s a sensible woman, and born a queen! Henry, avaricious as
he was, would gladly have given the best jewel in his crown, if he could
have detected but a shadow, the slightest trace of unfaithfulness in
her. But there was absolutely no means of sending this woman to the
scaffold, and at that time he was as yet too cowardly and too virtuous
to put her out of the way by poison. He, therefore, endured her long,
until she was an old woman with gray hairs, and disagreeable for his
eyes to look upon. So after he had been married to her seventeen
years, the good, pious king was all at once seized with a conscientious
scruple, and because he had read in the Bible, 'Thou shalt not marry
thy sister,' dreadful pangs of conscience came upon the noble and crafty
monarch. He fell upon his knees and beat his breast, and cried: 'I
have committed a great sin; for I have married my brother's wife, and
consequently my sister. But I will make amends for it. I will dissolve
this adulterous marriage!'--Do you know, child, why he would dissolve
it?"

"Because he loved Anne Boleyn!" said Jane, with a smile.

"Perfectly correct! Catharine had grown old, and Henry was still a young
man, and his blood shot through his veins like streams of fire. Hut he
was yet somewhat virtuous and timid, and the main peculiarity of his
character was as yet undeveloped. He was not yet bloodthirsty, that is
to say, he had not yet licked blood. But you will see how with each new
queen his desire for blood increased, till at length it has now become a
wasting disease. Had he then had the system of lies that he now has, he
would somehow have bribed a slanderer, who would have declared that
he was Catharine's lover. But he was yet so innocent; he wanted yet to
gratify his darling lusts in a perfectly legal way. So Anne Boleyn must
become his queen, that he might love her. And in order to attain this,
he threw down the glove to the whole world, became an enemy to the
pope, and set himself in open opposition to the holy head of the Church.
Because the Holy Father would not dissolve his marriage, King Henry
became an apostate and atheist. He constituted himself head of his
Church, and, by virtue of his authority as such, he declared his
marriage with Catharine of Aragon null and void. He said that he had
not in his heart given his consent to this marriage, and that it had
not consequently been properly consummated.[Footnote: Burnet, vol. i, p.
37.] It is true, Catharine h