stature" by which she was distinguished, and which he had before suggested would be desirable, had now no charms for him. Before his courtiers he bestowed a coarse expression upon her; and to them he confessed that he would gladly avoid, if yet it might be so, the nuptial contract. But the contract was verbally fulfilled, and the lady became a nominal wife; of which empty distinction, after six months more had passed, she was deprived by the formality of a divorce. A precontract was the first of the frivolous pretences assigned as a ground of this proceeding. Depositions by Cranmer and other peers were tendered to this purpose. But it was on the sovereign's own reprehensible plea that he had not inwardly consented to the marriage, and that he was unable to subdue his antipathy to the lady, that both lords and commons, and afterwards the convocation, principally formed their determination to try the validity of the marriage. Before the convocation agreed to pronounce it void, 2 Gardiner expatiated in favour of Henry's view, and examined witnesses to the purpose. The sentence of invalidity was then confirmed by the seal of Cranmer. I wish I could have said, that the 1 3 They are given by Strype, Ecc. Mem. i. Rec. 307. seq. 1 Burnet. Strype. 3 The instrument is copied by Burnet, i. Rec. No. xix. 66 1 primate had not concurred in this unworthy measure. Burnet admits that Cranmer had not now courage enough to swim against the stream;" which is imputed to the fear, that his refusal to sanction the plea would have caused him to share the fate of Cromwell, whose execution, he knew, would immediately follow the divorce. But if Anne of Cleves wanted beauty, she wanted neither discretion nor equanimity. She submitted to the sentence of separation with little remonstrance; consented to remain in England with the new title of sister, instead of wife, to the disappointed sovereign; and informed the duke, her brother, of the good usage that had led her to this determination. An endeavour appears to have been afterwards made by her foreign relations to restore her to the king in her spousal character; at the time, as it should seem, when Catharine Howard, her successor as queen, had been sentenced to the punishment of her incontinency. Cranmer reported it to Henry, in a letter dated January 13, saying "that the ambassador of Cleves came to my house at Lambeth, and delivered to me letters from * Oslynger, vice Hist. Ref. iii. Appendix ix. 4 2 Her letter to the duke is given by Burnet, i. Rec. No. xx. 3 Orig. MS. State-Paper Office. 4 So Cranmer writes the name. leger. Hist. ed. 1649. 453. 455. Lord Herbert calls him Olis- chancellor to the duke;" of which the substance was, after" setting forth my lauds and commendations like an orator, to commend unto me the cause of the lady Anne.-Although I suspected the true cause of his coming, yet I would take upon me no knowledge of any special matter, but said thus unto him: Master ambassador, I have perused Oslynger's letters, by the which he commendeth unto me the lady Anne of Cleves' cause. But forasmuch as he declareth no certain cause, I trust you have some other instructions to inform me of some particular matter.-Whereunto he answered, that the cause was the reconciliation of your Majesty unto the lady Anne of Cleves.Whereunto I answered, that I thought [it] not a little strange that Oslynger should think it meet for me to move a reconciliation of that matrimony, of the which I as much as any other person knew most in the causes of divorce."-Therefore, the archbishop adds, " I decline to move your Grace to receive her in matrimony, from whom your Majesty was upon most just cause divorced, whereupon might grow most uncertitude of your Grace's succession, with such unquietness and trouble to this realm as heretofore hath not been seen.' sioners who brought over the lady Anne to England, and who afterwards presented an instrument invalidating the force of the pretended contract of Anne with the son of the duke of Lorrain. 292 THE LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP CRANMER. The ambassador would have proceeded further in conversation, if Cranmer would have allowed it. Cranmer concluded with asking if any answer as from his Majesty was to be given to what had been so far communicated. Of this curious interposition nothing further is known. The lady Anne continued in her retirement at Chelsea, till her death in 1557. CHAPTER XIV. 1540. The fall of Cromwell-Cranmer's letter in behalf of himEndeavour to involve Cranmer in his ruin-The king favours Cranmer-Discussions and written opinions in order to the production of the Necessary Erudition of a Christian Man-Those of the archbishop in particular. THE ill-starred marriage, which Cromwell had advised, precipitated his ruin. Other circumstances indeed contributed to it. By the Romish party. he was hated as their greatest enemy; by the Reformed he was not regarded as their constant friend; by the people in general he was unbeloved as imposing upon them heavy burthens of taxation. While Anne of Cleves at this time was unable to obtain the proper regard of Henry, Catharine Howard, the niece of the duke of Norfolk, was effecting by her charms an easy way to the throne, as well as to the downfall of him who had brought Anne to England. On the 13th of June in 1540 the duke preferred against the minister, who but two months before had been |