Anne, on the contrary, had sacrificed everything and everybody to the gratification of her own vanity, ambition and lightness; and now, abandoned by the King, the scorn of the court, the laughing-stock of the whole nation, she could but cling, a shipwrecked waif, to one poor spar, destined, like all else, to fail her. The day of Katharine’s funeral was a fatal day to the usurper. She had looked forward with passionate longing to the time when her rival should cease to exist, and leave her in undisputed possession of her queenship. And now the time had come, and on that very day, the last vestige of hope faded from before her eyes. Before night, the news was circulated in London that she had miscarried, and that the King had treated her with marked coldness. He had even declared that he had been led to marry her by witchcraft, that he had grave doubts as to the validity of their marriage, and as to whether he might consider himself free to take another wife.[155] Anne sought refuge from Henry’s brutality in recriminations, the last futile resource of the fallen. Chapuys wrote on the 17th February:— “The Concubine has since attempted to throw all the blame on the Duke of Norfolk whom she hates, pretending that her miscarriage was entirely owing to the shock she received when, six days before, the Duke announced to her the King’s fall from his horse. But the King knows very well that it was not that, for his accident was announced to her in a manner not to create undue alarm, and besides, when she heard of it she seemed quite indifferent to it.”[156] Both Mary and Chapuys understood Henry too well to hope for better times, even now that his aversion from Anne was complete. He would never content himself with the simple admission that he was weary of her to loathing, but would contrive to find some means to persuade the world that he was justified in his resolve to be rid of her. Although he would be obliged to admit, at least tacitly, that he had been mistaken, in a matter in which his pride was inextricably involved, and had sacrificed everything for a creature who had proved worthless, it was not likely that he would make further humiliating confessions, by owning that his treatment of Katharine and his daughter had been a mistake also, but rather, lest his enemies should triumph, would be prepared to send Mary to the block, as he had so often threatened.