"I have never doubted of you, Seymour," whispered she, "and never did I love you more ardently than when I wanted to renounce you." She bowed her head on her lover's shoulder, and tears of purest joy bedewed her cheeks.

The Archbishop of Canterbury joined their hands, and blessed them as betrothed lovers; and the elder Seymour, Earl Hertford, bowed and greeted them as a betrothed couple.
On that very same day the king's will was opened.

In the large gilded hall, in which King Henry's merry laughter and thundering voice of wrath had so often resounded, were now read his last commands.

The whole court was assembled, as it was wont to be for a joyous festival; and Catharine once more sat on the royal throne.

But the dreaded tyrant, the bloodthirsty King Henry the Eighth, was no longer at her side; but the poor pale boy, Edward, who had inherited from his father neither energy nor genius, but only his thirst for blood and his canting hypocrisy.