lat refusal, and after
Chapuys' remonstrance by a temporising evasion which was as bad, so that
Mary saw her mother no more in life.

Chapuys instantly took horse and sped to London, and then northward to
Kimbolton, anxious to reach the Queen before she breathed her last, for he
was told that for days the patient had eaten and drank nothing, and slept
hardly at all. It took Chapuys two days of hard travel over the miry roads
before he reached Kimbolton on the morning of the 2nd January 1536.[133]
He found that the Queen's dearest friend, Lady Willoughby (Dona Maria de
Sarmiento), had preceded him by a day and was with her mistress. She had
prayed in vain for license to come before, and even now Katharine's stern
guardian, Bedingfield, asked in vain to see Lady Willoughby's permit,
which she probably had not got. She had come in great agitation and fear,
for, according to her own account, she had fallen from her horse, and had
suffered other adventures on her way, but she braved everything to receive
the last sigh of the Queen, whose girlhood's friend she had been.
Bedingfield looked askance at the arrival of "these folks"; and at
Chapuys' first interview with Katharine he, the chamberlain, and Vaughan
who understood Spanish, were present, and listened to all that was said.
It was a consolation, said the Queen, that if she could not recover she
might die in the presence of her nephew's ambassador and not unprepared.
He tried to cheer her with encouraging promises that the King would let
her be removed to another house, and would accede to other requests made
in her favour; but Katharine only smiled sadly, and bade him rest after
his long journey. She saw the ambassador again alone later in the day, and
spoke at length with him, as she did on each day of the four that he
stayed, her principal discourse being of the misfortune that had overtaken
England by reason of the long delay of the Emperor in enforcing justice to
her.[134]

After four days' stay of Chapuys, Katharine seemed better, and the
apothecary, De la Sa, gave it as his opinion that she was out of immediate
danger. She even laughed a little at the antics of Chapuys' fool, who was
called in to amuse her; and, reassured by the apparent improvement, the
ambassador started on his leisurely return to London.[135] On the second
day after his departure, soon after midnight, the Queen asked if it was
near day, and repeated the question several times at short intervals