rstfruits 440

Dissolution of Parliament 441

The Work accomplished by Parliament 442

CHAPTER XI.

TRIAL AND DEATH OF ANNE BOLEYN.

Death of Queen Catherine 443

Anne Boleyn 446

Anne Boleyn committed to the Tower 454

The Tower 457

Cranmer's Letter to the King 459

Cranmer's Postscript 461

Preparations for the Trial 468

True Bills found by the Grand Juries 469

The Indictment 470

The Trials 476

The opposite Probabilities 480

Execution of the five Gentlemen 483

The Divorce 484

The Execution 486

The Succession 488

The King's Third Marriage 490

Opinions of Foreign Courts 491

Meeting of Parliament 492

Speech of the Lord Chancellor 493

Second Act of Succession 495

CHAPTER VI.

THE PROTESTANTS.

Where changes are about to take place of great and enduring moment, a
kind of prologue, on a small scale, sometimes anticipates the true
opening of the drama; like the first drops which give notice of the
coming storm, or as if the shadows of the reality were projected
forwards into the future, and imitated in dumb show the movements of the
real actors in the story.

[Sidenote: Prelude to the Reformation in the fourteenth century.]

Such a rehearsal of the English Reformation was witnessed at the close
of the fourteenth century, confused, imperfect, disproportioned, to
outward appearance barren of results; yet containing a representative of
each one of the mixed forces by which that great change was ultimately
effected, and foreshadowing e