monarch

The heavy oak door of the queen's room was opened again, and the footsteps of the Lord Protector came from the depths of the corridor.With his head held high, he paced around, looking more arrogant than usual, but his eyes still had embarrassment and uneasiness that couldn't be concealed.

When the Lord Protector entered the room, all eyes were on him, but this time the eyes were no longer the flattering, jealous, or hostile eyes that he was used to.Everyone looked at him today with surprise and confusion in their eyes, even his old opponent, Bishop Gardiner: at this moment, the bishop was staring at him with wide eyes, and his whole face looked like a bird full of blood. Angry puffer fish.

If it was in a more relaxed environment, the Lord Protector might have laughed out loud, but the keen senses he had cultivated from being in the court for a long time made him instinctively feel the danger, like a hare swaying from the sound of the wind and the shadows It is as if you can spy on the traces of predators.

One of his hands rested casually on the hilt of his sword.

He walked up to the king and bent down.

"Your Majesty." His voice was a little low.

But the king said nothing.

The Lord Protector looked up, and found the king was staring at him, like a goshawk circling in the air to a lark.

The king's guards stepped forward and formed a circle, just surrounding the Lord Protector.

Duke Protector's face began to turn pale. Although he still assumed a nonchalant posture, the slight trembling of his muscles and his stiff expression and movements still gave him away.

"What does this mean? Your Majesty." He looked at the king and at the crowd.

The king glanced at Bishop Gardner.

Bishop Gardiner took a few steps forward. He had been looking forward to this moment for a long time, although it was beyond his expectation that it happened in this way, "My lord, you are accused of poisoning and murdering His Majesty the late King Henry VIII, At the same time trying to poison the late Queen Lady Catherine Parr, what's your response?"

The Duke Protector's face suddenly changed drastically. He looked dazed for a moment, almost on the verge of fainting.His behavior can be interpreted as the astonishment of innocent people after being splashed with dirty water for no reason, or as the panic of guilty people after their crimes are exposed. He looked around the room like a drowning shipwreck in vain. looking for a reef to hold on to.

"What's your response?" Bishop Gardner took another step forward. At this time, his face swollen from astonishment was filled with uncontrollable complacency. "Do you admit to this accusation?"

The Lord Protector quickly recovered with his superhuman willpower as the commander-in-chief of the army. "This kind of absurd joke is really not worth refuting!" He glanced at the people in the room with contemptuous eyes, "Which enemy hides in the gutter and dares not see anyone is this shameless slander coming from?"

His gaze finally fixed on the queen Xian who was unconscious on the bed.

"It seems that you have already guessed it." Bishop Gardner smiled slightly, which looked reminiscent of a crocodile with its mouth open, "It was your accomplice, Queen Catherine Parr, who proposed these two items. accused."

The Lord Protector laughed twice, sounding very deliberate, "She must be out of her mind! Do you all believe the crazy words of a woman who is unconscious in bed and has lost her mind? There is no doubt that this is something from her. Kind of an illusion."

The king looked at Dr. Hoyt who was cowering aside, "Doctor, madam has fainted."

Dr. Hoyt quickly took out a small gold smelling salt bottle. He walked up to Queen Xian, unscrewed the cap, and put the mouth of the bottle in front of Queen Xian's nose.

Queen Xian coughed twice, woke up leisurely, and stared blankly at the curtain above.

"Madame," said the King, "you have just made some very appalling allegations, and now another party has come." He pointed to the Lord Protector, "please compose yourself, and tell us exactly what it is what happened."

The first queen showed a miserable smile, "I originally planned to keep this kind of thing a secret when I confessed at the end of my life." She coughed twice, and stretched out her hand to signal for herself to drink water.

The king nodded, and Dr. Hoyt poured a glass of lemonade and passed it to the lips of the queen and the queen, who drank it down in one gulp.

"Where does Your Majesty want me to begin?"

"As you please," said the king dryly, "but it is best to begin at the beginning."

"Okay!" The first queen sighed, "Then we will start talking about it in 1534."

"From ten years ago?" The king's voice was a little sarcastic.

"Yes...it's a long story, and I beg you to be patient and listen to me."

"Well, our time tonight is all yours." The king nodded.

"I was born into a gentlemanly family in Northamptonshire, and when I was seventeen I married Sir Edward Borough, a well-established young man also from the gentlemanly class, who died three years later, At that time, I was only 17 years old, far from the age when I should be a widow, in other words, I still have a certain value in the marriage market."

"My father's official position was rising at that time, and with the increase of his official position, his desire to become a member of the hereditary aristocratic class became more and more urgent, and his first step plan was to make me a member of the entire Pas The first woman in the family to marry a hereditary peer, so in 1534, under my father's operation, I married one of his cousins, the [-]rd Baron Latimer."

"Lord Latimer was twice my age, and I was his third wife, so I was more his nurse than his wife. But the marriage wasn't for nothing. As a result, I have titles, a castle of which I am mistress, and of course eminence in the North."

"When I first got married, Baron Latimer was not exactly the man of my dreams, but he was also a good husband. I lived with him and his two children from his previous wife and played the role of mistress of the manor. The role. It was honestly the best time of my life.”

"But only two years later, the famous Northern rebellion broke out, and those accursed Catholic mobs," she glanced at Bishop Gardiner with a hateful look, "broke into my house and took Latie and I Lord Mo and my stepson are taken hostage."

