As he gazed on that countenance, indicative at once of so much dignity and so much ferocity; as he contemplated those eyes which shone with such gloomy severity, those lips on which was a smile at once voluptuous and fierce, there came over him a feeling of deep sympathy with the young woman whom he had that day devoted to such splendid misery.

He reflected that he had, in like manner, already conducted two wives of the king to the marriage altar, and had blessed their union.

But he reflected, too, that he had also, afterward, attended both these queens when they ascended the scaffold.
How easily might this pitiable young wife of the king fall a victim to the same dark fate! How easily might Catharine Parr, like Anne Boleyn and Catharine Howard, purchase her short-lived glory with an ignominious death! At any time an inconsiderate word, a look, a smile, might be her ruin.

For the king's choler and jealousy were incalculable, and, to his cruelty, no punishment seemed too severe for those by whom he fancied himself injured.
Such were the thoughts which occupied Bishop Cranmer.

They softened him, and caused the dark wrinkles to disappear from his brow.
He now smiled to himself at the ill-humor which he had felt shortly before, and upbraided himself for having been so little mindful of his holy calling, and for having exhibited so little readiness to meet his enemy in a conciliating spirit.
For Gardiner was his enemy; that Cranmer very well knew.