monarch

"What exactly does she mean?" Edward took the letter sent by the queen on a fast horse, and looked at the attendant who brought the letter in bewilderment, "What happened to Hatfield Palace?"

The attendant had just come riding from Hatfield Palace, looking profusely sweating and panting, "Mrs. Herbert is dead, Your Majesty!" His eyes were wide open, his hands were dancing, as if possessed , the ceremonial officer on one side coughed violently, trying to remind the person to pay attention to the etiquette during the interview, but it seemed that his efforts were in vain.

"Dead!" The king had an unbelievable expression on his face. He looked at Robert Dudley standing on the other side of the room, and the other side also showed a look of surprise, "How did you die?"

"It seems that I drank a glass of wine..." The messenger wiped the sweat from his face, "Mrs. Herbert drank a glass of wine with Her Majesty the Queen, it seemed to celebrate the recovery of Her Majesty... After that, Mrs. Herbert Just die!"

Edward frowned, "What about the first queen?"

"The first queen wrote this letter and asked me to send it to Your Majesty, and then she passed out... It seems that she is about to give birth..."

Seeing that the man really couldn't explain why, the king waved his hands impatiently, "Take him out to rest, and give him something to eat and drink."

The messenger hurriedly bowed, and was immediately dragged out by the arm of the etiquette officer.

Edward held the thin letter between two fingers and handed it to Robert.

Robert stepped forward to take it, and he unfolded the thin letter.

His Majesty,

Please come to Hatfield Palace quickly, and all members of the Privy Council in London to come with you, I have something important to tell your majesty.

This matter is extremely urgent, His Majesty Wan Wang will come here immediately!

your faithful,

Catherine Parr

"She is giving birth, why should I go to Hatfield?" The king paced the room, "and members of the Privy Council? What does this mean?"

Robert finished the letter, looking thoughtful. "The queen said there was some kind of 'important matter'...I think she might have a secret, and now she is going to give birth and her life is dying. If you don't say it at this time, then this secret may be buried with her forever. .”

"But why didn't she say it before?" Edward said, "Unless...it wouldn't do her any good to tell the secret...but why is she willing to say it now?" He looked at Robert with some unease, "Do you think Is it because someone wanted to poison her to death?"

"Why didn't she just write it down in the letter?" Robert read the letter again, "Could it be that the content of this secret is so amazing that a letter is not enough to be evidence..." He had an uneasy look on his face expression.

"That's why he asked the members of the Privy Council to go to Hatfield together," Edward nodded. "It must be like this...she wants to expose in front of everyone...expose what?"

"I think the only way to answer that question is to go to Hatfield," replied Robert.

Edward nodded, went to the table, rang the bell, and a servant came in.

"Please inform all members of the Privy Council in London to go to Hatfield Palace immediately, and tell them that I will also go, and we will meet there together." He looked at the wall clock, and the hour hand pointed to around three o'clock in the afternoon. Set off for Hatfield in a few minutes, please tell the stables to prepare the horse harness immediately."

The servant saluted and exited the room.

"We arrived in Hatfield around dinnertime," Edward calculated the time. "Except for the Lord Protector, he went to a villa in the suburbs to relax, and I'm afraid he will arrive later. As for his younger brother..." Edward sneered "I don't know when they will find him in a brothel."

Several servants returned to the room again, and put on the fur cloaks, gloves and hats for the king and Robert to wear when going out.

After about 10 minutes, the servant who went to order the carriage appeared again at the door of the room, "The carriage is waiting for Your Majesty at the door."

The king nodded, went downstairs with Robert, boarded the car and sat down.

A few horses galloped forward in broken steps, surrounded by a group of guards on horseback.

As the king said, when the carriage arrived at Hatfield, the last sliver of winter sun was disappearing on the horizon, and the great house in the middle of the garden was already brightly lit.

The king's carriage drove through the gate and passed through the somewhat bleak garden. On the dim horizon in the distance, a sea of ​​rolling clouds was gathering, casting a huge shadow on the ground.

The carriage stopped in front of the porch, and the servant sitting next to the driver quickly lifted a lantern hanging in front of the carriage, jumped down from his seat, and opened the carriage door for His Majesty.

When the king entered the hall, what he saw was a scene of panic. The servants were running in a panic, going in and out of the doors, like the busy crew of a large ship that was entering the water.

The steward who learned of His Majesty's arrival trotted all the way to greet the king, "Our reception is really inappropriate, please forgive me, Your Majesty." He wiped the sweat dripping from his forehead with a pale face.

The king waved his hand, "Have the members of the Privy Council arrived?"

