a
martyred saint in the hagiology of the respective creeds. Anne Boleyn
was second daughter of Sir Thomas Boleyn, a gentleman of noble family.
She was 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 were unhappily linked with those of men to
whom the greatest work ever yet accomplished in this country was
committed. In the memorable year 1529, after the meeting of parliament,
events moved apace. In six weeks, for so long only the session lasted,
the astonished church authorities saw bill after bill hurried up before
the lords, by which successively the pleasant fountains of their incomes
would be dried up to flow 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 lower house
the cry was nothing but "Down with the church." Yet, so frightful were
the abuses that called for radical reform, that even persons who most
disapprove of the reformation will not at the present time wonder at
their enactment, or disapprove of their severity. The king treated the
bishops, when they remonstrated, with the most contemptuous disrespect.
Archbishop Cranmer now 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 treasons and to avoid exciting Henry's wrath, gave
replies such as would please him, that of Oxford being, however, the
more decided of the two. Most of the continental authorities declined to
pronounce any dictum as to the powers of the pope.

_The Fall of the Great Chancellor_

The fall of Wolsey was at hand. His enemies accused him of treason to
the constitution by violating a law of the realm. He had acted as papal
legate within the realm. The parliaments of Edward I., Edward III.,
Richard II., and Henry IV. had by a series of statutes pronounced
illegal all presentations by the pope to any office or dignit