hate he bare to the emperor, because he would not grant to him the archbishopric of Toledo." *

This Chronicler is not very clear, as to the origin of the question of the divorce, for he had already mentioned† (as Henry does in the play), that it was first raised by the Bishop of Bayonne, when treating of the marriage of the Duke of Orleans with the Princess Mary, who, if Catherine's marriage was not good, was not the legitimate daughter of the king.

It might seem, from the introduction of Anne Boleyn captivating the king, previously to the first hint of the intended separation from Catherine, that Shakspeare intended to represent Henry's love for the maid of honour as the original cause of the divorce; but I think the general impression conveyed by the subsequent scenes is, that there was a bona fide scruple. Indeed, the play, in leaving doubtful the relation between the divorce and the king's attachment to Anne Boleyn, is more consistent with the history, as imperfectly known to us, than it could have been if more precision had been assumed.

The story of the French bishop is doubtful,

* Hol., 719, 736; Hall, 753.
+ P. 714, but not from Hall.

because it is not confirmed by the French records; it was too important a point in the negotiation to be left unnoticed in the official report.

We may safely take the authority of Hall† for the existence of a rumour of an intended separation previously to Wolsey's departure for France in July, 1527; and we now know, from Wolsey's correspondence, that the matter had been then discussed between the king and his minister. But this rumour was not, so far as I know, connected with Anne Boleyn. Upon the sole authority of Cardinal Pole, Lingard believes, against all probability, that Anne herself infused the scruples into the mind of her lover, and sent learned men to support them. the desire of this generally fair historian to make the beautiful maid of honour the cause of the reformation, leads him to assign an unauthorized date to the loves of Henry and Anne. § I agree

* Lingard, 378.

+ P. 728.

And

Lingard, vi., note ‡ in p. 113, where the pros and cons are otherwise fairly stated.

§ Lingard, note in p. 113, and in 157. A letter from Henry to Anne (Hearne's Avesbury, p. 360), mentions his being employed upon his book, and must have been written in Dec. 1527, or Jan. 1528; another letter (p. 350), speaks of the attachment having lasted more than a year. Lingard assumes, apparently upon no

it

with Turner,* that there is no evidence of the existence of this attachment before 1527, previously to May, in which year, the king prevented the marriage with Percy. How long before May 1527 (when Northumberland died), the interview between Wolsey and the father of the young man occurred, we cannot ascertain; may have been many months before. The latest possible date would not be inconsistent with Cavendish's† averment, that Wolsey was aware of the attachment before he went abroad. But if any reliance is to be placed (which I much doubt) upon the arrangement of passages in Cavendish, Henry's intention to marry Anne had been avowed to Wolsey before the battle of Pavia; and the cardinal's objections ending in the suggestion of a reference to divines and canonists, connect the plan of a divorce with that intention.

"The long-hid and secret love that was between the king and Mistress Anne Boleyn brake now out,

other ground than that of the one letter being numbered 16, and the other 4, that the letter to which he can assign no date, must have been written before that which he fixes by the book. Surely, the allocation of letters in a printed book furnishes no proof of date. I do not contradict Lingard; I only affirm that his opinion is not supported by the evidence which he offers. * Henry VIII., 3d edit., p. 195. † P. 371.

and the matter was by the king disclosed to my lord cardinal, whose persuasions upon his knees long time before to the king to the contrary would not serve: the king was so affectioned, that his will bare place, and discretion was banished clean for the time. My lord being provoked to declare his opinion and wisdom in the advancement of his desired purpose, thought it not meet to wade too far alone, or to give him hasty judgment or advice in so weighty a matter, but desired of the king licence to ask counsel of men of ancient study and famous learning, both in the divine and civil law."

The two dates, of the scruple and the love, are both too uncertain to be brought into comparison. The mystery is too dense to be cleared up in a work like this.

Whatever may have been the period of Henry's attachment to Anne Boleyn, or of his avowal of it, it is certain that at the end of the year 1529, some months after the process before the legates in the case of Queen Catherine, the young lady was in acknowledged favour at court; for she began at that time to receive rich articles of dress from the royal wardrobe, sometimes money, and presents of various sorts from the king, and from the courtiers; and she occasionally played

* Cav. 416. The battle of Pavia, which occurred in Feb. 1525, is narrated in p. 376.

at cards with Henry. All this is collected from the account of Henry's privy purse expences, which shew that at three years she received articles of clothing of the value of £468 6s. 1d.*

The scenet between Anne and the old lady is of course imaginary; there is no reason to believe that the young lady even pretended an aversion to rank and dignity: we have seen, on the other hand, that she readily assumed the station of a favourite; but it is admitted, even by an enemy, that she refused to receive Henry on any other than an honourable footing. But the grant of the title of marchioness is misplaced. It was not made until September 1532, a few months before Anne's marriage, and long after the trial at Blackfriars, which occurred at the commencement of 1529, after a long interval spent in negotiations with the pope, which I cannot detail here.

In his account of that proceeding, Shakspeare follows Holinshed, § even in the justly celebrated speech of Catherine ;

Sir Harris Nicolas's Privy Purse Expences of Henry VIII. Introd. xxxii.

+ Act ii. Sc. 4.

Pole, in Lingard, 112. This cardinal mentions the fact with something very like a sneer.

§ P. 737.