"Basically all are here. Bishop Gardiner arrived just a few minutes before your arrival, and now only His Excellency the Protector is left, and..." He raised his head and glanced at the king's face, "And sir." This is obviously It refers to the hero here, Sir Thomas.

The king's expression didn't change, "Where are they?"

"In the lady's little drawing room."

"How is the lady?" asked the king again.

"The lady is still in the delivery room, and the doctors are there with her."

"Then please lead the way, let's go to the small living room." The king nodded.

The steward hurriedly led the king through the magnificent halls, and arrived at the queen's small octagonal idyllic living room, which was already full of people.In order not to keep the king waiting for a long time, many of these important ministers came all the way on horseback in the bitter cold wind.

There was a commotion when the king entered the room, and the important ministers who were whispering stood up quickly.

The king nodded to them, "My lords."

He went to an armchair and sat down, "You must be very puzzled by my request that you come here immediately." He looked around the room, "Frankly speaking, I am also confused. This is the first queen As requested, she wrote a letter in which she begged me to come to Hatfield Palace immediately, and asked you all to come with me."

The members of the Privy Council exchanged surprised looks.

"Didn't the first queen mention her purpose for doing this?" Bishop Gardner first stood up and asked.

The king shook his head. "She only said that she had something important to tell me in person. Obviously she asked you to be present."

The expressions on the faces of the people were even more surprised than before. They looked at each other. It was obvious that this unusual development had planted seeds of uneasiness in their hearts.

The moon rose from a sea of ​​cloudy clouds, and the moonlight shone into the room through the frosted windows, only to be swallowed up by the rolling clouds a moment later.

Time passed by, and the servants brought refreshments to the nobles in the small living room at the request of the butler.However, everyone in the house had already learned of Mrs. Herbert's misfortune at this time, so no one wanted to get involved in the exquisite food and mellow wine, for fear of following in the footsteps of poor Mrs. Herbert.

The wall clock struck eight times, and the door of the small living room finally opened.

The butler walked into the room with an expression of indescribable panic and fear on his face, "Madam just woke up, she asks everyone to go to the delivery room immediately!"

Many people opened their mouths wide in amazement, "This is really too unruly..." someone whispered.

"How is the lady?" asked the king.

"Madam... gave birth to a stillborn baby..." The housekeeper looked as if he had lost his soul, "The doctor said Madam has run out of oil and the lamp is dry."

The king stood up, "It's not too late, let's go." He stood up, followed the steward to the door, turned around and looked around at the stunned ministers, "What are you waiting for?"

The ministers hurriedly followed His Majesty as if waking up from a dream.

When the king and his party entered the bedroom of the first queen, the first queen was lying on the bed, holding a ball of swaddling clothes tightly with both hands, as if all her life was condensed in that thing.

"Ma'am." The king walked up to the first queen and bowed slightly.

The first queen raised her head, and the look of despair on her face surprised the king.The pale face and lifeless eyes clearly showed that the first queen and the first queen were dying.

"Your Majesty." The Queen's voice was unexpectedly calm, "You are here."

"According to your request, I have come and brought the ministers of the Privy Council." The king pointed to the ministers behind him, they looked very uncomfortable, "What do you want to say to me?"

The first queen smiled, and that smile looked extremely sad, "I want to confess my sins to you, Your Majesty."

"Confession, ma'am?"

"Yes." The first queen nodded, "I should have repented a long time ago...I committed a sin...a shocking crime..." She trembled all over, "This is God's will, He because of my Sin, imposed upon me the heaviest punishment for a mother!"

She unfolded the tightly wrapped swaddle to reveal its contents.

Everyone in the room gasped. The swaddle was the remains of a baby, said to be a baby, but the distorted and deformed tissues made it look more like a demon crawling out of the ground.The corpse was bluish-purple in color with large black spots on it.

"What's going on here?" The king looked at Dr. Hoyt who was standing aside.

Dr. Hoyt wiped the sweat from his brow, "Mrs. Herbert and the first queen drank the same wine mixed with strychnine during the day, but Mrs. Herbert died of poison on the spot, while the first queen ..." He looked at the first queen, but the other party didn't say a word, but just stared blankly at the infant corpse, "The reason is that some people have been injecting this kind of poison on the first queen for a while."

"What?" The king took half a step back in surprise.

"However, what the poisoner did not expect was that the fetus in the queen's stomach absorbed most of the toxins for the mother. Therefore," he pointed to the swaddle, "the child developed abnormally inside the mother's body."

"The first queen should have suffered one or two small strokes, and finally suffered a major stroke, and then died. However, due to the change of the fetus, although the body of the first queen and queen suffered irreversible damage, she still did not suffer from poisoning. There is even a certain degree of drug resistance."

