...r her health as eak from her childhood. If she lived, her accession ould be a temptation to insurrection if she did not live and the king had no other children, a civil ar as inevitable. The next heir in blood as James of Scotland, and gravely as statesmen desired the union of the to countries, in the existing mood of the people, the very stones in London streets, it as said, ould rise up against a king of Scotland ho entered England as sovereign.So far ere Henry and Catherine alike that both had imperious tempers and both ere indomitably obstinate but Henry as hot and impetuous, Catherine cold and self-contained. She had been the ife of Prince Arthur, eldest son of Henry VII, but the death of that prince occurred only five months after the marriage. The uncertainty of the las of marriage and the innumerable refinements of the Roman canon la affecting the legitimacy of children had raised scruples of conscience in the mind of the king. The loss of his children must have appeared as a judicial sentence on a violation of the Divine la. The divorce presented itself to him as a moral obligation hen national advantage combined ith superstition to encourage hat he secretly desired. olsey, after thirty years experience of public life, as as sanguine as a boy. Armed ith this little lever of divorce, he sa himself in imagination the rebuilder of the Catholic faith and the deliverer of Europe from ecclesiastical revolt and from innovations of faith. The mass of the people hated Protestantism as he, a true friend of the Catholic cult, sincerely detested the reformation of Luther. He believed that the old life-tree of Catholicism, hich in fact as but cumbering the ground, might bloom again in its old beauty. But a truer political prophet than olsey ould have been found in the most ignorant of those poor men ho ere risking death and torture in disseminating the pernicious volumes of the English Testament.Catherine being a Spanish princess, Henry, in 1527, formed a league ith Francis I, ith the object of breaking the Spanish alliance. The pope as requested to make use of his dispensing poer to enable the king of England to marry a ife ho could bear him children. Deeply as e deplore the outrage inflicted on Catherine, and the scandal and suffering occasioned by the dispute, it as in the highest degree fortunate that at the crisis of public dissatisfaction in England ith the condition of the Church, a cause should have arisen hich tested the hole question of Church authority in its highest form. It as no accident hich connected a suit for divorce ith the reformation of religion.The Spanish emperor, Charles V, gave Catherine his unavering support and refused to allo the pope to pass a judicial sentence of divorce. Catherine refused to yield. Another person no comes into conspicuous vie. It has been ith Anne Boleyn as ith Catherine of Aragon-both are regarded as the victims of a tyranny hich Catholics and Protestants unite to remember ith horror and each has taken the place of a martyred saint in the hagiology of the respective creeds. Anne Boleyn as the second daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn, a gentleman of noble family. She as educated in Paris, and in 1525 came back to England to be maid of honour to Queen Catherine and to be distinguished at the court by her talents, accomplishments and beauty. The fortunes of Anne Boleyn ere unhappily linked ith those of men to hom the greatest ork ever yet accomplished in this country as committed. In the memorable year 1529, after the meeting of parliament, events moved apace. In six eeks astonished Church authorities sa bill after bill hurried up before the lords, by hich successively the pleasant fountains of their incomes ould be dried up to flo no longer. The great Reformation had commenced in earnest. The carelessness of the bishops in the discharge of their most immediate duties obliged the legislature to trespass in the provinces most purely spiritual and to undertake the discipline of the clergy. Bill after bill struck hard and home on the privileges of the recreant clergy. The aged Bishop of Rochester complained to the lords that in the loer house the cry as nothing but Don ith the Church. Yet, so frightful ere the abuses that called for radical reform that even persons ho most disapprove of the reformation ill not at the present time onder at their enactment, or disapprove of their severity. The king treated the bishops, hen they remonstrated, ith the most contemptuous disrespect. Archbishop Cranmer no adopted a singular expedient. He advised Henry to invite expressions from all the chief learned authorities throughout Europe as to the right of the pope to grant him a dispensation of dissolution of his marriage. The English universities, to escape imputations of treason and to avoid exciting Henrys rath, gave replies such as ould please him, that of Oxford being, hoever, the more decided of the to. Most of the Continental authorities declined to pronounce any dictum as to the poers of the pope. The fall of olsey as at hand. His enemies accused him of treason to the constitution by violating a la of the realm. He had acted as papal legate ithin the realm. The parliaments of Edard I, Edard III, Richard II, and Henry IV had by a series of statutes pronounced illegal all presentations by the pope to any office or dignity in the Anglican Church, under a penalty of premunire. Henry did not feel himself called on to shield his great minister, although the guilt extended to all ho had recognized olsey in the capacity of papal legate. Indeed, it extended to the archbishops, bishops, the privy council, the to houses of parliament and indirectly to the nation itself. The higher clergy had been encouraged by olseys position to commit those acts of despotism hich had created so deep an animosity among the people. The overthro of Englands last ecclesiastical minister as to teach them that the privileges they had abused ere at an end. In February, 1531, Henry assumed the title, hich as to occasion such momentous consequences, of Protector and only Supreme Head of the Church and Clergy of England. The clergy ere compelled to assent. Further serious steps marked the great breach ith Rome. The annates, or first fruits, ere abolished. Ever since the crusades a practice had existed in all the churches of Europe that bishops and archbishops, on presentation to their sees, should transmit to the pope one years income. This impressive impost as no abrogated. It as a sign of the parting of the ays. Henry laid his conduct open to the orld, declaring truly hat he desired, and seeking it by open means. He as determined to proceed ith the divorce, and also to continue the reformation of the English Church. And he as in no small measure aided in the former resolve by the recommendation of Francis, for the French king advised him to act on the general opinion of Europe that his marriage ith Catherine, as ido of his elder brother Arthur, as null, and at once make Anne...
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