No one could know whether the king's ever-increasing thirst for blood would not that day doom him.
With the most jealous strictness the king, from his sick-couch, watched over his royal dignity; and the least fault against that might arouse his wrath and bloodthirstiness.

Woe to those who wanted still to maintain that the pope was the head of the Church! Woe to those who ventured to call God the only Lord of the Church, and honored not the king as the Church's holy protector! The one, like the other, were traitors and sinners, and he had Protestants and Roman Catholics alike executed, however near they stood to his own person, and however closely he was otherwise bound to them.
Whoever, therefore, could avoid it, kept himself far from the dreaded person of the king; and whoever was constrained by duty to be near him, trembled for his life, and commended his soul to God.
There were only four persons who did not fear the king, and who seemed to be safe from his destroying wrath.

There was the queen, who nursed him with devoted attention, and John Heywood, who with untiring zeal sustained Catharine in her difficult task, and who still sometimes succeeded in winning a smile from the king.

There were, furthermore, Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, and Earl Douglas.
Lady Jane Douglas was dead.

The king had therefore forgiven her father, and again shown himself gracious and friendly to the deeply-bowed earl.