"I think the murderer must have been impatient... so a lot of poison was added to the two glasses of wine today. Mrs. Herbert died of the poison on the spot, but the first queen and the queen had already developed a certain degree of drug resistance. And survived for the time being.”

"Temporary?" The king heard the doctor's overtones.

"Unfortunately, although the previous poison did not make Madam sick, it still caused irreversible damage to her body. Today, she took a large amount of poison first, and then gave birth to a child..." The doctor glanced at the doctor again. The queen, however, remained indifferent, as if the doctor was referring to someone completely irrelevant, "Madam doesn't need a doctor now."

There was a dead silence in the room, and everyone was shocked by the doctor's words.

After half a minute, the king first broke the silence, "Ma'am...I assure you that this vicious act will be punished as it should be. I will ensure that the murderer who murdered you will be brought to justice. We We will definitely find out the truth about this matter.”

"No need, Your Majesty." A smile appeared on the queen's face again, but that smile seemed very strange under such circumstances, "I know who is going to kill me."

"You know?" asked the king in surprise.

"Yes, I know." The first queen said, "I said before that I would confess my sins to you..." She closed her eyes, as if making up her mind.

"Your Majesty the late king was poisoned to death by me!" She gathered her strength and said loudly.

Like a thunderbolt exploding in the room, everyone was dumbfounded.

The king's face turned pale all of a sudden, and his eyes were like sharp swords on everyone in the room, causing the familiar fear in the hearts of these ministers who had faced King Henry.

The king's eyes finally fixed on the first queen, "What do you mean?" His tone was still calm, but everyone could hear the anger he tried to suppress, "You know what you said will bring consequences ?"

"I know very well." The first queen put the swaddle on her lap, stretched out a hand, and pointed to the sky, "But now the judgment of the world has no binding force on me, what I have to worry about is eternity Therefore, I am not speaking the truth to Your Majesty and your lords, but to the Supreme Judge, our Heavenly Father!"

"It is this kind of poison that I gave His Majesty the late king... His Majesty had a stroke before, and the symptoms of this poison will not make people have any doubts." The first queen said with certainty.

"What are you doing this for?"

"For relief, Your Majesty! For relief!" the first queen hoarsely shouted, "Your father is a devil! I can't bear that kind of life anymore! Every day I worry about it, with one foot on the guillotine... What is his wife's last name?" It's going to end well!"

She collapsed on the bed after this outburst.

"Well, if what you say is true, that you poisoned my father as little Agrippina poisoned her husband, Emperor Claudius, who is your accomplice, if If I guessed correctly, there must be one or several Logesters in this story, after all, it must be a careful plan to escape from the crime of regicide." The king looked at it carefully. The look of the queen first, "Who is your accomplice?"

"My accomplices are the ones who want to kill me. They are afraid that their secrets will be revealed, so they want to kill me to silence them to be completely at ease." The first queen gasped, "They killed my child, My sister, I am going to die now... But what they didn't expect is that there is a God in the sky, God let me survive, at the cost of the lives of my children and sister... God gave me a mission, to I make public the crimes of these people...their crimes are worse than mine, and I took this road only under their persuasion and threats..."

"So it seems to you that the only crime you have committed is that you were so weak-willed that you gave in easily to the temptation of the devil when he came to speak in your ear, did you not, ma'am?" King There was a tinge of sarcasm in his tone.

"Yes, Your Majesty!" A blush appeared on the face of the first queen, which could be said to be caused by a high fever or a guilty conscience, "God will testify for me!" She pointed to the sky again.

"Let's not talk about God." The king said coldly. "You may not care about the courts of this world, but in the end, even if God wants to do justice for you, he still relies on us ordinary people in this world. Please tell us Your accomplice, or mastermind, if that comforts you."

"Who is it that murdered my father through your hand, and now wants to kill you? Who is that giant spider in the middle of the spider's web of crime?"

Queen Xian shivered, she opened her mouth and was about to speak.

Suddenly there was a noise in the hall and corridor, the door was opened, and a servant hurried into the room to report, "Lord Protector of the Kingdom, His Excellency the Duke of Somerset!"

Everyone was stunned, as if they were answering the king's question.

The first queen suddenly burst into hysterical laughter, "Ha, ha, did you hear that, Your Majesty? This is God speaking to you. He answered your questions personally through the mouth of this servant! It's all about him His will... is his punishment!"

She burst into a high-pitched laugh that reminded the king of night owls hovering in the dark, and then she stiffened and fell backwards.

Queen Xian passed out on the bed, still clutching the child's body tightly in her hand.

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Agrippina the Younger was the wife of Emperor Claudius of ancient Rome. It is said that she poisoned her husband with her own hands, and Logiste was the woman who provided her with the poison.