CHAP death. The King is said to have shed tears-and not without reason-when he heard of Catherine's A.D. 1536 death. Anne Boleyn's alleged adultery Four months later Anne herself followed Catherine to the grave: but there were no tears shed for her, no funereal pomp at her burial, no mourning worn as a tribute of respect to her memory. The King's doubts about her conduct began to reach their climax at the very time when his first and faithful wife departed from her troubles; and his inclination-one can hardly call it affection-towards Jane Seymour was working the same alienation from Anne that had in her own case caused his alienation from Catherine. The Privy Council investigated the evidence of Anne's adultery which was laid before them, and on April 24th an order was issued for a commission (including her father, the Earl of Wiltshire) which was to bring her, and her supposed accomplices—for her loose manners had implicated her with five-to trial. On May 2d she was arrested; on the 11th Her trial she was indicted by the grand jury on five separate demnation charges of adultery (the first occasion named being on the 6th of October, 1533, a month after the birth of Queen Elizabeth), and on the 12th four of her accomplices were found guilty by an ordinary jury. She herself and her brother, Lord Rochford, were tried by twenty-seven peers on the 15th, found guilty, and condemned. The sentence passed upon her was that she should be burned or beheaded, as should please the King: it pleased him that she should be beheaded. Before she died, Anne con and con It is a strange coincidence that she was beheaded according to French custom, and by a French executioner, the headsman of Calais, with a sword instead of an axc. III the King fessed something to Archbishop Cranmer which he CHAP considered to be a conclusive proof that her marriage with the King was not valid. This confession being A.D. 1536 repeated by her before the Archbishop, sitting in his court at Lambeth on the 17th, Cranmer pronounced her marriage with Henry null and void. Thus divorced, as if her first great crime was to come back Her diupon her own head in vengeance, she returned to the vorce from Tower for a few hours, and at noon the next day, May 19, 1536, gave her neck to the headsman-let us reverently hope, in part expiation of her sins-on Tower Green, commending her soul to a merciful God. So little honour was paid to her, or so great Her death haste was used, that nothing better than an empty minious arrow chest was provided to receive her body and burial the dissevered head, which was then carried a few yards to St. Peter ad Vincula, and there buried in the chancel. Next day Henry married a new wife, with whom he had already had an intrigue of some standing. and igno of her char The miserable fate of Anne Boleyn wins our com- Estimate passion, and the greatness to which her daughter acter attained has been in some degree reflected back upon herself. Had she died a natural death, and had she not been the mother of Queen Elizabeth, we should have estimated her character at a very low value indeed. Protestantism might still, with its usual unhistorical partizanship, have gilded over her immoralities; but the Church of England must ever look upon Anne 7 It is thought (by some writers) to be almost certain that this confession related to the King's illicit intercourse with her sister, Mary Boleyn, which would, according to law, have vitiated the marriage of herself to the King. 8 The young Duke of Richmond was one of the four peers present at her death. He had married the daughter of the Duke of Norfolk, whom she speaks of as always her enemy. Doubtless there were jealousies about the succession. III CHAP Boleyn with downcast eyes full of sorrow and shame. By the influence of her charms, Henry was induced to take those steps which ended in setting the Church of England free from an uncatholic yoke: but that such a result should be produced by such an influence is a fact which must constrain us to think that the land was guilty of many sins, and that it was these national sins which prevented better instruments from being raised up for so righteous an object. CHAPTER IV THE RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF THE ROYAL SUPREMACY [A.D. 1529-1534] IV IN tracing out to its end the subject of the divorce CHAP we have been obliged to pass a few years beyond the straight course of our story; and it will now be necessary to go back to the time immediately succeeding the fall of Wolsey, that we may follow out the details of some very important transactions relating to the internal economy of the Church. Præmunire The principal charge made against the Cardinal Wolsey was, that he had transgressed against the Statute and the 16, Richard II., cap. 5, by acting as legate a latere, A.D. 1529 and had thus incurred the penalty of "præmunire." The statute in question was enacted for the purpose of checking the extravagant assumptions of the Popes, chiefly as regarded the exercise of patronage and interference with decisions on ecclesiastical subjects which had been given in the King's court. There is nothing about legates in it; but the enacting clause ordains, "That if any purchase or pursue, or cause to be purchased or pursued in the court of Rome, or elsewhere, by any such translations, processes, and sentences of excommunications, bulls, What the "Præmunire" was IV CHAP instruments, or any other things whatsoever, which touch the King, against him, his crown, and his regality, or his realm, as is aforesaid, and they which bring within the realm, or them receive, or make thereof notification, or any other execution whatsoever within the same realm or without, that they, their notaries, procurators, maintainers, abettors, And pen- fautors, and counsellors, shall be put out of the red under it King's protection, and their lands and tenements, alty incur goods and chattels, forfeit to our lord the King; and that they be attached by their bodies, if they may be found, and brought before the King and his council, there to answer to the cases aforesaid; or that process be made against him by pramunire facias, in manner as it is ordained in other statutes or provisos; and other which do sue in any court in derogation of the regality of our lord the King." No one ever pretended that this shut out the person incurring the penalty from the King's pardon, although, until that pardon was obtained, any one convicted of præmunire wore, in legal language, “a wolf's head," and might have been slain with impunity till the reign of Elizabeth. This pardon was substantially, and perhaps verbally, granted to Wolsey when he began to exercise the office of legate, in the form of a license under the great seal, which was amply sufficient, one would suppose, Injustice to cover any technical transgression of the statute. ing Wolsey Henry, moreover, gave a legal recognition to Wolsey under it as legate: for he appeared before him in his judicial character (derived from the Pope and confirmed by the King) on October 16, 1518, and entered into a formal engagement to perform the contract made Amos, Statutes of Henry VIII., 59. of punish for falling |