Page:The Queens of England.djvu/373

KATHARINE PARR. 333 crime except the alleged one of entertaining the same creed as her own ! A good understanding was soon established between the Princess Mary and Katharine, which was the less to be ex- pected from the great difference in their creeds — a difference which the proximity of their ages enabled them soon to per- ceive. Nothing was left undone on the part of the queen to encourage the king to render justice to both his daughters by assuring their position at court, not only as his acknowledged offspring, but as having a right, in case of the failure of male heirs, to succeed him on the throne ; allowing, however, prece- dence to any children to which the present queen should give birth. Her stepson, Prince Edward, experienced the most unvarying attention from Katharine. She took a lively interest in his studies, and incited him to diligence in them by her judicious counsel and example, while he, in return, evinced not only a profound respect, but a warm affection, to his gentle monitress. But while thus praiseworthily discharging her duties to her royal husband and his offspring in the domestic sphere, Kath- arine was by no means neglectful of the etiquette and stately grandeur which appertained to her queenly dignity, and which she scrupulously maintained in demeanor, manners and dress. Calm and reserved, yet gracious, she strictly avoided ever com- promising, even in small things, as well as in great, the respect due to the throne. Her dress was not only remarkable for its splendor, but still more so for good taste and attention to its becomingness — a coquetry which is perhaps the only pardon- able one in a married woman who wishes to keep alive the admiration of her husband. If Katharine's beauty, which all acknowledged, and her taste in dress, which all approved, excited in the breasts of others the admiration she only sought to maintain in that of her sovereign, the dignified reserve of her manners so effectually precluded all approaches to famil- iarity that not even an eye dared indicate nor a tongue utter a sentiment less profoundly respectful than was meet to reach the ear of a queen. The jealous Henry, exacting as he was, never found cause for reproof, and must have often been made sensible, by the force of contrast, of the difference between the decorous Queen Katharine and the gay and thoughtless Anne Boleyn, whose levity furnished such weapons to her enemies for her destruction. Her elevation to the throne did not effect any change in the love of study, which had been a peculiar