"Lord Latimer is in the south at this time, and the traitors have written to him to return immediately to the north and join them, or our heads will be cut off."

"Baron Latimer turned back immediately after getting the news. He returned to our castle, single-handedly, and negotiated with the mob with his bare hands. I don't know what he said, but in the end the mob released us and retreated from our castle. When our family finally reunited, we couldn't help hugging each other for the rest of our lives, weeping with joy."

"However, none of us expected at the time that this was just the beginning of a nightmare. Baron Latimer's courage aroused suspicion from some people. Two conflicting reports were sent to King Henry in London and his then One of the reports from the favorite of Cromwell said that Lord Latimer and his family were prisoners of the rebels, and the other said that we were their accomplices."

"Baron Latimer has many high-ranking friends. With their help, Baron Latimer was finally saved from being prosecuted for treason. However, as a price, he was forced into the arms of Cromwell and served him , became the pawn of this power minister."

"Lord Latimer was deeply humiliated by this, and many things that Cromwell asked him to do made him deeply disturbed and frightened, and his temper became more and more bad. From a loving father and a kind husband, Became a rude and imperious tyrant who would whip his sons with a horsewhip and beat me with a poker poker until I lay bleeding unconscious on the floor dying," she said, rolling up her sleeves , pointing to the scar that still looks quite scary.

"Then Mr. Cromwell finally fell, and Lord Latimer regained some dignity, and he returned to Parliament in 1542, and we returned to London, but he fell ill that winter. "

"The Baron Latimer had lived an extremely unhealthy life for the previous few years, drinking heavily and eating very greasy food, so in the winter of our return to London, after drinking a lot of Bordeaux , he finally had a stroke."

"Compared to Baron Latimer after the stroke, the domineering and rude tyrant before him is simply an angel. He was paralyzed in bed after the stroke, and became more moody. I was exhausted every day to take care of him, but what he gave me in return Just insults, or throwing silver cups full of wine straight at me."

"The doctor who treated Baron Latimer was an Italian. After trying many methods with no success, the doctor decided to try a new method. He decided to use a plant-based toxin called strychnine. Yes, to stimulate the nerves of Baron Latimer. This is a very dangerous toxin, which can excite the nerves and speed up the blood flow. If it is not used properly, it may cause another stroke. , will operate carefully, making sure to add five drops to the potion, no more and no less."

"Half a year has passed, Baron Latimer still hasn't improved much, and he has become even more irritable."

"One evening, when I brought him supper, he suddenly became angry for no reason, and said I had poisoned the meal, and was going to kill him, and that I was going to be locked up in the Tower of London. Just as I was about to distinguish, he poured food all over me."

"I yelled from the heat of the food, which aroused his dissatisfaction even more. He grabbed a table knife, stabbed me, and cut my arm."

"My screams attracted my stepson who snatched the knife from him and took me out of the room, I was so dumbfounded I just remember them taking me into the kitchen to be handled by the maid Burns and knife wounds on my body."

"Upstairs there was a commotion again at this time, and Lord Latimer, evidently displeased with this blatant disobedience, was beginning again. My stepsons went upstairs to attend to his business, and the maid went for bandages. and burn medicine."

"I was the only one left in the room, sitting there alone with big tears streaming from my eyes."

"When I finally calmed down, I stood up and looked around the kitchen for a cloth or handkerchief to wipe away my tears."

"At this moment, I noticed that on the chopping board by the window, there was a small tray containing the potion that Baron Latimer drank every night, and the doctor's medicine chest was placed next to it-he happened to be in a hurry. bathroom."

"As if possessed, I walked towards the tray step by step, as if it were a magnet, I was attracted to it."

"A cold moonlight came in from the window and was shining on the tray. I couldn't help shivering. In the half-light, the cup containing the medicine was like a twinkling eye, which scared me to the side. Take a step back."

"However, at this very moment, a thought flashed through my mind like lightning - this is what God revealed to me, telling me how to free myself and my stepson from our suffering The way!" Her eyes flickered with fanaticism, "What is contained in that cup is my freedom and my salvation!"

"I walked quickly to the medicine cabinet and found the small bottle containing strychnine. I have seen the red medicine in it many times."

"I unscrewed the cap of the bottle and added ten drops of this toxin to the already prepared potion, plus the five drops already added inside, there are fifteen drops in total."

"After finishing this, I put the bottle back to its original place, sat down again and waited for the maid to bandage me up."

"I went to bed very early that night, and Baron Latimer kept tossing until late, and of course he drank the potion he should drink that night before going to bed."

"To my surprise, I slept so soundly that night that when the maid knocked on my door in the middle of the night, it took me a full minute to wake me up."

"By the time I arrived at Lord Latimer's room, his face was as red as fire, he was breathing in short and violent breaths, his hands stretched out to the sky, bent like the claws of vultures, as if to grasp Like my own life that is passing by so fast."

"The moment I stepped into his room door, he sat up straight like a puppet whose strings were jerked by a manipulator, his limbs were stiff like a zombie, his lips were tightly closed, never The previous gray and white gradually turned blue, and finally appeared purple-black."

"The doctor tried to open his lips and pour medicine into it, but the mouth seemed to be sewn shut, just closed, like a clam shell hiding a huge pearl."

"Suddenly he screamed, as if he had been petrified, he fell straight backwards. He lay on his back on the bed."

"The doctor reached out to check his pulse. After about half a minute, he looked at us with a frightened expression on his face and said in a trembling voice:"

"'Lord Latimer is dead!'"