With this arrangement Anne Boleyn cared not to comply. Though she
had attained the summit of her ambition; though the divorce had been
pronounced, and she was crowned queen; though she had given birth
to a daughter--the Princess Elizabeth, afterwards the illustrious queen
of that name two years before; and though she could have no
reasonable apprehensions from her, the injured Catherine, during her
lifetime, had always been an object of dread to her. She heard of her
death with undisguised satisfaction, clapped her hands, exclaiming to
her attendants, "Now I am indeed queen!" and put the crowning point to
her unfeeling conduct by decorating herself and her dames in the
gayest apparel on the day of the funeral.
Alas! she little knew that at that very moment the work of retribution
commenced, and that the wrongs of the injured queen, whose memory
she thus outraged, were soon to be terribly and bloodily avenged.
Other changes had likewise taken place, which may be here recorded.
The Earl of Surrey had made the tour of France, Italy, and the Empire,
and had fully kept his word, by proclaiming the supremacy of the Fair
Geraldine's beauty at all tilts and tournaments, at which he constantly
bore away the prize.
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