for without doubt she is a criminal; your majesty says so, and,
therefore, it is so. It would ill become a Seymour to protect a
person who sinned against the king."

This new indirect attack on Earl Surrey seemed to make on all
present a deep but very varied impression. Here, faces were seen to
turn pale, and there, to light up with a malicious smile; here,
compressed lips muttered words of threatening, there, a mouth opened
to express approbation and agreement.

The king's brow was clouded and troubled; the arrow which Earl
Sudley had shot with so skilful a hand had hit. The king, ever
suspicious and distrustful, felt so much the more disquieted as he
saw that the greater part of his cavaliers evidently reckoned
themselves friends of Henry Howard, and that the number of Seymour's
adherents was but trifling.

"These Howards are dangerous, and I will watch them carefully," said
the king to himself; and for the first time his eye rested with a
dark and hostile look on Henry Howard's noble countenance.

But Thomas Seymour, who wished only to make a thrust at his old
enemy, had at the same time decided the fate of poor Anne Askew. It
was now almost an impossibility to speak in her behalf, and to
implore pardon for her was to become a partaker of her crime. Thomas
Seymour had abandoned her, because, as traitress to her king, she
had rendered herself unworthy of his protection. Who now would be so
presumptuous as to still protect the traitress?

Henry Howard did it; he reiterated his supplication for Anne Askew's