During this winter, when Christina was happily settled in her new home and surrounded by loyal friends and subjects, news came from England of the trial and execution of Henry VIII.'s fifth Queen, Catherine Howard. When the Duke and Duchess were at Fontainebleau, rumours reached the Court that this unhappy lady, of whom Henry was deeply enamoured but a short time before, had been suddenly banished from his presence, and taken into custody. "Par ma foi de gentil homme!" exclaimed King Francis when he heard the account of the Queen's misdeeds. "She has done wondrous naughtily!"[336] But in England, as Chapuys reported, much compassion was felt for the King's latest victim, who had dragged down the noble house of Howard in her fall. Lord William Howard, the late Ambassador, was hastily recalled from France, and sent to the Tower with his mother, the old Duchess of Norfolk. The King himself, wrote Chapuys, felt the case more than that of any of his other wives, just as the woman who had lost ten husbands grieved more for the tenth when he died than for any of the other nine! But when the luckless Queen was beheaded, Henry recovered his spirits, and spent Carnival in feasting and entertaining ladies with a gaiety which made people think that he meant to marry again. "But few, if any, ladies of the Court," remarked Chapuys, "now aspire to the honour of becoming one of the King's wives."[337] It was an honour to which Christina herself had never aspired. One day at the Court of Nancy, conversation turned on the King of England, and some indiscreet lady asked the Duchess why she had rejected this monarch's suit. A smile broke over Christina's face, and the old dimples rose to her cheeks as she replied that, unfortunately, she only had one head, but that if she had possessed two, one might have been at His Majesty's disposal. It was a characteristic speech, and has passed into history.[338] III. [Sidenote: MAY, 1542] THE KING'S CHASE]