Pope, he nevertheless declared that he was a Roman Catholic, and that all Protestants were heretics and deserved to be burned to death. The result of this strange reasoning was that if a man was a Protestant, he ran the risk of being burned at the stake, while if he was a Roman Catholic, he was in danger of being hanged.

Mary was often at the court. She must have heard her father’s brutal threats against all those who did not love his will. One after another of her childhood’s friends was beheaded or burned at the stake; her old teacher, her mother’s chaplain, and the beloved countess to whose care her mother had confided her as an infant. Not a word or look of criticism might she venture, for the despot would hardly have hesitated to send his own daughter to the stake if she had dared to resist him in this matter.

The case was quite different with Elizabeth and Edward. They knew little of burnings and executions. Whatever of gentleness and kindness was in King Henry was shown to the children, especially to his son. The little ones played and studied together. “My sweetest and dearest sister” was the little boy’s name for Elizabeth. She was a favorite wherever she went. The king married three times after the death of Jane Seymour, and each of these stepmothers was fond of the merry, pleasing little girl.

The first of the three was the German princess. She was rather slow and dull, and Henry took a great dislike to her. When the little Elizabeth, then about seven years old, begged to be allowed to come to court to see the queen, King Henry roared, “Tell her that her own mother was so different from this woman that she ought not to wish to see her.” This was the only time that he ever spoke of Anne Boleyn.

Elizabeth met the new stepmother after a short delay, and this lady was so charmed with the little maiden that she begged to see much of her, the only favor that she ever asked of the king. The next wife was a distant relative of Anne Boleyn, and when she dined in public, she gave the place opposite herself to the child. “She is of my own blood,” said the queen, “and it is only right that she should be next to me.”

At Henry’s last marriage Mary and the two children were present, and this new queen became like the others a warm friend of Elizabeth, who was now fully ten years old. Henry must have felt some affection for Anne Boleyn, for he was never displeased to hear the praises of her daughter. He seemed beginning to have a real fondness for the child, and one day he looked at her keenly and said:—

“There’s more than one that would be glad to have you. Would you be married, Elizabeth, or would you stay with your books and birds and viols and lutes?”

“I would fain do that which your Majesty bids,” answered the child. “I know well that what your Majesty commands is ever the thing which is best.”

“She’s a child of wisdom,” declared Henry with a smile of gratification, “and I’ll do more for her than anyone can guess.” Then said he to Elizabeth:—

“It shall be brought about that you shall become the bride of some great man. If any German emperor plays you false, he shall feel the weight of my hand. How would it please your Grace to marry a prince of Portugal?” he asked playfully, for he was in a rarely good humor, “or perhaps Philip of Spain? Philip will be a king, and he would make you a great lady. Would it please you to wed one that would make you a queen?”

“Far rather would I wed one that I could make a king,” answered the child, drawing herself up to her full height.

“What!” cried the king, his face changing in a moment, and his eyes flashing ominously. The girl seemed looking not at the king, but far away into some distant future. She did not see the warning glance of the queen.

“I would fain be so beautiful and so great,” said she, “that whoever came near me should admire me and should beg me to become his wife. I would say no to one and all, but by and by I would choose one for myself. Him I would raise to be as great as I, and I would——” Elizabeth of England, even as a child, rarely forgot herself, but she was absorbed in the picture that she was making, and she stopped only when she felt the silence and saw her father’s wrathful gaze fixed upon her. His eyes were fairly blazing with anger, and his face was purple.

“So that is what you plan, is it?” he roared. “And here you stand before me and tell your schemes to become queen and raise some miserable rascal to the throne. Get out of my sight, ingrate that you are.”

Quick-witted as Elizabeth was, she did not at once see wherein she was in fault. She was so dazed by this sudden fury that she did not even think to throw herself at the feet of the king and beg to be forgiven, even though she knew not for what. The stepmother pleaded, “Pardon the child, my king. She meant no wrong.”

“No wrong,” thundered the king. “Is it ‘no wrong’ to plan what she will do as soon as the breath is out of her father’s body? I tell you, girl, that you may find another father and another throne, for never shall you sit upon mine. Get to your litter, and do you never come before my eyes again.”

The little Edward had slipped up softly behind his angry father and had laid his tiny hand upon the king’s purple cheek.

“Your Majesty is naughty,” he declared gravely. “You have made my sweetest sister cry. I don’t want my sister to cry.” Never had the little boy received a harsh word from his father, and he was perhaps the only one in the kingdom who had no fear of the king. “Come,” said he, “and tell her not to cry.” He caught the king by the hand, but even for his son King Henry’s anger could not be suppressed.

“You little know her,” he said. “It is you that she would rob. She would seize upon the place that is your own and drive you from it. Tell her to depart from the palace and never enter it,” he commanded his chamberlain, and soon the little girl, not yet twelve years old, was sent away from the court in disgrace.

“Hold yourself with patience,” whispered the queen to the child. “Trust me, and believe that it shall not be long before you will again be sent for.”

CHAPTER III
A BOY KING

The queen did all in her power for the little offender, but it was a whole year before she was again allowed to come to court. There was war in France, and the king sailed away in his ship with its sails of cloth of gold, apparently forgetting all about the little daughter whom he had left without a word of farewell. The child dared not write him, but she wrote the queen a grateful little Italian letter. “I feel bound not only to be obedient to you,” she said, “but also to look up to you with filial love, and chiefly because I learn that you, most illustrious Highness, never forget me in your letters to his Majesty, the king.” Then she begged the queen when writing the king, always to speak of her. “Commend me to him with my continual prayer that he will give me his kind blessing,” pleaded the anxious child.

After keeping his anger for a whole year, the king finally deigned to send his blessing to “all” his children. The poor little girl was comforted, and made so happy by this tardy forgiveness that she cast gratefully about her to see what she could do to show her