper exceedingly. For it is very certain that
Cromwell hath brought it to a great pitch, yet Cromwell made himself
by betraying the great Cardinal.'

Katharine protested too ardently to let him continue. The land was
brought to a low and vile estate. And it was known that Cromwell had
been, before all things, and to his own peril, faithfu