Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 3.djvu/95

1537.] his Word, if the Devil of all devils be not in us. We have now the stop of various trusts and the stay of vain expectations. Let us all pray for his preservation.'

In Latimer's words, the joy and the especial causes of it are alike transparent; but a disaster followed so closely as to show that the mysterious fatality which pursued the King in his domestic relations had not ceased to overshadow him, and to furnish food for fresh superstition and fresh intrigue. The birth took place on the 12th of October. The Queen continued to do well up to the 22nd or 23rd, when it seems that, through the carelessness of her attendants, she was allowed to indulge in some improper food for which she had expressed a wish. She caught a cold at the same time; and although on the evening of the 23rd she appeared still so well that the King intended to leave Hampton Court on the following day, she became in the night alarmingly worse, and was in evident danger. In the morning the symptoms had somewhat improved, and there were hopes that the attack would pass off; but the unfortunate appearances soon returned; a few more hours she was dead.

A worse calamity could scarcely have befallen the