idenote: Prophecies of the Nun of Kent.]

[Sidenote: December.]

The Nun of Kent, as we remember, had declared that if Henry persisted in
his resolution of marrying Anne, she was commissioned by God to tell
him that he should lose his power and authority. She had not specified
the manner in which the sentence would be carried into effect against
him. The form of her threats had been also varied occasionally; she said
that he should die, but whether by the hands of his subjects, or by a
providential judgment, she left to conjecture;[193] and the period
within which his punishment was to fall upon him was stated variously at
one month or at six.[194] She had attempted no secresy with these
prophecies; she had confined herself in appearance to words; and the
publicity which she courted having prevented suspicion of secret
conspiracy, Henry quietly accepted the issue, and left the truth of the
prophecy to be confuted by the event. He married. The one month passed;
the six months passed: eight--nine months. His child was born and was
baptized, and no divine thunder had interposed; only a mere harmless
verbal thunder, from a poor old man at Rome. The illusion, as he
imagined, had been lived down, and had expired of its own vanity.

[Sidenote: The Nun half deceiver, and half herself deceived.]

But the Nun and her friar advisers were counting on other methods of
securing the fulfilment of the prophecy than supernatural assistance. It
is remarkable that, hypocrites and impostors as they knew themselves to
be, they were not without a half belief that some supernatural
intervention was imminent; but the career on which they had entered was
too fascinating to allow them to forsake it when their expectation
failed them. They were swept into the stream which was swelling to
resist the Reformation, and allowed themselves to be hurried forward
either to victory or to destruction.

The first revelation being apparently confuted by facts, a second was
produced as an interpretation of it; which, however, was not published
like the other, but whispered in secret to persons whose dispositions
were known.[195]

[Sidenote: On the failure of the first prophecy, an interpretation is
discovered of a perilous kind. The king is declared to be in the
condition of Saul after his rejection.]

"When the King's Grace," says the report of the commissioners, "had
continued in good health, honour, and prosperity more than a month, Dr.
Bocking she