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278, these scruples soon vanished. Catherine was scarcely a widow when her hand had been sought by Sir Thomas Seymour, brother of the late Queen Jane, and uncle to the heir-apparent, who was considered the handsomest man of the Court. She is said to have listened willingly to his suit; but on the appearance of the great and terrible lover, who took off the heads of queens and rivals with as little ceremony as a cook would cut off the head of a goose, Seymour shrunk in affright aside, and Catherine became a queen. The marriage took place on the 12th of July, 1543, in the queen's closet at Hampton Court. The ceremony was performed by Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester. The two princesses, Mary and Elizabeth, and the king's niece, Margaret Douglas, were present; and the queen was attended by her sister, Mrs. Herbert, afterwards Countess of Pembroke, the Duchess of Suffolk, Anne, Countess of Hertford, and Lady Jane Dudley. Soon after the marriage, her uncle, Lord Parr of Horton, was made Lord Chamberlain, and her brother was created Earl of Essex. Yet circumstances almost immediately showed the danger which surrounded her. Gardiner, the bigoted Bishop of Winchester, who had married her, saw, nevertheless, her elevation with the deepest inward hatred; and within a fortnight after her marriage, he was plotting her destruction, and commenced by an attack on those about the Court and its vicinity, who were known as holders of her views. A tool of his, one Dr. London, who had been amongst the busiest of Cromwell's agents in the spoliation of the abbeys, but who had now become as busy an agent of the Papist party, which was in the ascendant, commenced by giving information of a society of Reformers in Windsor, who were believed to receive countenance from members of the Royal household. London made a list of these persons, and stated the charges against them, which Gardiner laid before the king, praying that a search might be made for books of the new heresy. Henry granted the search so far as it regarded the town, but excepted the castle, being pretty well aware that the queen's closets would not bear too close a scrutiny. Marbeck, a chorister, was speedily arrested for having in his possession a Bible and a Latin concordance in progress. With him were arrested, as his accomplices, Anthony Pason, a priest, Robert Testwood, and Henry Filmer. Marbeck was saved by some influential interference, but the three others were burnt, after having been pressed closely, and with added assurances of pardon, to criminate personages within the palace, but in vain. This preliminary step having succeeded, higher game was aimed at. Dr. Haines, Dean of Exeter and Prebendary of Windsor, Sir Philip Hoby and his lady, Sir Thomas Garden, and other members of the Royal household, were denounced by London and his coadjutor Symonds. This evident approach towards her own person, seems to have roused Catherine Parr, who sent a bold and trusty servant into court, who exposed the collusion of Ockham, clerk of the court, and London. Ockham was arrested, and his papers seized, which at once revealed the foul plot betwixt himself, London, and Symonds. These miscreants were sent for and examined, and not knowing that their letters to Ockham were seized, they speedily proved their own villany, and were condemned to ride, with their faces to the horses' tails, to the pillory in Windsor. Such were the critical circumstances of Queen Catherine Parr, even in her honeymoon. In these plots the destruction of Cranmer was not lost sight of, but his time was not come; the favour of the king still defended him.

The spring of 1544 opened with active preparations for Henry's campaign in France. During the winter, Gonzaga, the viceroy of Sicily, was dispatched to London by Charles, to arrange the plan of operations. An admirable one was devised, had Henry been the man to assist in carrying it out. The emperor was to enter France by Champagne, and Henry by Picardy, and, instead of staying to besiege the towns on the route, they were to dash on to Paris, where, their forces uniting, they might consider themselves masters of the French capital, or in a position to dictate terms to Francis. In May the Imperialists were in the field, and Henry landed at Calais in June, and by the middle of July he was within the bounds of France at the head of 20,000 English and 15,000 Imperialists.

But neither of the invaders kept to their original plan. Charles stopped by the way to reduce Luxembourg, Ligne, and St. Didier. Had Henry, however, pushed on with his imposing army to Paris, Francis would have been at the mercy of the allies. But Henry, ambitious to rival the military successes of Charles, and take towns too, instead of making the capital his object, turned aside to besiege Boulogne and Montreuil. The imperial ambassador, sensible of the fatality of this proceeding, urged Henry with all his eloquence during eleven days to push on: and Charles, to take from him any farther excuse for delay, hastened forward along the right bank of the Marne, avoiding all the fortified towns. But when once Henry had undertaken an object, opposition only increased his resolution, and he lost all consciousness of everything but the one idea of asserting his mastery. In vain, therefore, did Charles send messengers imploring him to advance; for more than two months he continued besieging Boulogne, and the golden opportunity was lost.

Francis seized on the delay to make terms with Charles. He sent to him a Spanish monk of the name of Guzman, and a near relative of Charles's confessor, proposing offers of accommodation. Charles readily listened to them, and sent to Henry to learn his demands. These demands were something enormous, and whilst Francis demurred, Charles continued his march, and arrived at Château-Thierry, almost in the vicinity of Paris. The circumstances of both Francis and Charles now mutually inclined them to open separate negotiations. Francis saw a foreign army menacing his capital, but Charles, on the other hand, saw the French army constantly increasing betwixt him and his strange ally, whom nothing could induce to move from the walls of Boulogne. Under these circumstances Charles consented to offer Francis the terms which he had demanded before the war, and which he had refused; but now came the news that the English had taken Boulogne, and the French king at once accepted them. The Treaty of Crespi, as this was called, bound the two sovereigns to unite for the defence of Christendom against the Turks, and to unite their families by the marriage of the second son of Francis with a daughter of Charles. Henry, on his part, having placed