hurried to the stake, the Catholics being condemned (is traitors,
and the others as heretics!)

"Oh," said Jane, shuddering and turning pale, "I will not be Queen
of England. I have a horror of this cruel, savage king, whose heart
is wholly without compassion or love.

Her father laughed. "Do you not then know, child, how you can make
the hyena gentle, and the tiger tame? You throw them again and again
a fresh prey, which they may devour, and since they love blood so
dearly, you constantly give them blood to drink, so that they may
never thirst for it. The king's only steady and unchanging
peculiarity is his cruelty and delight in blood; one then must
always have some food ready for these, then he will ever be a very
affectionate and gracious king and husband.

"And there is no lack of objects for this bloodthirstiness. There
are so many men and women at his court, and when he is precisely in
a bloodthirsty humor, it is all the same to Henry whose blood he
drinks. He has shed the blood of his wives and relatives; he has
executed those whom he called his most confidential friends; he has
sent the noblest men of his kingdom to the scaffold.

"Thomas More knew him very well, and in a few striking words he
summed up the whole of the king's character. Ah, it seems to me that
I see now the quiet and gentle face of this wise man, as I saw him
standing in yonder bay-window, and near him the king, his arms
around the neck of High-Chancellor More, and listening to his
discourse with a kind of reverential devotion. And when the king had
gone, I walked up to Thomas More and congratulated him on the high