The king still has at least eyes to perceive beauty, and a heart to feel it.
How beautiful Lady Jane is, this white lily with the dark, star-like eyes! How beautiful Lady Richmond, this full-blown red rose with the pearl-white teeth! And they both smile at him; and when the king swears he loves them, they bashfully cast down their eyes and sigh.
"Do you sigh, Jane, because you love me ?" "Oh, sire, you mock me.

It would be a sin for me to love you, for Queen Catharine is living." "Yes, she is living!" muttered the king; and his brow darkened; and for a moment the smile disappeared from his lips.
Lady Jane had committed a mistake.

She had reminded the king of his wife when it was yet too soon to ask for her death.
John Heywood read this in the countenance of his royal master, and resolved to take advantage of it.

He wished to divert the attention of the king, and to draw it away from the beautiful, captivating women who were juggling him with their bewitching charms.
"Yes, the queen lives!" said he, joyfully, "and God be praised for it! For how tedious and dull it would be at this court had we not our fair queen, who is as wise as Methuselah, and innocent and good as a new-born babe! Do you not, Lady Jane, say with me, God be praised that Queen Catharine is living ?" "I say so with you!" said Jane, with ill-concealed vexation.
"And you, King Henry, do you not say it too ?" "Of course, fool!" "Ah, why am I not King Henry ?" sighed John Heywood.

"King, I envy you, not your crown, or your royal mantle; not your attendants or your money.
I envy you only this, that you can say, 'God be praised that my wife is still alive!' while I never know but one phrase,'God have pity, my wife is still alive!' Ah, it is very seldom, king, that I have heard a married man speak otherwise! You are in that too, as in all things else, an exception, King Henry; and your people have never loved you more warmly and purely than when you say, 'I thank God that my consort is alive!' Believe me, you are perhaps the only man at your court who speaks after this manner, however ready they may be to be your parrots, and re-echo what the lord high-priest says." "The only man that loves his wife ?" said Lady Richmond.