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FRANCIS LANCELOTT, ESQ. Queens of England. Vol.1.

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FRANCIS LANCELOTT, ESQ.
Queens of England. Vol.1.
page 449



" As for the indenture, and the obligation of a hundred pounds, he left them with me, clearly saying, if he did return I was to consider them as my own, and when I asked him whither he was going, he would not tell me. " Examined, whether I called him husband, and he me wife. I do answer, that there was communication in the house that we two should marry together, and some of his enemies had envy thereat; therefore, he desired me to give him leave to call me wife, and that I would call him husband. And I said I was content. And so after that, commonly he called me wife, and many times I called him husband. And he used many times to kiss me, and so be did to many others commonly in the house. And I suppose that this be true, that at one time when he kissed me very often, some said that were present, they trowed that he would never have kissed me enough ; when he answered, who should prevent him from kissing his own wife. Then said one of them, 1 trow this matter will come to pass, as the saying is. What is that ? quoth he. Marry, said the other, that Mr. Derham shall have Mrs. Katherine Howard. By St. John, said Derham, you may guess again and guess worse. But that I winked at him, and said secretly, 'What if this should come to my Lady's ears,' is verily false." After admitting that Derham had taken tho grossest personal liberties with her, she proceeds : "And divers times he would bring wine, strawberries, apples, and other things, to make good cheer, after my Lady was gone to bed. But that he made any special banquet, that by appointment between him and me, he should tarry after the keys were delivered to my Lady, is utterly untrue; nor I never did steal tbe keys myself, nor desire any other to do so, to let him in, but from many causes the doors have been opened, sometimes over-night, and sometimes early in the morning, as well at the request of myself, as of others ; and sometimes Derham hath come in early in the morning, and ordered himself very shamefully, but never by my request or consent. " The report that I, in reply to Wiiks and Baskervillc, when they asked what shifts should we make if my Lady should come in suddenly, advised that Derhara should be hid in the little gallery, is not true. I never said, that if my Lady came he should go into the gallery, but he hath said so himself, and so he hath done indeed. " As for the communication of my goings to court, I remember that he t Id me if I were going to court, he would not long tarry m the house, when I answered, he might do as he list. Further communication of that matter, I remember not. But that I should say it grieved me as much as it did him, or that he should never live to say thou hast swerved, or that the tears should trickle down my cheeks, none of these be true, for all who kept my company know how glad and desirous I was to come to court. "As formy intimacy with Derham, after his return from Ireland, that is untrue. But, as far as I can remember, he then asked me if I should be married to Mr. Culpepper, as he had heard reported ; when I answered, What should you trouble me therewith ? for you know I will not have you, and if you heard such report, you heard more than I know, " KATIIERDTE HOWARD," This confession Cranmer sent to the King, enclosed in a letter of his own, in which, after stating that he had sedulously laboured to obtain from Katherine an acknowledgment of a pre-contract between her and Derham, he concludes by saying, that the Queen stoutly maintained that no promise had been made on her part, and that "all that Derham did to her was of his importune forcement, and in a manner violent rather than of her own free consent and will." Had Katherine admitted that she was troth-plight to Derham, by submitting to a divorce, she might have saved her life ; but, choosing rather to die than resign her queenly state, she, by her own obstinacy, forced tbe reformers, whose purport was only to destroy her influence as the tool of the Catholic party, to hurry her to the scaffold. The King, either from feeling or po


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