that they would sooner perish than withdraw their words.

6. Henry replied to words by facts. On Sunday, the first day of September, 1532, the court being met at Windsor, Lady Anne was led from her own chamber by the Countesses of Rutland and Sussex, followed by her cousin, Lady Mary Howard, bearing the circlet of gold, into the presence-chamber. Montagu, Rochford, and a train of youthful peers and knights, preceded her. Henry was standing with the Bishop of Bayonne and his secretary, Lancelot de Carles, the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, and a crowd of officers, to receive her. Gardiner read a patent, creating her Marchioness of Pembroke, giving her precedence over every woman of the same degree, and granting her a separate pension of a thousand pounds a-year. She curtseyed to the King and company, and, having thanked his Highness with a deep humility for his princely gifts, retired into her room. Henry and the Bishop of Bayonne rode to Eton College, where, on the Mass and Sacraments, they signed and swore a league of England and France against the Emperor and the Pope.

7. "The King is dressing and treating Anne de Boleyn like a queen," said Charles to Clement. "If Henry marries Anne de Boleyn, Rome will crush him," was the Pope's reply.

8. "Marry her," said François, when he met the King and Lady Anne at Calais. Cardinal de Bellay urged this course, and offered to perform the rite himself. Anne was falling into Cranmer's view,

that since the King had never married Catharine, no sentence was required from either Rome or any other court. The friars dug up old books of prophecy, and pointed old sayings with allusion to the King and Queen. One such book was left at Durham House, in which the figures had been stamped with letters. H. stood between two female figures. K. was weeping floods of tears; and A. was standing with a headless trunk. The legend threatened A. with certain ruin if she listened to the suit of H. "Come hither, Nan," she called to Anne Gainsford, her attendant; "see, here is a book of prophecy. This, he saith, is the King; this is the Queen, mourning and weeping, wringing of her hands; and this is myself, with my head off!" The damsel looked, and answered like a damsel, "If I thought it true, I would not myself marry him with that condition, though he were an emperor." "Yes, Nan," rejoined her mistress, "I think the book a bauble; yet for the hope I have that the realm may be happy by my issue, I am resolved to have him, whatsoever may become of me."

9. On the Feast of St. Paul, the favourite Apostle of the English people (January 25, 1533), Henry and Anne were married in a small chapel of the palace at Westminster, by Rowland Lee, the learned Bishop of Lichfield. Lee was a supporter of the new learning and the National Church. The affair was private, for the King still hoped the Pontiff would decide for him; and he was willing to avoid an open rupture. François was about to meet the Pope, with whom he was contracting an

alliance for his second son, and he had promised Henry to procure a settlement of his case. These reasons led the King to have a private marriage. Norreys and Heneage acted as the King's best men, while Anne, a daughter of Sir John Savage, waited on Lady Anne. Lee pronounced the words which made Anne Boleyn, Marchioness of Pembroke, Henry's wife and Queen.

CHAPTER II.

Queen Anne.

1533.

1. BEFORE the King and Queen appeared as man and wife in public, they desired to have a sentence of the English Church declaring the legality of their marriage rite. Rochford crossed to France with news that Henry, yielding to the counsels pressed on him so long by Popes and Cardinals, as well as by the King of France and his ambassadors, had married Lady Anne. Rochford found the King at Rheims. François was glad to hear his news, but he was in no case, he said, to help the King. Clement was not coming into France for several months. Rochford was quick to see his drift. The truth was, François had gained his object when the King had married Anne. A gulf was dug between the crowns of Spain and England, and François was careless how the King, his brother, settled his affairs in Rome.

2. On Easter Eve, the twelfth of April, Anne appeared at mass in company of the King. She was already known to be his wife, and she was led into the church with all the pomp of Queen. At noon she was proclaimed. A great establishment was given to her, and all the officers of her household took the customary oaths. Not much remained, except for the primate to pronounce a

formal sentence, and for Henry to fix a coronationday.

3. A bill was introduced into Parliament declaring that the realm of England was an independent state, with temporal and spiritual judges able to decide all causes that arose within the realm, and making it unlawful to appeal in any case to Rome. Two questions were submitted to the clergy, who divided Convocation into a committee of theologians and a committee of canonists. The theologians were asked to say whether the Pope could authorise a man to marry his brother's wife; the canonists whether the evidence already laid before the two Cardinals amounted to canonical proof. A great majority of the theologians, sixty-six against nineteen, answered that a Pope has no such power; a still greater majority of the canonists, thirty-eight against six, answered that Catharine had been proved to be Prince Arthur's wife.

4. Forced back on English law and English strength, the King now laid his case before the national Parliament and the national Church. New men were in authority. More had resigned the seals, having shrunk at last, not from aiding the divorce, but from acknowledging the King as head of the Church. Warham was dead. An old and faithful servant of the Crown, yet dizzy from the whirl and scramble of events, the old man passed away with something like a protest on his pen. Younger and bolder men were in their seats. Audley, Speaker of the House of Commons, a hard and reckless man, inclined at any cost to do the King's