of the feast.

They went to dinner. That was Catharine's first moment of respite,
of rest. For when Henry the Eighth seated himself at table, he was
no longer the haughty monarch and the jealous husband, but merely
the proficient artiste and the impassioned gourmand; and whether the
pastry was well seasoned, and the pheasant of good flavor, was for
him then a far more important question than any concerning the weal
of his people, and the prosperity of his kingdom.

But after dinner came another respite, a new enjoyment, and this
time a more real one, which indeed for a while banished all gloomy
forebodings and melancholy fears from Catharine's heart, and
suffused her countenance with the rosy radiance of cheerfulness and
happy smiles. For King Henry had prepared for his young wife a
peculiar and altogether novel surprise. He had caused to be erected
in the palace of Whitehall a stage, whereon was represented, by the
nobles of the court, a comedy from Plautus. Heretofore there had
been no other theatrical exhibitions than those which the people
performed on the high festivals of the church, the morality and the
mystery plays. King Henry the Eighth was the first who had a stage
erected for worldly amusement likewise, and caused to be represented
on it subjects other than mere dramatized church history. As he
freed the church from its spiritual head, the pope, so he wished to
free the stage from the church, and to behold upon it other more
lively spectacles than the roasting of saints and the massacre of
inspired nuns.

And why, too, represent such mock tragedies on the stage, when the
king was daily performing them in reality? The burning of Christian