Page:The Queens of England.djvu/300

 260 THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. days- in their society, which occasioned no little dissatisfaction to Francis the First when he heard it, his great object being to keep these monarchs as much asunder as possible. Katharine had for some time marked the great influence the cardinal had acquired over her husband, and being a woman of quick perception, strongly suspected it was often exercised more for his own personal aggrandizement than for the glory or honor of Henry. The ostentatious display of his wealth, his undisguised assumption of power, and the princely splendor which Wolsey delighted to exhibit, had alienated from him the esteem and good-will of the queen. The cardinal was not slow to perceive nor to resent, as far as- he dared, the change in Katharine's behavior to him ; and this resentment laid the foundation of that dislike to her, which afterwards proved so prejudicial to her interests. Wolsey knew that hitherto the queen possessed considerable influence over her husband, who, less quick-sighted with regard to the character of the wily cardinal, might one day be enlightened on this point by her. Wolsey therefore feared, as much as he disliked, the queen ; and when Henry's passion for her, sated by many years of marriage, led him to seek a separation from her, he found in this unholy prelate a ready instrument to work out his desire, instead of a moral and religious Mentor to dissuade him from a measure so fraught with mischief to his kingdom and dishonor to his name. The stately gravity of Katharine, unfitting her from taking any part in the coarse pleasures of her husband, seemed to him a tacit reproach for his too great indulgence in them. She could not galop by his side in the field sports in which he de- lighted, nor dress up in the fantastic masqueradings in which he was wont to exhibit himself before his subjects. Dignified and thoughtful, Katharine, who had been nobly educated by her mother the great Isabella, loved study, and evinced a de- cided preference for the society of the wise and good. These characteristics, peculiar to her country and education, made her appear much older in the eyes of her husband than she really was ; and with only five years' difference in their age, Henry's boyish tastes and pursuits were so long continued, that he fan- cied himself many years younger than Katharine. She had more than the ordinary steadiness and stateliness of a woman of her age. Her dress, too, rich and queenlike as it was, while it added to the imposing grandeur of her aspect, also made her