June 1. Westmin to the king's manour house at Westminster,' where C¤. 5. she slept. On the following morning, between A.D. 1533. eight and nine o'clock, she returned to the hall, Whitwhere the lord mayor, the city council, and the sunday: peers were again assembled, and took her place ster Hall. on the high dais at the top of the stairs under the cloth of state; while the bishops, the abbots, and the monks of the abbey formed in the area. A railed way had been laid with carpets across She moves Palace Yard and the Sanctuary to the abbey abbey. gates, and when all was ready, preceded by the peers in their robes of parliament, the Knights of the Garter in the dress of the order, she swept out under her canopy, the bishops and the monks 'solemnly singing.' The train was borne by the old Duchess of Norfolk her aunt, the Bishops of London and Winchester on either side 'bearing up the lappets of her robe.' The Earl of Oxford carried the crown on its cushion immediately before her. She was dressed in purple velvet Her apfurred with ermine, her hair escaping loose, as she usually wore it, under a wreath of diamonds. pearance. On entering the abbey, she was led to the coronation chair, where she sat while the train fell into their places, and the preliminaries of the ceremonial were despatched. Then she was conducted up to the high altar, and anointed Queen of England, and she received from the hands of She is Cranmer, fresh come in haste from Dunstable, Cranmer. with the last words of his sentence. upon Catherine scarcely silent upon his lips, the golden sceptre, and St. Edward's crown. Did any twinge of remorse, any pang of crowned by A. D. 1533. June I. CH. 5. painful recollection, pierce at that moment the incense of glory which she was inhaling? Did any vision flit across her of a sad mourning figure which once had stood where she was standing, now desolate, neglected, sinking into the darkening twilight of a life cut short by sorrow? Who can tell? At such a time, that figure would have weighed heavily upon a noble mind, and a wise mind would have been taught by the thought of it, that although life be fleeting as a dream, it is long enough to experience strange vicissitudes of fortune. But Anne Boleyn was not noble and was not wise,-too probably she felt nothing but the delicious, all-absorbing, all-intoxicating present, and if that plain, suffering face presented itself to her memory at all, we may fear that it was rather as a foil to her own surpassing loveliness. Two years later, she was able to exult over Catherine's death; she is not likely to have thought of her with gentler feelings in the first glow and flush of triumph. We may now leave these scenes. They concluded in the usual English style, with a banquet in the great hall, and with all outward signs of enjoyment and pleasure. There must have been but few persons present however who did not feel that the sunshine of such a day might not last for ever, and that over so dubious a marriage no Englishman could exult with more than Possible half a heart. It is foolish to blame lightly actions this splen- which arise in the midst of circumstances which are and can be but imperfectly known; and there may have been political reasons which made so object of all dour. much pomp desirable. Anne Boleyn had been CH. 5. the subject of public conversation for seven years, A.D. 1533. and Henry, no doubt, desired to present his jewel June 1. to them in the rarest and choicest setting. Yet to our eyes, seeing, perhaps, by the light of what followed, a more modest introduction would have appeared more suited to the doubtful nature of her position. should in which could be At any rate we escape from this scene of splen- Henry dour very gladly as from something unseasonable. have lived It would have been well for Henry VIII. if he had in a world lived in a world in which women could have been women dispensed with; so ill, in all his relations with dispensed them, he succeeded. With men he could speak the right word, he could do the right thing; with women he seemed to be under a fatal necessity of mistake. with. of commu with the It was now necessary, however, after this Necessity public step, to communicate in form to the nicating emperor the divorce and the new marriage. emperor. The king was assured of the rectitude of the motives on which he had himself acted, and he knew at the same time that he had challenged the hostility of the papal world. Yet he did not desire a quarrel if there were means of avoiding it; and more than once he had shown respect for the opposition which he had met with from Charles, as dictated by honourable care for the interests of his kinswoman. He therefore, in the truest language which will be met with in the whole long series of the correspondence, composed a Henry despatch for his ambassador at Brussels, and to the amexpressed himself in a tone of honest sorrow for bassador at writes Brussels, A.D. 1533. June. Whom he charges gentle words, CH. 5. the injury which he had been compelled to commit. Neither the coercion which the emperor had exerted over the pope, nor his intrigues with his subjects in Ireland and England, could deprive the nephew of Catherine of his right to a courteous explanation; and Henry directed Doctor Nicholas Hawkins in making his communication 'to use to use only only gentle words;' to express a hope that Charles would not think only of his own honour, but would remember public justice; and that a friendship of long standing, which the interests of the subjects of both countries were concerned so strongly in maintaining, might not be broken. The instructions are too interesting to pass over with a general description. After stating the grounds on which Henry had proceeded, and which Charles thoroughly understood, Hawkins was directed to continue thus: And to express a hope that might be a rupture avoided. He had done what conform with the world. 'The King of England is not ignorant what he could to respect is due unto the world. How much he hath laboured and travailed therein he hath sufficiently order of the declared and showed in his acts and proceedings. If he had contemned the order and process of the world, or the friendship and amity of your Majesty, he needed not to have sent so often to the pope and to you both, nor continued and spent his time in delays. He might have done what he has done now, had it so liked him, with as little difficulty as now, if without such respect he would have followed his pleasure.' His forbearance had been trifled with. The minister was then to touch the pope's behaviour and Henry's forbearance, and after that to say : 'Going forward in that way his Highness saw that he could come to no conclusion; and he was therefore compelled to step right forth out of the maze, and so to quiet himself at last. And is it not time to have an end in seven years? CH. 5. A.D. 1533. forced by he had It is not to be asked nor questioned whether the matter hath been determined after the common fashion, but whether it hath in it common justice, truth, and equity. For observation of the common order, his Grace hath done what lay in him. Enforced by necessity he hath found the true And enorder which he hath in substance followed with effect, and hath done as becometh him. He found the doubteth not but your Majesty, remembering true order. his cause from the beginning hitherto, will of yourself consider and think, that among mortal men nothing should be immortal; and suits must once have an end, si possis recte, si non quocunque modo. If his Highness cannot as he would, He could then must he do as he may; and he that hath a he would, journey to be perfected must, if he cannot go therefore one way, essay another. For his matter with forced to do the pope, he shall deal with him apart. Your might. Majesty he taketh for his friend, and as to a friend he openeth these matters to you, trusting to find your Majesty no less friendly than he hath done heretofore."* not do as he had been as he The ambas If courtesy obliged Henry to express a con- July. fidence in the stability of the relations between sador's himself and Charles, which it was impossible opinion of that he could have felt, yet in other respects ble effect *FOXE, vol. v. p. III. the proba of his communica tion, |