The business, with
which she was charged, was to protest against Norman brutality and to
plead for justice.
Now this old lady-owl, gray with centuries, though she had such short
ears, kept them open by day and during the night, also, for all the
gossip that floated in the air. She knew all about everybody and
everything. From what she had heard, she expected to find the new
King, Henry VIII, a royal fellow in velvet, with a crown on his head,
and his body as big and round as a hogshead, sitting in a room full of
chopping blocks and battle axes. Further, she fancied she would find a
dozen pretty women locked up in his palace, some in the cellar, others
in the pantry, and more in the garret; but all waiting to have their
heads chopped off.
For the popular story ran that his chief amusement was to marry a wife
one day and slice off her head the next.
It was said also that the King kept a private graveyard, and took a
walk in it every afternoon to study the epitaphs, which he kept a
scholar busy in writing; and also a man, from the marble yard near by,
to chisel them on the tombs, after his various wives had been properly
beheaded.
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