th his Brother's Widow.

Such was the King at the outset. In less than twenty years he had
become another man. At the age of twelve he had married at his
father's command, and solely for political and mercenary reasons,
Catharine of Aragon, his brother Arthur's widow (S333), who was six
years his senior. Such a marriage was forbidden, except in certain
cases, by the Old Testament and by the ordinances of the Roman
Catholic Church.

The Pope, however, had granted his permission, and when Henry ascended
the throne, the ceremony was performed a second time. Several
children were the fruit of this union, all of whom died in infancy,
except one daughter, Mary, unhappily fated to figure as the "Bloody
Mary" of later history (S374).

343. The King's Anxiety for a Successor; Anne Boleyn.

No woman had yet ruled in her own right, either in England or in any
prominent kingdom of Europe, and Henry was anxious to have a son to
succeed him. He could not bear the thought of being disappointed; in
fact he sent the Duke of Buckingham to the block for casually saying,
that if the King died without issue, he should consider himself
entitled to receive the crown.

It was while meditating this question of the succession, that Henry
became attached to Anne Boleyn, one of the Queen's maids of honor; she
was a sprightly brunette of nineteen, with long black hair and
strikingly beautiful eyes.

The light that shone in those eyes, though hardly that "Gospel light"
which the poet calls it,[1] was yet bright enough to effectually clear
up all difficulties in the royal mind. The King now declared that he
felt conscientiously moved to obtain a divorce from his old wife, and
to marry a new one. In that determination lay most momentous
consequences, since it finally separated England from the jurisdiction
of the Church of Rome.

[1] "When love could teach a monarch to be wise,
And Gospel light first dawned from Bullen's [Boleyn's] eyes."
--Gray.

344. Wolsey favors the Divorce from Catharine.

Cardinal Wolsey, Henry's chief counselor,--the man who thought that he
ruled both King and Kingdom,[2]--lent his powerful aid to bring about
the divorce, but with the expectation that the King would marry a
princess from France, and thus form an alliance with that country. If
so, his own ambitious schemes would be forwarded, since the united
influence of the two kingdoms might elevate him to the P